Anisa Khalifa: Wolves loom large in the American imagination, but they’ve been all but eradicated from the actual landscapes of the United States. For decades, animal scientists have been working hard to rebuild their populations. In the 1980s, a red wolf program in North Carolina was the first in the US to reintroduce a large carnivore that had been declared extinct in the wild. But red wolves are still an endangered species today. And reintroduction is slow and difficult.
Unidentified Speaker: Anytime the numbers start looking good, humans step in the other way and suddenly make it a critical situation again. I don't know, it's a tough thing to grapple with.
Anisa Khalifa: I'm Anisa Khalifa. This is the Broadside, where we tell stories from our home in North Carolina, at the crossroads of the South. This week, correspondent Elizabeth Friend explores whether we can save a tiny population of iconic American carnivores — and asks if it's worth the effort.
Elizabeth Friend: This is the sound of red wolves. Sometimes it’s a nearby coyote pack that sets them off. Other times, it’s an ambulance or fire truck siren. In this neighborhood, you might hear all at once. These wolves live in Raleigh in an undisclosed location somewhere on the campus of North Carolina State University. They’re part of a nationwide breeding program that aims to save the most critically endangered canid in the world. Hence, the secrecy. There are only about 300 red wolves left, and most of them are in captivity. At NC State, there are currently five adults. And on Mother’s Day, three puppies joined the pack.
Tara Harrison: Every wolf counts and every wolf that's born that could potentially be released to the wild is a really big deal. So that's why we're really, really excited that we have three puppies to add to that number.
Elizabeth Friend: That’s Dr. Tara Harrison. She’s an associate professor of Zoo and Exotic Animal Medicine at NC State’s College of Veterinary Medicine.
Tara Harrison: Our goals are to work with U. S. Fish and Wildlife and the Association in Zoos and Aquariums, a SAFE program saving animals from extinction. Breeding animals, hopefully getting puppies, being able to increase the population numbers and then, when desired, to release those animals into the wild.
Elizabeth Friend: She’s also teaching the next generation of veterinarians how to care for red wolves. The N.C. State vet school provides medical care for red wolves in captivity and those that have been released into the wild. 2024 has been a good year so far, with thirteen litters reported throughout the breeding program, for a total of 52 new pups.
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Unidentified Anchor: Just hours ago, the St Louis Zoo announced the births of four baby wolves.
Unidentified Anchor: Three families of red wolves had babies at the North Carolina Zoo…
Unidentified Anchor: The pups, born this spring, are members of the most endangered species of wolves in the world.
Elizabeth Friend: This is the second year of a red wolf baby boom. Last year saw 18 litters totalling 78 new wolves. Add in this year’s babies, and the total number of red wolves in the world could potentially top 300 for the first time in decades. But not all the pups will make it. Since we started reporting this story, one of the wolves from the Mother’s Day litter passed away, as did two at another North Carolina facility. It’s not uncommon, and the experts know to expect it. Last year, 22 pups died in infancy. Still, two new red wolves are a reason to celebrate, but it's a reminder of just how fragile this population is, even in captivity.
Puppies are born in the spring, but wolves in captivity require year-round care. At NC State, that’s the responsibility of the Canine Conservation Crew, a team of roughly 50 vet school students. On a warm afternoon in May, the Crew’s co-president Sean Hubbard walked me through the dinner routine. Every day at a small wooden shed near the wolf enclosure, students measure out meals and record daily observations. The process might sound familiar.
Sean Hubbard: We're gonna prepare a combination of science diet, which is formulated for their health, kind of similar to the diet that you would give your canine at home.
Elizabeth Friend: Each wolf gets a few scoops of dry kibble, plus a special treat.
Sean Hubbard: Also a little bit of whole prey, especially for that new couple that's gonna be raising their pups. We want those pups to be exposed to the kinds of prey that they would see in the wild, which for us today will be rodents.
Elizabeth Friend: It’s a delicate balancing act, to care for these wolves day in and day out, without getting them too habituated to humans. Some of these animals may one day be released from captivity, so they need to remain as wild as possible. The red wolf used to range all across the eastern United States, from New York down to Texas.
Sean Hubbard: But when Europeans arrived, they were hunted almost to extinction, just like the gray wolf. And that was to the point where there were only a few dozen individuals left that were identifiable as a red wolf by the 1970s. So at that time, biologists down in Texas and Louisiana, where the last remaining population was, rounded up everything that looked like it could be a red wolf, and they identified 14 that they were confident were a red wolf and not some type of hybrid of a coyote or domesticated dog.
Elizabeth Friend: Those 14 wolves formed the basis of the breeding program. Now, 50 facilities across the US work together to increase the population, swapping wolves as needed to increase genetic diversity. The overarching goal is to return red wolves to the wild. But the world has changed since the recovery program launched in 1973. There’s not much wild left in the Southeast.
Today, the only place in the world where red wolves are truly free to hunt, breed and roam is a five-county stretch of land in Eastern North Carolina. This area on the northeast tip of the state includes several national wildlife refuges. The largest is Alligator River, a peninsula surrounded by the Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds. Sean says it checks a lot of boxes for the red wolf population.
