A few weeks ago I spent some time at the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge (ARNWR) on the coast of North Carolina. The refuge covers 238 square miles and includes upland forests, swamp forests, marshes, ponds, creeks, brackish waterways, shrubland, and current and former cropland. The diverse habitats are home to an amazing array of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians. I had my first wildlife encounter in a port-a john before I even set foot on a trail. A green tree frog jumped out of the toilet paper dispenser, ricocheted off my arm, and leaped onto the wall. It posed while I got a photo and then scooted straight up the vertical surface.
With that welcome I knew I was in the right place. But I was really there because of one specific animal–the red wolf. Alligator River is home to the only wild population of red wolves in the world. Historically the range of the red wolf stretched from Texas to the Atlantic seaboard, and from the Gulf Coast to the Ohio River valley. But persecution and habitat loss decimated populations throughout the range, and by the mid-1960s just a few small remnants remained in the coastal prairies and marshes of western Louisiana and eastern Texas. Red wolves were on the verge of extinction, and the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined that the best strategy was to capture the last wild wolves and move them to captive breeding facilities. The red wolf pictured below was photographed at a facility in Texas. After several decades of captive breeding, 4 male-female pairs were released at ARNWR. The animals have thrived there, and the red wolf recovery program is seen as a model for reintroductions of other species. You can learn more about the program here.
The more I thought about this amazing story, the more I wanted to go there and see red wolf tracks. So about a month ago I set off for North Carolina. I had high hopes, but I didn’t know how hard it would be to find the wolves or what kind of tracking conditions I would encounter.
I learned more about the current status of red wolves and strategies for their future when I visited the Red Wolf Education and Health Care Facility in Columbia, NC. There’s lots of information on Center’s website, which you can find here. If you ever visit ARNWR you should definitely stop at the Red Wolf Education Center.
One helpful bit of information was that the red wolves spend most of their time in the northern parts of the refuge around the agricultural areas. And once I did some exploration and located the sandy roads and trails, I found wolf tracks aplenty. Red wolf tracks are similar to other wild canines–they have the typical central dome and canine X, and the claws usually show as small indentations ahead of the toes. The species most likely to be confused with the red wolf is the coyote, but there are several features that set the two animals apart. Compared to coyote tracks, red wolf tracks are wider in proportion to their length, and have larger middle pads.
There’s also a distinct difference in size. Red wolf front tracks range from 2 1/8 to 3 inches wide and 3 to 4 1/4 inches long. Even our northeastern coyotes–larger than western coyotes–fall in the lower end of this range. The coyotes at ARNWR are more like western coyotes in size, so their track dimensions don’t overlap those of red wolves. I didn’t find any coyote prints in the areas where the wolf tracks were–apparently the wolves don’t tolerate the presence of coyotes. The coyote front print below, which I found in the southern part of ARNWR, measured 2 5/8 inches in length and 1 3/4 inches in width.
Here’s another photo of red wolf tracks, and these are also distinctly different from coyote tracks. The overall shapes of both the front track (upper left) and the hind track (lower right) are more rounded, and the middle pads are larger and more triangular. As in other wild canines, the front tracks of red wolves are larger than the rear tracks, and the claws don’t always show on all the toes.
ARNWR is a haven for all sorts of wildlife, and one group that was clearly thriving was snakes. Several times I saw snakes basking on roads, and every time the snake was very reactive to my presence, either fleeing or adopting a defensive posture. On my way out one afternoon I came upon this very large–at least four feet long–rattlesnake. (I wasn’t as close as it looks–I used the telephoto setting to get this photo). But there was something wrong with this snake. It wasn’t moving away or coiling up, and it seemed unable to raise its head or straighten out its neck. There was no obvious wound, but it must have been hit by something.
The next morning I drove in on the same road, and where I had seen the snake the day before I saw this:
Along the sandy edge of the road I found wolf tracks leading up to the snake carcass and then continuing in the same direction away from it. To make a meal of the disabled snake, the wolf must have known not only that the snake was vulnerable, but also how to go at it without getting bitten. For me this was an incredible look at a slice of the life of a red wolf, and at the way the animals make use of every opportunity. Their intelligence and adaptability has served them well for thousands of years. If we just give them a chance they can thrive for thousands of years into the future.
