NC Alligator River NWR - Red Wolf Hike (5 miles)

The Red Wolf saved, America’s triumph; the Red Wolf lost, America’s shame

 Edward O. Wilson

In the mid-1980s I had the opportunity to join a USFWS team for few days. I was working as a ranger in South Carolina on one of the many barrier islands that was under conservation management. It was a perk of the job (there had been many!) to be asked to help out with special interagency projects and special events. This was one of those times. 

Coastal pineland grasslands, AGNWR

Three state folks, me included, had been invited to accompany federal Red Wolf biologists and a small gaggle of photographers across the sound to Bulls Island where the first experimental large predator reintroduction program was wrapping up. Since the 1970s, Bulls Island had produced 26 wolf puppies with healthy mated parents and with the new reintroduction site identified in coastal North Carolina at the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge (ARNWR) it was time to bring the Bulls Island program to an end. Moving pups and adult wolves in their metal catch crates to the boats for transport to ARNWR and other reintroduction sites around the country was one of the last special perk jobs I did before leaving South Carolina for a DNR ranger job in Maryland.  

 

Freshwater wetlands on the Albemarle Peninsula 

I may have left South Carolina but the experience of that recovery and relocation opportunity never left me. I met the men (it was all men at that time) who created the first large predator reintroduction program for wolves in the US and I'd met the Red Wolf, an all-American endemic wolf species once found from Pennsylvania to the Gulf of Mexico to the Heartland. Before European settlement, the Red Wolf shared habitat with the Eastern Cougar and Wood Bison, all gone now. Settlement and industrial expansion eradicated all three species from the Eastern and Southeastern region as forests were logged off, wetlands were drained, and agriculture replaced rich biodiverse ecosystems with monoculture and livestock. By the mid-20th century, the Red Wolf was near extinction. 

18th century drainage ditch

For decades now I've followed the Red Wolf recovery story in all its drama, celebration, and sorrow. It hasn't been easy at all for both wolves and biologists. As a species, the survival of the Red Wolf continues to hang precariously in the balance. One of the other two state folks who were with me those few days back in the 1980s at Bulls Island, Paul, has since retired from public service and is now a full time USFWS volunteer who lives in his camper on the ARNWR with his wife who is also a volunteer. It was great to see them after so many years and talk about how that experience changed us. As his guest, he drove me down some non-public roads to see if we might catch a glimpse of one of the 16 remaining Red Wolves on the reserve. We didn't see any, but we heard some at a distance - a pack greeting of happy howls and barks. I was over the moon excited and couldn't help tearing up. I captured the very end of the greeting on my phone but it is very difficult to hear. I've listened to it a hundred times since last week.

Milltail Creek watershed- home to the famous Milltail Wolf Pack

As we returned to my truck at their campsite (where Amos had to stay) he suggested some places to hike with my dog that were open to the public and where I might - if I was very very lucky - see or hear Red Wolf activity. Bears were a certainty, he said. We had a late lunch on the picnic table by the camper and he told me about the tragic loss of a male wolf this past June that also resulted in the loss of 5 puppies. Six deaths in one summer had reduced the surviving wild population on the peninsula to just 16. I felt sure I would not see any wolves during my late afternoon hike, plus I was worried about Amos and bears. He looses his mind over bears. Off I went for a five mile hike and a promise to check back when I finished so we all could say goodbye for now. 

Sandy Ridge Trail 

We hiked the out-and-back Sandy Ridge Trail and heard a rail - dare I say King Rail? Amos saw his first alligator, a four-footer floating log-like in the canal. We then moved on to the Wynne Road where "bears are everywhere" but saw none which I wasn't sad about since I was worried about being able to control Amos and had a death-grip on his short leash. We made a loop of it using the closed-to-vehicles Hook and Osprey Roads back to Buffalo City Road and the truck. I saw and heard barred owls and woodpeckers of all kinds, plus on Buffalo City Road watched a crowd of deer being chased by something. The something never crossed the road, however. 

Cattail and Pond Pine on Wynne Road

Back at the truck, another truck pulled in. The driver looked a little shook up. He'd just come down Sawyer Lake Road (which intersects Buffalo City Road). "I don't know how it will end up," he said, "but I just watched a collared Red Wolf chase a bird dog across the road. It wasn't playing. It was hunting that dog." I was so excited for this guy who, despite having a big camera and lens, hadn't the time to react to take picture. He'd been coming to the NWR all month hoping to see a wolf, but to see this was extraordinary. That explained the deer running out of that patch of woods across the road where I saw them, I said. 

