The North Carolina State University collegiate chapter of BHA was able to work with some incredible organizations to complete a conservation project on one of the state’s wildlife Refuges. Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge is one of eleven wildlife refuges in the state and is home to one of the largest bear populations in the country and one of the rarest mammals on Earth. The red wolf was historically found across the eastern United States and was extirpated as the country grew, but was reintroduced to the Pamlico-Albemarle Peninsula of North Carolina in the 1980s. The population of wolves was as high as 200 individuals in the 2000s but due to changes in management there are fewer than 20 on the landscape. Things are looking up for the Canid though with consecutive years of pups being born on the landscape and changes in the management of the wolves.

This project was years in the making with collaborations from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, North Carolina Wildlife Federation, Wildlands Network, and the student chapter of the Wildlife Society. With the help of all of these organizations the NC State BHA collegiate club was able to get boots on the ground and help install camera traps on Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. This refuge is comprised of a wetland type called a pocosin that tend to burn very hot during wildfires and can spread incredibly quickly. The refuge has cut fire breaks along the refuge roads to help keep the wildfires from getting out of hand and wanted to monitor wildlife use of these areas. That is where the club comes in. We joined Ron Sutherland, the chief scientist at Wildlands Network to install cameras along these firebreaks.

Pocosin Lakes is two hours east of NC State, and so the club decided to make it a camping opportunity as well to provide more time for volunteering as well as wildlife viewing. We had a few students camping for the first time including a student from Bangladesh. Many of the students that volunteered for the project are undergraduates in the fisheries, wildlife, and conservation biology program at State, but a few were outside of natural resources. It was many students' first time participating in field work as well. We installed eight cameras across the refuge which took half the day and could have done more but couldn't due to closure from a 5,000-acre fire that had jeopardized the trip the week before we got down there.

After putting up cameras we drove to Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge to try and see a red wolf in one of their fields, and although we did not see a wolf we saw a great sunset and a few black bears. We didn't get back to camp until it was well past dark and so we got a quick meal together before a quick retreat to tents. Everyone was exhausted and we had to be up early to meet with Katerina Ramos, the red wolf education and outreach coordinator with North Carolina Wildlife Federation at the red wolf center in Columbia, NC. In the morning we got to see a pair of red wolves in the outreach cage at the center as well as their brand-new mural. The students got a full lesson on the history of the wolves as well as an in-depth Q&A with Katerina before the club drove back to Raleigh.