Hedrick P W, Fredrickson R J
School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85281-4501, USA.
Mol Ecol. 2008 Jan;17(1):344-50. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-294X.2007.03400.x.
Mexican and red wolves were both faced with extinction in the wild until captive populations were established more than two decades ago. These captive populations have been successfully managed genetically to minimize mean kinship and retain genetic variation. Descendants of these animals were subsequently used to start reintroduced populations, which now number about 40-50 Mexican wolves in Arizona and New Mexico and about 100 red wolves in North Carolina. The original captive Mexican wolf population was descended from three founders. Merging this lineage with two other captive lineages, each with two founders, has been successfully carried out in the captive population and is in progress in the reintroduced population. This effort has resulted in increased fitness of cross-lineage wolves, or genetic rescue, in both the captive and reintroduced populations. A number of coyote-red wolf hybrid litters were observed in the late 1990s in the reintroduced red wolf population. Intensive identification and management efforts appear to have resulted in the elimination of this threat. However, population reintroductions of both Mexican and red wolves appear to have reached numbers well below the generally recommended number for recovery and there is no current effort to re-establish other populations.
墨西哥狼和红狼在野外都曾面临灭绝的困境，直到二十多年前建立了圈养种群。这些圈养种群通过基因管理得以成功维持，使平均亲缘关系降至最低并保留了基因变异。这些动物的后代随后被用于启动重新引入计划，目前在亚利桑那州和新墨西哥州约有40 - 50只墨西哥狼，在北卡罗来纳州约有100只红狼。最初的圈养墨西哥狼种群源自三只奠基狼。将这一谱系与另外两个各有两只奠基狼的圈养谱系合并，在圈养种群中已成功完成，在重新引入种群中也在进行。这一举措在圈养和重新引入的种群中都提高了跨谱系狼的适应性，即基因拯救。在20世纪90年代后期，重新引入的红狼种群中观察到了一些郊狼 - 红狼杂交幼崽。密集的识别和管理工作似乎已经消除了这一威胁。然而，墨西哥狼和红狼的种群重新引入数量似乎远低于恢复通常建议的数量，而且目前没有重新建立其他种群的计划。