Pond Pine

I found Paul at a parking area working on some invasive plant removals, a patch of non-native privet. I told him about the wolf-dog sighting and with that the photographer pulled into the same parking lot. We all talked a good while about what he'd seen and the paradox that predator conservation often presents us with. Night was fast coming on but we stood there a bit longer with the traffic along Rt 64 whizzing by.  "The feds have just approved the funding to build a wildlife corridor underpass here," said Paul. We all agreed that it was a long time coming, especially for the most endangered wolf species in the world. 

No bears today

When we first started working with this wolf, he was 99 miles down a 100-mile-long road to extinction. We now have him identified, and we feel we have him turned around the other way. It will be a long uphill push to save him.; I don’t know if we can do it. If we decide that it is feasible, we need you to help pull; we sure are going to push. 

- Curtis Carley, first FWS Red Wolf recovery project field coordinator, 1977

Notes: 

T. Delene Beeland (2013) The Secret World of Red Wolves: The Fight to Save North America's Other Wolf. University of North Carolina Press. https://a.co/d/5eK2eZf

Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge https://www.fws.gov/refuge/alligator-river

Eric Trefney's excellent piece for Rewilding Earth, "A Milestone in Red Wolf Country." 

Rewilding Earth podcast with Eric's update on the wildlife crossings in NC and other amazing rewilding efforts. Episode 139: Year-End Recap 

NC Outer Banks - Three Maritime Forest Hikes (11.5 miles)

Live Oak, Buxton Woods

Unlike in the heavily forested landscape of Pennsylvania it was hard to find a long trail through the woods anywhere in the Outer Banks. So over the course of three days I cobbled together a few shorter woodland trails to explore what remains of the coastal maritime forests. 

I wouldn't do these trails during warmer months as biting insects (flies, mosquitoes, chiggers, ticks) are a real problem here - one of the reasons I prefer to visit the coastal areas only in winter. It was warm enough, however, for the deer and dog ticks to be active. I did spend a bit of time after each hike removing 2-3 crawling ticks from my pants legs and the dog. 

Fort Raleigh National Historic Site:  Thomas Hariot Trail (1 mile) and Freedom Trail (2.5 miles)

Late morning and early afternoon spent at Fort Raleigh National Historic Site on Roanoke Island offered two nice short woodland hikes. Being the day after Christmas, we almost had the whole place to ourselves. I met a fellow UGRR researcher at the Visitor Center who helped establish the Freedom Trail here and though she couldn't hike with us, she was very excited to share some history of the Freedman's Colony that was located on this site after the Union Army took control of Roanoke Island. 

Restored ramparts of Fort Raleigh, 1585

For the first English settlement in the New World, nothing much is here. The original fort and settlement site is the stuff of archeologists doing ground surveys and given that entire colony of settlers disappeared between 1587 and 1590, it all seems a bit mysterious. Included among the original expeditionary party were three naturalists, John White, Thomas Hariot and Joachim Gans. Thanks to the surviving field journals of John White who returned to England, we know something of the people they met here, animal and fish life, botany. The trail, however, is named for Thomas Hariot, a medicinal botanist and was a pleasant mile-long loop that wanders the maritime woods to the Roanoke Sound shoreline.

Erosion cuts into the maritime forest ...

...as Roanoke Sound rises

The most striking spot along this trail was the ruins of the grand Elizabethan Garden gate that once marked the grassy, grand entrance from the once long distant shore of the sound. The original shoreline as the settlers would have known is now over a mile and a half out.  Rising seas and heavy storms over the last century are steadily encroaching on the forest and the historic grounds of the Fort Raleigh National Historic Site. 

Powdered ruffle lichen

Bark Rash Lichen

Best described as an evergreen maritime forest, Yaupon Holly, Live Oak and Laurel Oak, Magnolia, and Loblolly predominated throughout the mile-long loop. Mosses and lichens added to the color and texture of the twisted limbs of the oaks while the more lateral and substantial branches held small gardens of fern and moss aloft. Partridge Berry blankets the forest floor while thick stands of Dwarf Palmetto blanketed the soft swales. 

Yaupon Holly

Laurel Oak

Spanish Moss on Live Oak

We moved across the historic site to connect with the Freedom Trail that follows an old pine woods road to the Croatan Sound. This was a nice stretch-your-legs and walk fast trail where we met a lot of dogs and their humans. Amos met lots of new friends. We rested on the pocket beach for snack break before turning back and enjoyed some birding. A series of  interpretive signs with metal shadow figures helped me learn the history of emancipation and the Freedman's Colony on this site. It was very moving. 

Interpretive signs and metal shadow figures on the Freedom Trail

On the Croatan Sound

Loblolly Pine

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Nags Head Woods Preserve (5 miles) 

Owned and managed by the North Carolina Nature Conservancy, Nags Head Woods Preserve was hands-down my favorite hike. It was also longest hike of my visit to the Outer Banks. It was such a pleasant surprise to find this mature maritime woodland tucked behind the island resort town of Kill Devil Hills. It the largest surviving maritime forest tract on the Eastern Seaboard, a real gem of conservation stewardship. 

