Critically endangered red wolves just got a crucial boost

The Federal Highway Administration on Friday announced a $25 million grant to help North Carolina construct wildlife crossings through the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, a potentially significant step toward reducing traffic-related deaths among one of the nation’s most endangered species.

In recent years, vehicle strikes have become the leading cause of mortality among red wolves, or species Canis rufus. Many of those strikes have happened along U.S. 64, where the wildlife corridors are slated to be built. The road runs through the heart of the refuge and is a popular thoroughfare for travelers coming and going from the nearby Outer Banks.

“We know the benefits wildlife corridors can provide to species traversing our state’s roadways, and perhaps none are in more need of safe passage than the red wolves,” Ben Prater, Southeast program director for the advocacy group Defenders of Wildlife, said in response to the news.

There are fewer than 20 red wolves known to be living in the wild, making them the world’s most critically endangered canids. Since 1987, the effort to salvage red wolves from extinction has centered on this experimental population in eastern North Carolina, where they live among the vast swamp forests, marshes and open farmland of the Albemarle Peninsula.

The program has endured many ups and downs over that time, and the wild red wolf population has fluctuated from a high of about 120 to a low of only seven a few years ago. Several hundred additional captive-bred red wolves remain at facilities around the country.

During the Biden administration, the federal government recommitted to helping red wolves thrive in this landscape - and eventually, to establish other populations in the Southeast, where tens of thousands of the native species once roamed.

The push to grow the wild population of red wolves faces numerous hurdles, but vehicle strikes in and around the Alligator River refuge have been a persistent scourge.

The most recent fatality came in early June, when the father of a young litter of red wolf pups was struck and killed on the road - one of four red wolves to meet such a fate in the course of only a year. The mother of the litter soon abandoned the pups.

In September, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officially reported that all five pups had died, delivering the latest blow in the effort to reestablish the species in the wild.

“Brutal” was how Joe Madison, the federal agency’s red wolf recovery program manager in North Carolina, described the situation to The Washington Post this summer. “It’s maddening.”

Madison said officials have taken various measures to try to mitigate risks of red wolves venturing onto U.S. 64 and other area roads. His agency is working with state officials to more quickly clean up other roadkill that can attract red wolves, he said. And workers have installed devices in several areas that flash at random intervals, in an effort to deter animals from running toward roads where they might get killed by passing vehicles.

The new funding on Friday stems from the 2021 infrastructure bill passed by Congress, which included $350 million in grants over five years for wildlife crossing projects. The North Carolina Department of Transportation applied for the funding earlier this year, and advocacy groups such as the Wildlands Network and the Center for Biological Diversity helped to privately raise roughly $4 million to support the project.

The grant to North Carolina was the second largest of 16 awarded Friday to states around the country for a total of $125 million, trailing only a project along Interstate 5 within southwest Oregon’s Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument. It will allow the North Carolina Department of Transportation to construct multiple underpasses of various sizes along a key stretch of the highway through the Alligator River refuge.

In outlining the latest grants, the Federal Highway Administration noted that each year, more than 1 million wildlife vehicle collisions are estimated to impact motorists and wildlife throughout the country. Wildlife-vehicle collisions involving large animals result in approximately 200 human fatalities and 26,000 injuries to drivers and their passengers each year, and ultimately cost the public more than $10 billion annually, the agency said.

“Too many Americans are injured or killed each year in crashes involving cars and wildlife, especially in rural areas - which is why our department created the first-ever program dedicated to crossings that make roads and highways safer for both humans and wildlife,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement. The funding, he added, will “reduce collisions between drivers and wildlife, create places for wildlife to safely move over and under highways, and help preserve American life and property.”

Advocates noted that once complete, the crossings in eastern North Carolina will benefit not only the red wolves, but also other animals that call the area home. Since August, an ongoing daily roadkill survey led by the Wildlands Network has documented thousands of animals killed in the area, including 700 turtles, 700 snakes, 600 amphibians, more than 100 birds, six river otters, two black bears and two bobcats.

“I’m smiling from ear to ear about this news, that soon red wolves will be able to cross U.S. 64 safely,” Ron Sutherland, chief scientist for the Wildlands Network, said in an email Friday. “It has been devastating to hear about the steady drumbeat of wolves being killed on this highway, especially when there are so few left in the wild.”