
DATE: Wednesday, July 16, 1997              TAG: 9707160479

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  244 lines

LAWSUIT CHALLENGES FEDERAL POLICY SOME RESIDENTS SEEK BROADER RIGHTS TO PROTECT THEMSELVES AND THEIR PROPERTY

ALLIGATOR RIVER NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, N.C. - Contrary to their bad-boy reputation, two red wolves cower in the corner of an outdoor pen as visitors approach through the woods.

Another group of humans has arrived at this steamy federal refuge, curious to see the animal that has sparked so much fear, resentment and debate in the quiet backwoods of northeastern North Carolina.

Up close, the red wolves look remarkably like German shepherds, only smaller. They do not snarl, bite or growl. They eat dry dog food, and each weighs less than 60 pounds.

The female, shedding her butterscotch-and-black coat under the summer heat, paces and pants as the visitors step closer to her caged home. As the group steps inside the metal pen, the male nervously scratches a shallow hole at the far corner and curls up in a ball.

Clearly, the red wolves wish these people would just go away.

These days, however, it's the people - or, more precisely, some people - in this rural, swampy region of the state who want the wolves to go away, viewing them as a menace to their livestock and lifestyle.

Ten years after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service launched the first attempt by man to re-establish a species considered extinct in the wild, two counties and two residents here have filed a sweeping lawsuit challenging the wolf program.

Specifically, opponents want greater latitude to trap and kill wild red wolves roaming on private property.

Their organization, called Citizens Rights Over Wolves Now, or CROWN, is well-financed and is represented by Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, a well-known law firm based in Raleigh.

In court papers and interviews, critics argue that government officials misled them about the wildlife project, which now covers more than 550,000 acres in Dare, Washington, Tyrrell, Hyde and Beaufort counties. They say their land, their rights and peace of mind have suffered.

``I mean, it's their land; they shouldn't have to put up with this,'' said Jeff Cradle, county manager of Hyde County. ``Why should some bureaucrat determine what happens on their land?''

Not everyone in the sparsely populated counties that encompass wolf country dislikes the program. Indeed, a public opinion survey in 1995 by North Carolina State University found a majority of residents support reintroduction.

A national conservation group, Defenders of Wildlife, has asked to help the government fight the lawsuit.

One hunting group that backs a small colony of wild wolves in the Great Smoky Mountains, along the border of North Carolina and Tennessee, has printed bright bumper stickers declaring, ``Rednecks for Red Wolves.''

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Raleigh, represents another jab at the national Endangered Species Act, a law that has come under fire in recent years from developers, homeowners, conservative politicians, ranchers and others who say the government is more interested in protecting rare animals and plants than people's livelihoods.

The suit, expected to go to trial later this year, illustrates a lingering resistance among residents that threatens to undermine a program that, by scientific standards, has been a tremendous success.

Where there were no wild red wolves in the United States in 1987, their population now numbers nearly 100. About 80 wild wolves can be found on public and private lands in a five-county area near Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge. (Officials are not sure of the exact number; not all the wolves are tracked with radio collars - a fact that also worries opponents.) The remainder are in the Smoky Mountains.

Another 185 live in captivity - in zoos, in pens within Alligator River refuge, and on three small islands off the coast of Mississippi, Florida and South Carolina.

Once the combined population reaches 550, the red wolf should be removed from the federal endangered species list, according to the government's recovery plan.

Michael Morse, a federal biologist and director of the wolf reintroduction program, based in Manteo, smiles wryly when asked about the lawsuit and local critics.

``With wolves, there's always a knee-jerk reaction, good and bad,'' Morse says. ``These animals stir such strong emotions. People tend to love them or hate them.''

On this day, Morse is driving visiting journalists in a Fish and Wildlife Service truck down gravel roads that pass farms and thick forests within the refuge.

``Let me tell you,'' Morse continues, ``this program was specifically set up not to impact property rights. You can hunt, fish, trap, do whatever you want. Even take a wolf that's causing a problem. There's no land restrictions.''

Indeed, the wolves are classified as ``experimental nonessential'' under federal rules. That means the government cannot force property owners to limit development or restrict activity in their own back yards, as can be done to conserve other endangered species.

Contrary to what plaintiffs allege, there never has been a report of a red wolf attacking a human, Morse insists. Not in North Carolina. Not throughout its historic range, which once extended from central Pennsylvania to Texas.

The U.S. Department of Interior established a fund to compensate residents whose livestock or pets have been killed by red wolves. Over 10 years, the agency has paid $440 - $220 for one dog, $20 for a rooster and $200 for two goats, according to records.

Critics claim that wolves have slaughtered more than what the government recognizes. They note that, under federal regulations, citizens must witness a wolf attack before they can step in with a shotgun or trap.

Given that wolves usually hunt after sundown, witnessing an attack is nearly impossible, critics say.

``It's usually at night or in the dark, and I don't know too many people who are out in their fields at this time, or can see in this type of situation,'' said E. Lawrence Davis III, a Raleigh-based attorney representing CROWN in its lawsuit.

A major supporter of CROWN's effort is James E. Johnson, president of Coastland Corp. and a Virginia Beach resident, according to officials on both sides of the case. Johnson owns a 10,000-acre farm in Hyde County, which he bought in ``1989 or early '90,'' after the wolf program began; he uses the land as a country retreat and private hunting lodge, a Coastland spokeswoman said.

According to Alligator River refuge staff, Johnson occasionally has complained to them about wolves scaring deer off his land.

One of Johnson's chief complaints, his spokeswoman said, is that he has had to hire private trappers to remove wolves when the refuge staff failed to do so.