Sean Hubbard: It's pretty far from any major city center. Technically Raleigh's the closest city and we're about three hours away from there.
Elizabeth Friend: The refuge is a mix of swampy wetlands and reclaimed farm fields. It’s home to black bears, river otters, alligators, and more than 250 types of birds.
Sean Hubbard: There's a very high density of prey there. And we also just have a pretty large refuge that was already federally protected and it made it easier for biologists to access the wolf population, keep an eye on them without too many people interested in visiting. That said, the population is open to the public. People can drive up and say hi to those wolves. But that refuge is luckily closed at night, so the wolves get some rest. And the visitors are restricted to one or two roads to the refuge, so the wolves have plenty of space to spread out.
Elizabeth Friend: But wolves don’t really care much about human boundaries like county lines or wildlife refuges. And that’s presented a problem. In the 1990’s officials tried releasing red wolves into the Great Smokey Mountains National Park in western North Carolina.
Sean Hubbard: But biologists were keeping a close eye on those wolves and they found that they were ranging into farms and surrounding towns and not staying on parkland.
Elizabeth Friend: Just a few years later, those wolves had to be relocated — some to the eastern part of the state. The counties around Alligator River have proven to be the best place so far to return red wolves to the wild. This is where the only known wild population in the world currently resides.
Sean Hubbard: I believe the refuge is large enough to support 100 to 200 wolves. They did actually have over 100 wolves at one time. It was earlier in the 2000s.
Elizabeth Friend: But even in this isolated part of the state it’s been a rollercoaster ride for the wolves and the people committed to saving them. Right now — there are only 30 wolves, or maybe even less, still living in the area. The species is once again on the brink of extinction in the wild. A good breeding year is reason for renewed hope. More pups help improve genetic diversity for the recovery program, and could replenish a critically endangered population. But what awaits them once they do get released into the wild? And is it even worth it? We’ll take a look, after the break.
Adam Wagner reports on climate and environment for Raleigh’s News and Observer. Recently, he traveled out to Alligator River to get a look at the last refuge of the red wolf.
Adam Wagner: It's these former farm fields that are now reserved as wildlife refuge. Some of them are still kind of active farm fields, but they can't be developed.
Elizabeth Friend: Even in this wildlife preserve, renowned for its remote location, there’s still a visible human footprint on much of the land.
Adam Wagner: There's these small roads just kind of going through it, and then just expanses, so big fields you can kind of peer into then there's these ponds, where when we go there in December there were hundreds, probably thousands of tundra swans in there. It's managed, but it's a wild place. A bear will just walk across the road.
Elizabeth Friend: During his trip, Adam rode along with Ron Southerland, chief scientist with the Wildlands Network. Last fall, Ron and a team of researchers from N.C. State published a study on red wolves in the journal Animal Conservation. Back in 2015, the researchers set out to examine what impact red wolves have on the ecosystem.
Adam Wagner: So this was right in the period when there was a lot of local resistance to red wolves. So there was concern about like, what happens if the red wolves just decimate the deer population? And so the biologists said, well, we're going to figure out, is this happening?
Elizabeth Friend: The team set up 25 camera traps in the wildlife refuges and collected data for the next seven years. But just as they were getting started, a dramatic shift began to occur.
Adam Wagner: Red wolves were getting shot, red wolves were getting hit by cars. So, when they were doing this study, they were hoping to capture what are we seeing in the wild, and that was exactly when the population was sort of plummeting.
Elizabeth Friend: But other species were doing great.
Adam Wagner: They found a correlation between the red wolf population declining and a lot of other species increasing.
Elizabeth Friend: The cameras recorded increases in animals wolves might eat. That means more raccoons, deer, and a significant increase in possum sightings. And predators like bobcats and bears that compete with wolves showed up more, too.
Adam Wagner: Correlation is not causation. That's an important thing to understand with this. They acknowledge that in the paper a lot of times.
Elizabeth Friend: But the researchers say these findings suggest that even a small number of wolves can have a significant effect on ecosystems — one that can easily disappear once the wolves are gone. In their role as apex predators, wolves regulate the populations of other creatures, which controls disease and keeps habitats in balance. This lends support to the idea that returning wolves to the wild has beneficial impacts beyond just the survival of the species. But Adam said the study might not capture the entire picture. In the course of his reporting, he talked with wolf experts, including Mike Phillips.
Adam Wagner: Yeah, so Mike was one of the people who started the red wolf reintroduction program back in the 1980s, and kind of picked out Alligator River as a spot.
Elizabeth Friend: Mike also was involved in the successful gray wolf recovery project at Yellowstone. He told Adam researchers need more data before they can draw any firm conclusions. They caught the back half of the story….
Adam Wagner: When the red wolves were in decline, not the front half, when the population was growing. Now of course, you start the study when you start the study, these researchers acknowledged that limitation in the report, they, they are aware of it. I think that Ron and his team would love nothing more than for the red wolf population to grow and them to be able now to look at it when, when the population is thriving.
