Beginning, again-ing
I’m working really hard on something these days, and as a result feel sort of like I’m studying for finals, all the time; I’m also feeling a bit overwhelmed in general (and I don’t think I’m alone in feeling that way these days…). This is all a disclaimer to say this post is rather brief and fragmented, but I wanted to send a newsletter out today, Endangered Species Day Thanks for reading and for subscribing; I promise more is coming soon.
Pup alert! Severe cuteness warning!
Glad to share the news now that it’s been officially announced (and before it’s not news anymore): three new red wolf pups were born at the Museum of Life & Science, just a stone’s throw from my house in Durham, where my red wolf obsession began… many years ago, now!
Photo of the little guys below, from the museum’s blog.
Wolf mom Martha (2242F) the dad Oka (2048M) are both gorgeous and amazing, brought together first at the Wolf Conservation Center in NY and transferred to this museum last year via the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ SAFE (Saving Animals From Extinction) Program. Martha was born in 2018, Oka in 2014.
If you’re just joining us here (hello!): red wolves are critically endangered, with fewer than 300 animals existing today, including those under human care and those few remaining in the wild, and I’m writing a book about them and the extraordinary ongoing effort to recover them from extinction.
Here are pics of Martha (top) and Oka (bottom), credit the Wolf Conservation Center:
These new arrivals (all three are males) will be resting and bonding with their parents for a bit, and their habitat at the museum will be off limits to visitors for a while. But just wait until you/we can go see them! Visiting last year’s litter (different parents; that wolf family has since moved on, in accordance with larger-scale Red Wolf SAFE breeding plans)—well, it was a highlight of the spring/summer for me. And that was before we’d entered Hellscape Chaos Regime the sequel, so I imagine it will be a realm balm this year.
Here’s footage I took of the adult wolves and one of the pups howling at the sound of a passing siren last year:
Speaking of the Chaos Regime… with this announcement, I can’t help but think back to when I first learned about red wolves, which (despite over twenty years coming and going from North Carolina) was just about seven years ago, around the midpoint of Trump’s previous Presidency… I found unexpected solace visiting a family of them at the science museum. I live in Durham, four hours by car and in some ways worlds apart from the wildlife refuges on the low-lying Albemarle-Pamlico peninsula region where they were first released back in 1987, and where about seventeen are known to live wild today.
The announcement of the new litter of red wolf pups born at the museum lent a spot pof brightness to otherwise relentlessly bleak news reports in 2018—melting ice caps, attacks against journalists, and most horrific for me the accounts of “zero tolerance” family separations happening at the U.S./Mexico border. I was having trouble sleeping, unable to stop imagining my two small children being ripped from my arms and put into cages.
Once the wolf pups were big enough to start venturing from their den and it was possible to view them from a distance, I started going whenever I could. Though I usually went to the museum with my kids, on these occasions I came alone. Often I was first through the doors when it opened. To get to the wolves’ museum habitat, I would descend a zig-zagging boardwalk over a dark, pollen-dusted lake, rimmed with thick vegetation. The wall of green reflected in the water, puckering here and there with flitting insects. I’d been feeling unmoored lately, increasingly angry and powerless. But for those few fleeting minutes, entering their tranquil, sun-dappled domain, I could at least imagine my troubles lifting. Here were trees filled with chirping birds, a swath of uninterrupted sky and, if I was lucky, no other people in sight.
My hope on these solo excursions was that I might spot one of the pups venturing from the den—if I arrived early enough, before the raucous school field trips and stroller armies showed up. I’d had no luck, yet, my only glimpse of them on the den’s grainy night-vision camera, but I enjoyed watching the adult male and female, too. They loped across the grass, long-legged and lithe, their glossy coats tinged with the color of sunrise, the tawny cast that gives them their name. Their yellow eyes occasionally met mine with such utter remoteness. I realized this, in addition to the peace and solitude, was another reason I’d come: this reminder of nature’s indifference was oddly comforting—as was seeing the inherent wildness of the wolves, captive though they were.
By the time I took my kids to the museum to show them the pups, they weren’t technically pups anymore: they weighed over thirty pounds then, too big for keepers to cradle in their arms during physical exams, as they had just a few weeks earlier. From now on, the juveniles would be handled more rarely. It happens, the museum’s Animal Director, Sherry, wrote in a blog post about how quickly they’d grown.
When we arrived, we were thrilled to find the entire wolf family out and frolicking. They gamboled up and down the hill, they rolled on the grass, they gnawed on what appeared to be the rib cage of a small animal. I identified for my kids the mother and father, then the pups—2246 had Yoda-like, horizontally-aiming ears; 2247 was slightly darker, colored like their father. I explained that the wolves at this museum, like others in the network of affiliated zoos and conservation centers across the country, were identified by number rather than name (this has since changed)—in part for research purposes, in part to avoid sentimental attachment. The hope, I told my children, was that red wolves would one day all live in the wild again.
They stood beside me, rapt, a chorus of cicadas thrumming the air around us. My children, who still climbed into bed with my husband and me each morning; who still liked to be rocked, and held, and sung to. Someday, they wouldn’t; it happens. For the moment, while they still let me, I took their small hands in mine.
A video I’d seen recently on the museum website had shown the pups practicing howling. As with all characteristic behaviors, they learn by imitating their parents. The adults used body language—raised hackles, bared fangs—when the pups overstepped, showing them when to re-assume their proper place in the pack. Like children, the pups played at being grownups, practicing for what they would become.
Other lovely things
I went to the Tuscarora Nation of NC’s powwow on Saturday in Robeson County, and it was incredible. I wish I’d had a lot more time to spend there but this was I hope the first of many visits.
I took some beautiful video but I’m not sure about sharing it; instead I will post this publicly shared video of the drumming and music that accompanied much of the incredible dancing that I watched.
In other good news, I get to see two amazing women perform their beautiful music this week, Waxahatchee on Wednesday and my friend Lalitree tonight. <3
I loved Katie/Waxahatchee’s look on stage… She was giving Southern Goth. Her sound made me think of Dolly x Natalie Merchant x Stevie Nicks.
A few other neat things:
Chimps doing first aid on each other might shed some light on evolution of human health care— and I dare say we in the U.S. could use some light right now…
Ethiopian wolves found to enjoy nectar and possible acting as pollinators
Flowers from our gardens, including the new addition this year (potted) hibiscus:
I’m running a 5K with my daughter on Saturday morning with Girls On the Run and I don’t really ever run, ever, so I appreciate your prayers/good thoughts/stretching recs.
Random get-into-summer-spirit tip: wearing a sheer button-down shirt open and unbuttoned over a tank top. I did this yesterday and immediately felt like I was on a tropical vacation somewhere, breeze blowing it off my bare shoulders, even though I was just walking my dog on our familiar loop around the high school. I suppose you could just wear a regular tank top without a shirt over it, but there was something about the sheerness and the breeze blowing. Very particular conditions, I realize. It’s incredibly unrelated to anything on this SubStack except I suppose vague ideas of hopefulness but I’m keeping it.
Speaking of my dog, he sleeps in the most wonderfully contorted positions. Please enjoy this series. Take care of yourselves.
Coraline, who’s been doing a school project on wolves, was the one who hearted this. 🥰