Defenders' Experts
Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge - North Carolina
The newly restored red wolf-some 100 now roam free in North Carolina-is one piece of a larger community of wildlife that thrives in the refuge. The Albemarle Peninsula embraces one of the East Coast's largest and healthiest estuaries, part of which flows through the refuge's 150,000 plus acres. In addition to providing substantial habitat for the red wolf, the refuge's bogs, marshes and swamps mark the northernmost end of the American alligator's range and support a rare eastern stronghold of black bears. They are also resting place and home to the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker, peregrine falcon and bald eagle, and to hundreds of other bird species, including songbirds that flit about the vast, unbroken forested swamplands and rails, herons, tundra swans, pintails and wood ducks that flock to ponds and brackish waters.
The Threat
The low-lying nature of the Alligator River refuge constitutes its greatest vulnerability to global warming. The rise in sea level that scientists expect in the next century would inundate much of the refuge, turning low-lying acreage into open water, forest into marsh, and eliminating precious habitat for the red wolf, the refuge's most charismatic creature. With coastal waters on three sides and development to the west of its current range, the red wolf has limited options for shifting its habitat in response to changing conditions.
The repercussions of a large rise in sea level will be especially harsh for marsh specialists such as rails, birds that are not strong flyers. How habitat and wildlife respond depends on how much and how quickly sea level rises and the ability of species to adapt.
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