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  However, the surviving brother grew stronger and stronger. In 2000, he reached the advanced age of twelve years and, no longer a “boy,” became “the Old Man.” He actually allowed one of his sons to establish and raise a family “virtually next door,” in part of his territory. This was an arrangement that he probably would not have tolerated in his younger days, speculated Michael.

  “But even though the Old Man may not have been the breeding male of his pack in his last days,” Michael wrote in a letter to me, “he left a living legacy.” By the time he died in 2002, he had sired at least twenty-two pups from seven litters. “His genes are today an integral part of the wild population of red wolves in northeastern North Carolina.” Reading between the lines, I sensed that Michael had a deep affection for this wolf. And I knew I was right when I came to his last line: “And I hope it’s true, what the old-timers say—‘All dogs go to heaven.’” For what it’s worth, Michael, I’m sure they do.

  The Gator Pack

  The wolves from Graham, Washington, here called Graham Male and Graham Female, ultimately became the breeding pair of the Gator Pack. They had arrived together at the start of 1988 and were released with mates who had been chosen for them. Those matchmaking efforts, however, were not successful: The two females that were successively offered to Graham Male were killed by cars, and Graham Female’s mate simply disappeared. And then Graham Female and Graham Male found each other and began consorting in the winter of 1989. They soon became inseparable: “Once they bonded, they were rarely apart,” said Michael. Both grew to be very large in their prime, the male weighing a record eighty-four pounds and the female, sixty-five pounds.

  Their home range was a vast sixty thousand acres of gum swamp and pocosins in the central portion of the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge—a relatively harsh environment compared with Milltail Farms. “Seldom seen by humans,” wrote Michael, “the Graham pair—now the Gator Pack—lived in near seclusion,” producing three litters. In 1992, a family group of wolves was released near one of the boundaries of the Graham Pair’s territory. “They ran off the adult pair and killed and ate the pups,” said Michael. “It was the last time we attempted a release near them.”

  On April 1, 1994, Graham Male, aged nine years, was found dead in his territory: “It looked like he just lay down and died,” Michael noted. And only four months later, his mate left the Gator Pack territory and went on “a long walk-about.” As she was passing through the home range of another wolf pack, the River Pack, to the north, “she lay down at Deep Bay to die.”

  Red Wolf Recovery Team biologists Chris Lucash and Michael Morse check a litter of wild pups in northeastern North Carolina. The biologists perform a general health evaluation and insert a small transponder for identification purposes. (USFWS)

  Fostering Pups in the Wild

  And so, gradually, the captive-born wolves adapted to their wild home, gave birth, and raised pups. Despite the heartaches and disappointments, there were many success stories, too. The team became more confident as their understanding grew regarding what could and what would not work.

  Even when it became clear that the reintroduction program was a success, it was still necessary (and remains so to the present) to maintain the captive population at about two hundred individuals. This is in part because additional wolves are needed to bolster the wild population, serving as a backup in case a disease wipes out those in the wild, and in part to provide stock for future reintroduction programs in different areas.

  A few captive-born pups are returned to the wild very early in life—when they are between ten and fourteen days old, just before their eyes open. At this age, they are readily accepted and cared for by both the male and the female of a wild pack. This “fostering” is only done if a wild mother has lost all or some of her own litter, or has a very small litter that allows her to manage one or two extra pups. Fostering of this kind not only boosts numbers of wolves in the wild but also, because pups are selected carefully, helps maintain the genetic viability of the population. I was fascinated to hear about this, and how it all began.

  The first time it was tried was in 1998. “It was,” Chris told me, “a bit of an act of desperation and/or lack of alternatives.” A captive female killed one of her three newborn pups, and when it was found that she had done this before, at the small zoo where she had been kept, it was decided not to take chances with the two remaining pups. They were taken from her and, rather than being hand-raised, were placed in the den of a wild female. The team believed this would work based on experience with captive fostering, but nevertheless it must have been a wonderful moment when those little pups were immediately accepted by the female, who raised them with her own youngsters.

  Sometimes the field team comes upon wild pups that have to be fostered. Once, a female was discovered dead in the area where it was believed that she had a den. A search revealed two pups, weak and dehydrated but still alive. They had been without their mother for at least two to three days. “After two days of reviving them as best we could,” said Chris, “we located another wild female with similar-aged pups, who accepted and raised the fostered ones as her own.”

  Collars and Radio Tracking

  Approximately 65 to 70 percent of the wild red wolves in northeastern North Carolina are wearing telemetry collars, either the standard VHS variety or one of the new specially designed GPS-enabled collars that use satellites to automatically record their location—and that of the wolves wearing them—four or five times each day. This information is stored in each collar, and every one to two months the biologists can download it all at once with a special receiver. These data—which can consist of three to four hundred locations!—are then used to create a map that will show movement patterns, habitat preference, and home-range size as well as proximity to any other wolf who happens to be wearing a collar.