But Johnson is not a plaintiff in the lawsuit. Joining Hyde and Washington counties as plaintiffs are two northeast North Carolina residents who say they've been wronged by the wolf program as well.

Charles Gilbert Gibbs, a Hyde County businessman and farmer, complained in court papers that ``four or five'' of his calves were killed by red wolves in late January or early February. But he was not compensated.

The government investigated but could not find a wolf nearby.

Refuge manager Mike Bryant said that one calf apparently died after being trapped in a ditch; another was left out in the freezing cold. ``There was just no physical evidence that wolves were even around there,'' Bryant said.

Frustrated, Gibbs hired a trapper, who snared four wolves within a half-mile of the dead calves, according to court papers.

Richard Lee Mann, the other plaintiff, also from Hyde County, is the only person successfully prosecuted for killing a wolf. He was fined $2,000 and made to build doghouses as a penalty for shooting an uncollared red wolf in 1991 that, according to court papers, Mann felt was a threat to his cattle.

Bryant responded that Mann's mistake was to not inform the refuge of the shooting within 24 hours, as required by law.

Opponents are asking the federal government to abide by a state law, passed in 1994, that makes it easier to kill a wild red wolf on private property.

The law says that land owners simply must ``reasonably believe'' that people or livestock are ``threatened'' by a wild wolf before they can legally destroy one.

To do so under federal rules, a wolf must be ``in the act of killing livetock or pets.'' A wolf also can be taken if previous efforts to trap it have failed.

Reviled in literature, movies and pop culture for their predatory nature, wolves definitely have an image problem. They often are portrayed stalking children, attacking defenseless animals and, of course, terrorizing the Three Little Pigs.

Slowly, though, biologists and environmentalists have begun to paint an opposite picture, one based on field study and long-term tracking, showing that wolves simply like to be left alone.

They seem to need at least 10,000 acres each to roam, Morse said, noting that in northeast North Carolina, they have about 50,000 acres a piece. They like the wilderness, it seems, mostly because man is not there.

The red wolf is a fairly small animal, standing less than 26 inches high on average. The heaviest wolf recorded in North Carolina is just over 60 pounds, Morse said.

They are powerfully sleek, however, like a greyhound or a defensive back in football. Their strength, Morse said, is in their shoulders.

Red wolves are introverts, scientists believe. Where other wolves will wander in large packs that include members of various clans, the red wolf prefers to roam by itself or with its small, immediate family, Morse said.

Wild wolves eat meat, usually deer. They also prey on raccoons, rabbits and rodents. About 2 percent of their diet includes livestock and domestic pets, according to federal research papers.

Then there are claims that the red wolf is not a species at all, but rather a mutt, a hybrid not in need of government protection.

The National Wilderness Institute, a property-rights organization, petitioned the government in 1995 to remove the red wolf from the endangered species list because it allegedly was a mix between the gray wolf and the coyote.

Morse said that petition was rejected after a series of DNA tests - although he acknowledged that red wolves have been known to mate with coyotes and other wolf types.

``It's a non-issue that opponents of the program and the Endangered Species Act have tried to raise,'' he said.

Opponents also contend that red wolves are not native to North Carolina. They say the government chose this state for the program because it owns so much land here and because there were few humans to protest.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has responded that at least one archeological specimen was found in North Carolina, and that court records in eastern North Carolina from 1768 to 1789 indicate that bounties were paid to hunters who produced dead wolves.

The red wolf was nearly wiped out because of such bounties, and because of intense trapping and the development of their favored wilderness, beginning in earnest in the 18th century and continuing today, experts and researchers say.

Virginia once held a small population of red wolves. But timbering and homesteading quickly pushed them out; experts say hardly any were left by the late 1700s.

Fear that they might become extinct was first raised in a study published in 1962. Five years later, the red wolf was declared an endangered species. And in 1980, the animal was classified as biologically extinct in the wild.

The Fish and Wildlife Service at first tried to launch a reintroduction program on land between Tennessee and Kentucky. That effort failed in 1984 due to local protests.

So the government looked to North Carolina, where the Prudential Insurance Co. had just donated more than 100,000 acres for a sanctuary that later was named the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge.

In September 1987, four pairs of red wolves, raised at a zoo in Washington state, were released into the refuge in an unprecedented experiment to save a species.

A similar program for the gray wolf, drawing even more controversy, was initiated in Yellowstone National Park in 1995. And plans are evolving for a reintroduction plan to save the Mexican wolf, in Arizona and New Mexico.

Despite the lawsuit and local opposition in North Carolina, the government remains confident that it will reach its goal of creating a population of at least 550 red wolves.

To get there, officials are searching for ``one or two'' more locations to release wild wolves. Sites in Mississippi and South Carolina are the top candidates so far, according to Morse and Bryant.

Officials say they're ``pretty much done'' with new releases in North Carolina and with paying private land owners for wolf-roaming rights. Such agreements, signed with farmers and timber companies, allow wolves to wander beyond the refuge's boundaries.

``We've got a good core population established,'' Morse said, noting that for the second year in a row, 12 wild wolf litters were born in the springtime.

``From here,'' he said, ``we just need to manage the population, track it and hopefully the natural system can be restored to some degree.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

DREW C. WILSON/The Virginian-Pilot

A pair of red wolves in captivity at the Alligator River National

Wildlife Refuge in Dare County, N.C., didn't live up to their fierce

reputation when a photographer visited them last month. Still, some

people have concerns about the reintroduction program.

Graphic

FACT AND FICTION

Reviled in literature, movies and pop culture for their predatory

nature, wolves definitely have an image problem. But this is what is

known about them:

Red wolves seem to need at least 10,000 acres each to roam. They

like the wilderness, it seems, because man is not there.