Rising seas endanger wetland wildlife

Abigail Tucker in the Smithsonian.com: When a buttermilk moon rises over Alligator River, listen for red wolves… By the mid-1970s, because of overhunting and habitat loss, just a few survived. Biologists captured 17 and bred them in captivity, and in 1987 released four pairs in North Carolina’s Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge.

Today more than 100 red wolves inhabit the refuge and the surrounding peninsula—the world’s first successful wolf reintroduction, eight years ahead of the better-known gray wolf project in Yellowstone National Park. The densely vegetated Carolina refuge is perfect for red wolves: full of prey such as white-tailed deer and raccoons and practically devoid of people. Perfect, except it may all be underwater soon.

Coastal North Carolina is more vulnerable than almost anywhere else in the United States to sea-level rise associated with climate change, and the 154,000-acre Alligator River refuge could be one of the first areas to go under. … Most of it lies only about a foot above sea level.

Scientists at Alligator River are now engaged in a pioneering effort to help the ecosystem survive. Their idea is to help shift the entire habitat—shrubby bogs, red wolves, bears and all—gradually inland, while using simple wetland-restoration techniques to guard against higher tides and catastrophic storms. At a time when many coastal U.S. communities are paralyzed by debate and hard choices, such decisive action is unusual, if not unique...

Cahills Crossing on the East Alligator River in Kakadu National Park with the tide coming in. Shot by kenhodge13, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license