Nature Conservancy Education Center

The Education Center was closed for the holidays but maps were well stocked at the kiosk on the porch and after checking to see which trails were dog friendly, off we went. We combined the Old Nags Head Road with three of the trails for five miles, but could have done more.

Trail Kiosk 

Black Oak, Quercus velutina

Oaks predominated along the trails with some very impressive Black Oak stands. American Beech, Hornbeam, Maple, Laurel Oak, Magnolia, Hickories, Black Gum, and other hardwoods typical of the Piedmont. Swamp Sweetbay, Yaupon Holly, and Dwarf Palmetto thickets grow along the ridges and down the slopes. Placed along the Roanoke Trail are QR-coded interpretive signs that link to the Roanoke Trail Audio Tour with oral histories given by community members who once lived here when it was still a dispersed farming & fishing community. It was so cool to hear the voices of the people who lived among these woods while I hiked. We came across several old cemeteries walking along Old Nags Head Wood Road (dirt) and found plenty of interdunal ponds to explore along the trails. I listened to it again when I got back to the campsite at Oregon Inlet. Well done, NCNC.

Interdunal freshwater pond

Over 60 species of freshwater fish, reptiles, mammals, and amphibians are found in and around the many ponds formed in the swales between the high standing ancient dunes. Though some of the ponds are dry, being vernal or affected by the drought, there were so many that were holding water and covered in bright green duck weed that I could see them at some distance from the top of the hills. 

Old Nags Head Road cemetery

Tillet Family cemetery

The woods here are very much protected from the salt spray winds by the high dune field (60') at Jockey Ridge State Park just to the southeast. Here the trees stand tall and spread comfortably out into sunny patches without the forced flagging and wedge-shaped behavior of trees directly exposed to the harsh sea winds. Many of the trees are quite old, two hundred years or more. Pileated woodpeckers, sapsuckers, and flickers were everywhere tap-tapping and chattering. 

Magnolia and Sweet Bay under the Loblolly Pines

Tillet Farm site

Marsh on the Sound

We hiked out past the old Tillet farm site across a boardwalk over cordgrass marsh to the edge of the Roanoke Sound to a beautiful little pocket beach. I listened to the audio tour a little more while having a snack with Amos. The interview of Evelyn Gray's Christmas memories seemed especially poignant since today was only a two days after Christmas Day. 

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Cape Hatteras National Seashore:  Buxton Woods Coastal Preserve & Buxton Woods ( 3 miles) 

With the famous Cape Hatteras Lighthouse ensconced in heavy scaffolding for its renovation (after being moved further inland to the new Visitor Center site) we easily found the trails that led from the new main parking area to NPS Buxton Woods Trail and NC Buxton Woods Coastal Preserve (along Open Ponds Trail). Interdunal ponds are thick with cattail and common reed. Being so close to the ocean and its punishing winds, the forest here is primarily Live and Laurel Oak, Loblolly Pine, and Sweetbay. The forest was stunted, leaning landward, and flagged into wedge formation. 

Leaning landward

Dwarf Palmetto

Interdunal freshwater pond 

We made our way across a boardwalk where Amos alerted to something heavy moving through a sedge and cane swale. Whatever it was, it never showed itself. We connected to the Open Ponds Trail to access the NC Buxton Woods Preserve and made a stop at another cemetery which only contained two graves, both Royal Navy sailors whose bodies washed up on the cape after their tanker ships were torpedoed by German U-boats during WWII.  

British sailor's grave

Something big this way comes...

Southern Wax Myrtle

We walked the Old Doctor's Road to return to the truck at the main parking area and met the nicest backpacker, a gentleman in his 70s, who had started the Mountain to the Sea Trail (1,175 miles) on Christmas Day. The trail begins in the dune field at Jockey Ridge State Park near where we were at Nags Head Woods Preserve. He has already hiked three days and is being supported by his companion who is driving a camper van where he sleeps every night after she picks him up. He is prepared for the longer stretched inland where day hiking is difficult and he is prepared for tent camping when he gets to those sections. As we stood there talking, his companion pulled in to pick him up for the night. They were headed back to a private campground for the night and invited me to come along to join them for dinner. I don't know why I declined but I did. They were the nicest people. Good luck, "Pop-Pop-Hikes" and "Slackvanner Anne" on your big adventure! 

Notes:

Nature Conservancy of North Carolina, Nags Head Woods Preserve provides basic information on the site but the onsite education center (which was closed when I visited) has a ton more information. Free in the kiosks are bird, reptile, and plant lists as well as a general trail map. The Outer Banks Visitor Center website has more information on the history of the site. See the Nags Head Woods Ecological Preserve page.