Elizabeth Friend: Collecting data when the population is larger and more stable could provide a more accurate baseline for comparison. But getting that population to grow and thrive again is a significant challenge. It took decades of controlled breeding and planned releases to build the wild wolf population up to its previous peak, and just a few years to almost wipe it out.
Adam says red wolves at Alligator River and the surrounding counties face numerous obstacles. Without human intervention, the red wolves in the wild hybridize with local coyotes, diluting their unique genetic makeup.
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Frank Stacio: And there's big questions about the red wolf because of the way it has commingled its genes with coyotes, for instance.
Dave DeWitt: That's right, researchers here in North Carolina have done some DNA testing and say that it's only 24% and 76% coyote, the red wolves are. So you know, intermingling is one of the things that the landowners say, it's not even a species that we're trying to protect, the red wolves aren't…
Elizabeth Friend: And although it’s illegal, people shoot red wolves, either by accident or on purpose.
Adam Wagner: These are apex predators that also don't do super well with humans, and human activity, actively shooting a red wolf, is a threat to these.
Elizabeth Friend: They can easily be mistaken for coyotes, which are legal to hunt year round. And perhaps the biggest hurdle: the highway to the Outer Banks — one of North Carolina’s most popular tourist destinations — runs right through the Alligator River refuge.
Adam Wagner: US 64 is a big problem for red wolves. It's a busy road with fast cars, and red wolves kind of dart in front of you. If we could just get people to stop hitting these with a car, this population would have a significantly better chance of thriving. There are efforts afoot right now to try to put wildlife crossings on 64,and hopefully that would help the species in a way that having to run across this road wouldn't.
Elizabeth Friend: Convincing people in the region to welcome wolves into their lives remains an uphill battle.
Adam Wagner: The captive wolf program is going well, the reintroduction program has been more troubled. And there are certainly people out there with the opinion that this might not be worth it. Anytime the numbers start looking good, humans step in the other way and suddenly make it a critical situation again. I don't know, it's a tough thing to grapple with.
Elizabeth Friend: It’s undeniable. Humans pose the greatest threat to red wolves, yet they’re also the best chance the species has for survival.
Sean Hubbard: But um, this year we have a beautiful litter of three, and we're very excited for them and their future.
Elizabeth Friend: That's so cool.
Unidentified Speaker: They're all healthy and strong right now.
Elizabeth Friend: At N.C. State Sean Hubbard and the other vet school students will spend the summer feeding and monitoring their pack, while wildlife officials consider how the new pups will fit into the recovery program. They’ve developed really innovative strategies to reintroduce the animals into the wild.
Sean Hubbard: They do this very cool thing called pup fostering where a facility in captivity has a litter of red wolves around the same time as a litter out in the wild. The biologists out in the wild will take one of those captive wolves, or several, and insert that puppy into the wild litter.
We've actually seen that those wild mothers accept an additional puppy into their litter, and they raise them as if it was one of their own.
Elizabeth Friend: The timing wasn’t right for pup fostering this year, so the 2024 litters will likely grow up in captivity. Some may be moved around to other facilities to form new breeding pairs. Others might get the chance of a lifetime and transition into the wild at Alligator River.
Sean Hubbard: They've done something unique where they try to pair a lone female or male wolf on the wild landscape with a matching male or female from captivity and leave them in a big pen out in the wild for a couple of months, let them get along, and then once the biologists feel like they're ready, open the pen up so they can range wild and then hopefully having a litter of their own.
Elizabeth Friend: This kind of pre-arranged pairing has been successful. Earlier this spring, wildlife officials announced the birth of a large litter of wild pups at Alligator River from a wild female and previously captive male. But even this success is shaded by tragedy. The new pairing was needed because the wild female’s former mate was struck and killed on Highway 64 last year.
For much of the past 50 years, the red wolf recovery program has been a two-step dance of remarkable progress and heartbreaking setbacks. It takes continual effort to keep the small population of red wolves alive in captivity, and even more to return them to the wild. But for the humans on the frontlines of the recovery program, like Dr. Tara Harrison, there’s no doubt that it’s all worth it.
Tara Harrison: I think the effort's valuable because we did this. So the reason this population crashed is because of people. So we basically owe it to this animal to reestablish them in their native habitat. And it's also when the habitat has all the animals that are supposed to be there, it's healthier and everything does better, from the plants, the prey species, like all of it do a whole lot better than when they're absent. So, the sooner that we can get them out there and reestablish the way it's supposed to be out there, the better it'll be.
Anisa Khalifa: This episode of The Broadside was produced by Elizabeth Friend with Jerad Walker and me, Anisa Khalifa. It was edited by Jerad Walker. Our executive producer is Wilson Sayre. If you’d like to check out Adam Wagner’s reporting about the red wolf for the News and Observer, click the link in the show notes.
The Broadside is a production of WUNC–North Carolina Public Radio, and is part of the NPR Network. You can email us at broadside@wunc.org. If you enjoyed the show, leave us a rating, a review, or share it with a friend! I’m Anisa Khalifa. Thanks for listening y'all. We'll be back next week.