Watch endangered red wolf pups and their parents roam new home in the wild in NC

A family of red wolves was released into the wild in North Carolina, giving new hope to an endangered species.

Video captured the moments when two parents and a couple of their cute babies roamed onto a refuge for the first time as a family, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Red Wolf Recovery Program.

The footage shared online June 8 shows two larger wolves walking through foliage before the tails and ears of their 6-week-old pups can be seen bouncing closer to the ground. Their release was caught on camera at Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, roughly 150 miles east of Raleigh, the program wrote in a Facebook post.

Wildlife officials said the family was one of two to be let out into the wild recently. They were released in an effort to conserve the species, considered the most endangered type of wolves on Earth.

As of May, experts estimate there were 23 to 25 red wolves living in the wild. The creatures once roamed many Southern and Eastern states before “intensive predator control programs” led their population to dwindle in the 1900s. The wolves were reintroduced to Eastern North Carolina in 1987, but car crashes and other hazards have made it difficult for some to survive, The News & Observer reported.

Today, more than 200 red wolves are in captivity, where officials say human contact is low to “promote avoidance behavior and to support pair bonding, breeding, pup rearing, and healthy pack structure.” A sign of promise came when both captive and wild wolves welcomed babies in recent weeks.

One of the newly released families reportedly includes “a wild female red wolf paired in an acclimation pen (within her existing territory) with a captive born male Red Wolf from the Endangered Wolf Center in Eureka, Missouri, along with their 3 pups.”

“The other family group consists of a captive born female and male red wolf pair, along with their captive born yearling female (all from the Endangered Wolf Center) and 4 pups born this spring,” the wildlife service wrote. “The hope is that these clearly bonded pairs will continue to raise their families in the general areas of release becoming additional breeding pairs in the wild population and increasing the numbers of wild born red wolves on the landscape in Eastern North Carolina.”

The video of the released family was shared after at least two wildlife centers in the state welcomed red wolves this year. The N.C. Zoo posted footage of its “critically endangered” pups getting their checkup, while the Western North Carolina Nature Center in Asheville introduced Facebook users to its “rambunctious” litter.

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