  Michael sent me, from one of his reports, an example of wolf tracking with this technology. Wolf “11301M” was collared as a yearling when he was still living with the pack in his natal home range. Over the next year, the data regularly obtained from his collar provided the field team with a wealth of information. First they learned about his movements in his original home range. Then, when he left his natal area in the spring and began his travels, they learned where he went.

  “He seemed to go from wolf pack to wolf pack looking for a place to live,” wrote Michael. “… He skirted the core areas of the adjacent packs in order to stay out of trouble with other wolves (a smart thing for a young single wolf) … and he moved completely around Lake Phelps before stopping on Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge.” There he found a female wolf who had just paired with a sterilized, radio-collared wolf–coyote hybrid. The hybrid was soon displaced from the area and subsequently was found dead (located by his telemetry signal). Examination of his body showed that 11301M had almost certainly killed his rival. The victorious male then paired with the female, and together they will form the new Pocosin Lakes pack.

  A Successful Program

  In 2007, there were about a hundred red wolves, in some twenty packs, well established in the wild. Since the first were released some twenty years ago, about five hundred pups have been born in the wild population. The first experimental population release area was expanded to include three national wildlife refuges, a Department of Defense bombing range, state-owned lands, and private property—about 1.7 million acres in five counties in North Carolina, and there are red wolf release sites across 15,445 acres of private land.

  In fact, the Red Wolf Field Team achieved in five years (1999 to 2004) a level of success that some scientists had believed would take fifteen. Barry Braden, who headed the US Wolf Conservation Center for three years, told me that the management teams working to return the red wolf to North Carolina as well as the Rocky Mountain gray wolf to the Northern Rockies have been successful because there has been such excellent cooperation among government personnel, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and concer
ned citizen grassroots movements. “Of course,” said Barry with a laugh, “these factions do not always agree, but they all care, and they sort it out.” This is in sharp contrast, he told me, with the style of the management team working with the Mexican gray wolf project—which has not so far been a success.

  The team leader for the Red Wolf Recovery Program, Bud Fazio, told me of his enormous regard for the biologists who are part of his field team—some of whom, like Chris Lucash and Michael Morse, have up to twenty-one years of experience working with wolves. All are dedicated field biologists who, for nearly seven days per week and sometimes twenty-four hours per day, handle and monitor the wild red wolf population, manage coyotes, take part in education programs, talk to landowners, and resolve the many problems that crop up in a field program of this scope and complexity. The work can be physically demanding. Chris gave me an example.

  “Whelping season is a brief period each spring that the field biologists both look forward to and dread,” Chris said. First they must find the den following signals from the mother’s radio collar (or the father’s if she has lost hers). Having located the pups, they check their health, weigh them, take a drop of blood from each for a genetic record, and insert a tiny transponder chip under each pup’s skin for lifelong instant identification (as we do with our dogs). It doesn’t sound too difficult, but according to Chris—and this is the dreaded part—the wolves choose isolated places, as unapproachable as possible, for whelping. And “the whelping season also coincides with other uninviting seasonal changes: the beginning of high heat and humidity, the prolific growth of thorny vines and poison ivy, and the burgeoning population of biting insects.”

  And so, Chris continued, “For long stretches, I have to drag myself on my elbows through low narrow tunnels, through dense shrubs and downed trees overgrown with blackberry and entwined with honeysuckle, greenbrier, and grapevine, driven on by the fleeting hope of finding a den or a pup—but also by the unnerving thought of countless seed ticks traveling up my clothing and the maddening realization that dozens have already made it through to my skin.”

  Usually such a search takes hours, and often it is unsuccessful. The mother whom they are tracking may not be at the den; if she hears them approaching, she may lead them in the wrong direction. “Some years,” said Chris, “I find nothing but lonely, empty daybeds, followed then by several weeks of itching.”

  Coyotes, Farmers, and Other Challenges

  One major problem for the recovery plan is the migration into red wolf release sites of coyotes (not native to this part of North Carolina). This has led to two problems. There is a lot of hunting in the area, and unfortunately the coyote is becoming increasingly popular with hunters. Red wolves are sometimes mistaken for these eastern coyotes, particularly young wolves who, as was mentioned, look very similar in size and color, and this has led to a number of red wolves being shot by mistake. Thus, educating the public about red wolves is a major challenge. The second coyote-related problem is that red wolves will mate with coyotes when they cannot find a red wolf to mate with, thus creating a hybrid animal. The Red Wolf Recovery Program’s coyote control strategy is attempting, with some success, to establish a coyote-free zone in and around the area into which the red wolf has been introduced.

  For the most part, people have been tolerant of the return of the red wolf to its ancestral range, and fortunately the wolves are typically shy animals, and usually avoid humans and human activities. There are, of course, farmers who believe that the wolves are a threat to their livestock, but these fears have proved ill founded. During the first twenty years of the program, the wolves were seldom found guilty of killing domestic animals. There were only three proven incidents—a duck, a chicken, and a dog. And on the positive side, red wolves prey on the nutria that were introduced into the area and are a nuisance to farmers. They also hunt the raccoons who take eggs and young birds, and this may have led to an increase in bird populations, including quail and turkeys. All of this has helped to give red wolves a good reputation in the local community.

