Federal officials said Tuesday that they won't release any more endangered red wolves in eastern North Carolina while they study the viability of the only wild population of the species.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in a news release that no more captive-bred wolves will be used to bolster the wild population of between 75 and 100 of the carnivores present in several counties in the eastern part of the state. It said it will continue to manage the wild population.
The service said the reintroductions will be halted at least until it completes a further review of the program begun in 1987 to restore the wolves to the wild. It expects to finish its review by the end of the year.
"There will likely be some who will suggest we are walking away from recovery efforts for the red wolf and simultaneously there will be others who might say we're holding on too tight," said Cindy Dohner, the Southeast regional director for the wildlife service.
The announcement comes months after a government-commissioned report criticized how the program is run.
The evaluation issued in late 2014 found flaws in the program, ranging from inadequate understanding of population trends to poor coordination with local managers.
Once common around the Southeast, the red wolf had been considered extinct in the wild as of 1980 because of factors including hunting and habitat loss. In 1987, wildlife officials released red wolves bred in captivity into the wild in North Carolina.
Earlier this year, state wildlife officials asked the federal government to end the program and declare the wolves extinct in the wild, citing the negative evaluation. They say the wolves pose problems when they roam onto private land.
Conservationists argue that the program has been successful and that politics — not natural factors — have been the biggest threat to the wolves. The species' existence has been debated in courtrooms, at high levels of the federal government and in 48,000 public comments.
Elsewhere, other species of wolf have been the subject of conservation efforts and court battles.
The gray wolf has rebounded to a population of several thousand in the Midwest and Northern Rockies after it was nearly wiped out from the lower 48 states by the 1970s. In the Southwest, efforts to restore the Mexican gray wolf in southwestern states have been hampered by politics, illegal killings and other factors. About 100 of those wolves are in the wild in several states.