FROM A HOWLING WILDERNESS TO A HOWLING TOUR: REVISITING THE WOLF IN NORTH CAROLINA, 1585-2000

This thesis is about wolves and humans that shared a landscape in North Carolina.How and why did wolves disappear? And how did one species, the red wolf (Canis rufus), become re-established within this southeastern landscape in the twentieth century?Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans have had historically complex relationships with wild wolves and deer, as well as with domestic livestock and dogs in North Carolina. Factors that contributed to these relationships included cultural perspectives of natural resources; the international trade in animal skins; livestock grazing techniques; and canid diseases. After 1715 a long and costly bounty campaign was funded at the county level, and was designed to eliminate the economic liability presented by wolves. Wolves were hunted and bounties paid until almost 1900 by western North Carolina counties.By the middle of the twentieth century, national trends in ecological science and wildlife management contributed to an atmosphere conducive to saving America's wildlife. Professional academics and scientists identified the red wolf as a rare and endangered species. Protected by the Endangered Species Act after 1973, the red wolf was saved from extinction by a groundbreaking, federally funded reintroduction project.After wolves had been actively removed from the North Carolina landscape for over 400 years, the red wolf was reintroduced into the eastern and western parts of the state after 1987