  One of the most important aspects in any plan to release large predators is a good education program—and it must be prepared by people who understand and are sensitive to the concerns, fears, and prejudices of people living in the area. David Denton, hunter education specialist with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, together with the red wolf staff, works hard to ensure that people in the area understand, as much as possible, red wolf behavior and how to behave if a red wolf is encountered. They also teach hunters to recognize the difference between young red wolves and coyotes.

  Howling with the Wolves

  For the last ten years, the Red Wolf Coalition, the only red wolf citizen support organization, has pursued its mission of educating people by spreading awareness. Extremely popular are the “Howling Safaris”: People can visit the refuge to hear the magical chorus of a red wolf pack. I remember so clearly when I first heard wolves howling in Yellowstone National Park. It is utterly unforgettable.

  Field biologists sometimes howl to the wolves they know so well. “You never forget,” Michael Morse wrote to me, “the first time a wild wolf responds to your howls, offered into the dark night.” On his first attempt he was not an accomplished howler, and he ended with a series of uncontrollable coughs—to the great amusement of the senior wolf biologists. “But they stopped laughing when the two newly released red wolf brothers returned my howl!” said Michael. “And although my vocal cords felt scorched, the swelling sensation in my chest and mind made all else insignificant.”

  It did not surprise me to learn that the Red Wolf Recovery Program won America’s highest conservation honor in 2007, the North American Conservation Award from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). So many people have worked with and for the program in so many different capacities, giving so much of their lives, since it was first launched. And I know that for all of them, whether they are donors, partners, volunteers, or the biologists working long hours in often demanding circumstances, the knowledge that the red wolves are once more roaming freely in the land of their ancestors will be thanks enough. The best reward they could ask for will be the haunting sound of red wolves howling under the moon.

  THANE’S FIELD NOTES

  Tahki or Przewalski’s Horse

  (Equus ferus przewalskii, Equus przewalskii, or Equus caballus przewalskii) (classification is debated)

  The first time I went to Mongolia, I said to myself, “Now, this is a great place to be a horse.” It is a place with no fences. And no phone or electric lines. A land of beautiful and strong people who are tougher than woodpecker lips. Of course, there’s not much shade. If you want trees, drive north for three days to Siberia. What makes the Mongolian steppes so famously good for horses is that this is a nation of high-desert grasslands.

  And upon this shadeless grassland, with that strength Mongolians are known for, the people of this country managed to save and restore the last truly wild horses of the world. Officially, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources listed Mongolia’s magnificent tahki—also called Przewalski’s horses—as extinct in the wild in 1968. But thanks to both captive breeding in zoos and leadership by Mongolian wildlife officials, I was able to gaze upon a restored wild herd in the summer of 2007.

  My adventures in Mongolia have been in the company of a most amazing PhD wildlife biologist named Munkhtsog. Today he is one of the nation’s leading scientists. It is through him that I have been able to get a glimpse of the effort it has taken to save them.

  When humans first walked out of Africa fifty to seventy thousand years ago to spread across Asia and Europe, they viewed the huge herds of wild horses as prey. Eventually, of course, humans domesticated horses from wild stock, selectively breeding them for everything from transportation to work to simple beauty. However, along the way, domestication and spreading human settlements led to the extinction of the word’s wild herds.

  Then, t
o everyone’s great surprise, European explorers reported seeing herds of ancestral wild horses in Central Asia. One of these explorers was Colonel Nikolai Przewalski, the Russian explorer sent by the czar on a Lewis-and-Clark-style voyage of discovery to see what was worth taking in the Gobi Desert. In 1881, Przewalski was the first to describe this mule-like horse as living in small herds of five to fifteen in the Takhiin Shar Nuru Mountains near the edge of the Gobi.

  Przewalski’s horses may be mule-shaped, but they are much lovelier creatures. They have tawny hair that is thick for the harsh winters and golden reddish in the early light of dawn, which is the best time to see them. Like many herd animals, they are naturally wary, and mothers are clearly attentive to their foals. Always on the alert, the dominant stallion will move the herd as he sees fit, but all the members stay alert for predators.

  By the turn of the twentieth century, there was a frenzy among European zoos to exhibit this already rare and elusive species. Naturally, travel was harsh from southwest Mongolia all the way back to the London and Rotterdam zoos, and many of the horses perished in transit. And as fate would have it, it was a good thing that Prze-walski’s horse was taken into captivity. By 1968, due to hunting and habitat loss (among other factors), the species was completely extinct in the wild.

  At that time it was thought that the sounds of wild horse herds would never again be heard on earth. Even in the United States, our “wild” horses, such as the mustang, were once domesticated, then escaped and returned to wild status. The Przewalski’s horse was never domesticated, which is why it is considered the last truly wild horse.