THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, November 14, 1994 TAG: 9411140068
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 167 lines
ALLIGATOR RIVER NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE - Charcoal clouds scuttle across the darkening sky, creating shadows on the wooden cabin's hand-hewn walls.
Rae Braudaway lights a lantern in the lone, lofty room. She sets a single supper on the propane stove. The 22-year-old's nearest neighbor is more than four miles away.
The wolves are just outside her door.
This college student has no roommates. No electricity. No running water. She travels five miles to a maintenance shed for showers and phone calls. Sometimes she goes for days without encountering another person.
Braudaway spends her evenings in silence, reading, writing. While waiting for her dinner to warm, she pulls a book from a crate in the corner. She tucks her thick, chestnut hair behind her ears and flips a few pages.
Then, she hears the howl.
At first, it's only one wolf - somewhere down the pine needle path deep in the forest. Then, another voice answers, low, long, loud. Four, eight, a dozen different calls join the throaty dissonance. Each carries a separate pitch. Some are plaintive; some high, frantic. The animals' wild chorus echoes through the thick boughs. Sound swells in the blackness.
This is what Rae Braudaway came to hear.
``When I first got here, I woke up every time they howled. Often, that was 10 times a night. I was exhausted the next day, but I was excited,'' says Braudaway, who is spending six months secluded in the wilderness. ``Real red wolves were out there, howling. And I was the only one who heard.''
A junior at Leslie College in Cambridge, Mass., Braudaway is studying with the Audubon Expedition, a traveling undergraduate program which lets her chart her own studies in environmental philosophy.
In August, she began a full-time volunteer position with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's red wolf reintroduction program. She is helping an endangered species survive again in the wild. She's living out a life-long dream.
``Ever since I can remember, I've wanted to work with wolves,'' says Braudaway, who grew up in Reston, Va. - a well-developed suburb of Washington. ``This is time off for me. This is something I really love.''
With the assistance of a local Rotary Club stipend, she gets $40 a week for expenses and an equal amount for groceries. She uses a wildlife agency truck for work-related transportation. Except to do laundry, she rarely leaves the refuge.
Braudaway's cabin is an A-frame owned by the federal government. It's on the Dare County mainland, in the center of a swampy forest. A privy stands 50 yards from the front door.
The 25 wolves live in chain-link pens, a quarter-mile away.
Two coyotes share the fenced space.
Braudaway looks after them all.
``I feed them three times a week, raw meat and dog food. I watch their health, check their stools for parasites, build whelping boxes for the pups and pour concrete feeding pads.
``Some days, I drive around picking up wolf scats for the biologist. I help him inject medicine. I go on releases.''
In the mid-1970s, wildlife experts declared there were only 14 pure-bred red wolves left roaming the wilds of North America. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service officials caught them to begin breeding programs. All living red wolves are descendants of those animals.
The Alligator River red wolf program started in 1987. It employs five full-time workers and a volunteer - Braudaway. About $350,000 in federal funds is used annually. Braudaway helps breed the wolves in captivity, then travels deep into the refuge to release them on sandy flatlands.
Besides the local refuge - about a half-hour drive west of the Outer Banks - red wolves are being reintroduced to the wild in the Great Smoky Mountains. The federal breeding program is based in Tacoma, Wash.
On the 17,000-acre Dare County refuge, more than 50 red wolves have been released so far. The animals wear radio-controlled collars for easy tracking. But they learn to live on their own.
Sometimes, they visit Braudaway.
``There's a free-ranging wolf who comes by regularly,'' says Braudaway, whose green eyes often gravitate toward the cabin's wide windows, watching for wolves and other wildlife. ``She's outside here once a week, at least. I look forward to seeing her.
``There's also what must be a bear that comes by. I hear it at 11:30 every night, walking. It sounds like a human. But I know that it's not. The step is a little heavier.
``I'm not afraid of any animals. But I am afraid of people.
``A hunter knocked on my door after dark one night, holding a rifle. He wanted a ride to his truck. I just gave him a flashlight.''
Of all the animals, Braudaway says she respects wolves the most.
``I've always liked canines. And wolves are this even more mysterious creature. They're wonderful, wild. And the fact that they were so persecuted also intrigued me. It makes no sense.
``Wolves never attack people. Never. They won't even come around humans unless they're sick. I go into their pens three times a week and have never felt anything close to being threatened. That doesn't mean you can go up and pet them. They don't let you come near them.
``Wolves don't kill for the sake of killing. People do much more of that than wolves do.''
Sometimes, Braudaway helps other wildlife officials re-capture wolves which have already been released into the wild. If the animals venture onto private property, some people object. Wolves who have strayed outside their official refuge boundaries are relegated to eternal captivity.
``This female killed some chickens so she has to stay in a pen now,'' Braudaway said during a morning feeding, as the 60-pound, cinnamon-colored creature paced the perimeter of her 50-by-50 foot world. ``She must have gotten too used to people before she was released. Now, she can't be let go again.''
Although the red wolf program has come under complaint from some citizens, Braudaway is certain the reintroduction work can survive. The public just needs to be educated, she says. There is still so much to learn.
``A lot of people are brought up to dislike wolves. They think they're evil. They think they're aggressive.
``But we're the real predator,'' says Braudaway, who is a vegetarian. ``They're trying to get a law passed right now so that if a wolf comes onto your land you can shoot it at will. At least they call us to come get them now. If people can just shoot them, wolves won't be able to survive.''
Braudaway admits that a lot of people don't understand her work - or philosophies. Even her parents are confused about their daughter, the wolf woman. Her father, a computer research scientist, works in an office outside New York City. Her mother is a social worker in Northern Virginia. They've both come to visit. But Braudaway says they're still unsure about her mission.
``I've had a lot of expansions on revelations while I've been here. I've had a lot of time to think, out here alone. I spend a lot of time thinking about the human view of nature as an evil entity. It's OK for humans to hunt deer with guns. But if a wolf kills one to eat, that's unacceptable.
``Technology and machines make mankind think we can conquer everything. It's given humans the false impression that it's all right to dominate nature. Returning to more simple living is the answer. But that's only an ideal. People need to lose cars and electricity before they change. If they lost those two things, they would have to re-evaluate their priorities and their lives. We're altering things, causing other creatures to die.
``Sometimes I wonder, does it make more sense to let a species die out naturally? Or should we go back and save it, correct what we've done? Or maybe we should stop interfering entirely, because intervention is what caused the problem in the first place. I'm not sure I know the answer.
``But I do think this program is important,'' Braudaway says of her work. ``It's important because it allows people to think about the mistakes we've made and start dealing with those mistakes in a positive way.''
While the rest of the world watches prime time television, Braudaway steps outside most nights to howl with her neighbors. She cups her hands to her mouth and throws back her head. Her throat expands with the call.
Almost always, the wolves respond.
``It makes me feel less lonely out here, when they howl,'' says Braudaway, whose silent solitude sometimes makes her sad. ``The wolves make me feel happy, alive. I feel less isolated here than when I was living in Boston last semester. There, there were lots of people. But I was always very alone.
``Here, the wolves are always near.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color Staff photo by DREW WILSON/
[red wolf]
B&W photo by Drew Wilson
Rae Braudaway, 22, lives in a two-room cabin in the Alligator River
National Wildlife Refuge. She is spending six months in the
wilderness working to reintroduce red wolves to the wild.
B&W photo
Rae Braudaway\
Graphic
Poem #2, Excerpt
[for copy, see microfilm
Staff map
Area shown: Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge.
KEYWORDS: RED WOLVES by CNB