A Pilgrimage to Alligator River

The Outer Banks of North Carolina is a region steeped in history.  It's the site of the mysterious vanished colony of Roanoke, the first English colony in the New World and the birthplace of the first English child in the Americas.  It's the site of the first manned flight, taken by the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk.  It's the site of the resting place of the USS Monitor, the ironclad warship immortalized in exhibitry (never thought I'd type that phase) at the nearby North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island.  Pirates and patriots, Indians and inventors, all have played their part in the history of the region.

It is, incidentally, also the site of a pivoltal moment in the history of American zoos.  Just on the mainland from Roanoke Island lies Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge.  In its swamps and woodlands can be found the last wild population of red wolves.

I didn't so much stop to see Alligator River on my way to the Aquarium as I did stop at the Aquarium on my way to Alligator River.  It had been a lifelong dream of mine to explore the reserve, a dream which only intensified when I became a red wolf keeper years ago.  Of course, I knew the chances of seeing one of the wolves in the wild was virtually nil - it was hard enough for me to find the ones that I worked with within the confines of their enclosure.  The recent downward trend in fortune of the species only made it more essential to me to visit the Refuge.  I might not see a wolf, but it might be my last chance to walk in the woods knowing that there were red wolves sharing the landscape. 

It's a very exciting feeling, knowing that you are walking within sight and smell and sound of one of the world's rarest animals.  It changes the way you perceive everything - every shadow, every rustling tuft of tall grass, every distant sound I saw or heard through the lens of, "Could that be a wolf?"  And, as I expected, I didn't see any.  Knowing that they were there, however, made it a memorable experience.

Any joys that I felt at walking through these woods diminished on my drive away, as I passed a grotesquely ugly billboard, denouncing the Fish and Wildlife Service and their red wolf "scandal."  What this scandal is and how FWS was supposedly profiting over it was hard to say, but there was a link to their website on the billboard.  I chose not to give them the traffic.

Perhaps I've been too quick to write the obituary of the species.  Today, red wolves won a stunning surprise victory when a federal judge decided that too many protections for the species had been rolled back (largely due to the efforts of the folks posting the billboard) and ordering the government to step up efforts to save the species.  It's a victory that may have come too late - but maybe not.  Red wolves have beaten worse odds before.  They're nothing if not survivors.

So maybe it'll be that I'll visit Alligator River some other time, and maybe then I'll have better luck.  Even if I don't, though, it'll be nice to realize that something wild is still there.