https://www.thenation.com/article/environment/red-wolf-extinction/

If the government is already struggling to protect iconic creatures like wolves from extinction in the wild, how will it handle the daunting future?

ByJimmy Tobias

AUGUST 2, 2021

The killing of red wolf 11768f was the beginning of the bad times for this country’s most critically endangered canid. It was mid-2015, and 11768F was a six-year-old matriarch with a mate and a large family. She’d already given birth several times before, and the evidence suggests she may have been caring for more newborns in the wet coastal forests that flourish near North Carolina’s Outer Banks. She and her family were supposed to be safe, thanks to the strong protections of the Endangered Species Act, which makes it a crime to harm or harass listed animals like red wolves. But then, in a foreshadowing of events to follow, the federal government issued her death warrant: It gave…