South Dakota zoo welcomes litter of "critically endangered" red wolves

A litter of six red wolf pups, a highly endangered species, was born at the Great Plains Zoo in South Dakota, the zoo announced Thursday.

The red wolf species, one of two wolf species in North America, has a dangerously small population size and is listed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Red List. The red wolf is "critically endangered," which is the stage before "extinct in the wild," and its numbers are expected to continue declining, according to the IUCN.

As of May 2023, there were about 23 to 25 red wolves in the wild and 278 in captivity, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFW) estimated.