Escaped murderer still at large slips out of search area, steals van, tries to contact ex-co-workers
PHOENIXVILLE, Pa. — Authorities say an escaped murderer who has eluded capture since breaking out of a southeastern Pennsylvania prison a week and a half ago slipped out of the search area, changed his appearance, stole a dairy delivery van, abandoning it miles away and remained at large.Lt. Col. George Bivens of the Pennsylvania State Police said Sunday that Danelo Souza Cavalcante stole the unlocked van which had the keys inside sometime Saturday night about three-quarters of a mile from the northern perimeter of the search area where hundreds of law enforcement officers had been searching for him.Baily’s Dairy said on its Facebook page that the delivery van was stolen between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. Saturday “while we were still here working.”The theft wasn’t noticed for hours, and in the meantime Cavalcante, 34, traveled more than 20 miles (32 kilometers) northeast to East Pikeland Township and Phoenixville. Shortly before 10 p.m. Saturday he went to an East Pikeland Township home of a person he had worked with several years ago and asked to meet with him, police said. The homeowner, who was at dinner with his family and didn’t respond, called police after returning home and reviewing his doorbell video. Shortly after 10 p.m. Saturday, police said, Cavalcante went to the Phoenixville area home of another former work associate, who wasn’t home, police said.Doorbell video images showed Cavalcante to be now clean-shaven and wearing a yellow or green hooded sweatshirt, black baseball cap, green prison pants and white shoes, police said. The stolen van was found at 10:40 a.m. Sunday in a field behind a barn in East Nantmeal Township, about 15 miles (24 kilometers) west of Phoenixville.Bivens said he believed Cavalcante abandoned the vehicle at least in part because it was low on fuel. While law enforcement was searching the immediate area for any signs of him authorities were concerned that he would attempt to obtain another vehicle or had already done so. “I do not have a report of a stolen vehicle; I anticipate that we will,” he said. Bivens expressed confidence, how that the fugitive would eventually be recaptured, vowing to “aggressively continue” the search with the aid of federal, state, county and local resources.“This is a minor setback,” he said. “We’ll get him, it’s a matter of time”Cavalcante, 34, escaped from the Chester County Prison while awaiting transfer to state prison on Aug. 31 after being sentenced to life for fatally stabbing his ex-girlfriend in 2021. Prosecutors say he wanted to stop her from telling police that he’s wanted in a killing in his home country of Brazil.Police on Saturday had reported two more confirmed sightings of Cavalcante within the search area around the Longwood Gardens botanical park, the center of the search in recent days. Bivens said Friday that about 400 personnel were taking part in the search, including tactical teams, tracking dogs, and officers on horseback as well as aircraft.Despite the massive searches, Bivens said the area had some underground tunnels and “very large drainage ditches” that were impossible to secure completely. Police had been planning to use close to 600 personnel Monday for “one massive sweep” of the search area, he said.Authorities have described Cavalcante as extremely dangerous. Police are asking anyone with information to call 911. A $20,000 reward is being offered for information leading to his capture. Authorities on Friday announced the firing of the prison tower guard on duty when Cavalcante scaled a wall by crab-walking up from the recreation yard, climbed over razor wire, ran across a roof and jumped to the ground. His escape went undetected for more than an hour until guards took a headcount.Cavalcante’s escape and the search has attracted international attention and became big news in Brazil, where prosecutors in Tocantins state say he’s accused of “double qualified homicide” in the 2017 slaying of Válter Júnior Moreira dos Reis in Figueirópolis, which they allege was over a debt the victim owed him in connection with repair of a vehicle.
Country singer-songwriter Charlie Robison dies in Texas at age 59
SAN ANTONIO — Charlie Robison, the Texas singer-songwriter whose rootsy anthems made the country charts until he was forced to retire after complications from a medical procedure left him unable to sing, died Sunday. He was 59.Robison died at a hospital in San Antonio after suffering cardiac arrest and other complications, according to a family representative.Robison launched his music career in the late 1980s, playing in local Austin bands like Two Hoots and a Holler before forming his own Millionaire Playboys. In 1996, he released his solo debut, “Bandera,” named for the Texas Hill Country town where his family has had a ranch for generations.When he was approached by Sony in 1998, Robison signed with its Lucky Dog imprint, which was devoted to rawer country. His 2001 album “Step Right Up” produced his only Top 40 country song, “I Want You Bad.”In 2018, Robison announced that he had permanently lost the ability to sing following a surgical procedure on his throat. “Therefore, with a very heavy heart I am officially retiring from the stage and studio,” he wrote on Facebook.Robison served as a judge for one year on USA Network’s “Nashville Star,” a reality TV show in which contestants lived together while competing for a country music recording contract. He is survived by his wife, Kristen Robison, and four children and stepchildren. Three of his children were with his first wife, Emily Strayer, a founding member of the superstar country band The Chicks. They divorced in 2008.Robison’s breakup with Strayer inspired songs on the 2009 album “Beautiful Day.” He recorded it while living across from the Greyhound bus station in San Antonio, in a loft apartment with mismatched furniture and strewn beer bottles, “the quintessential bachelor pad,” he recalled.“People come up to me and say they’re going through something right now, and it’s like this is completely written about them,” Robison told The Associated Press in 2009. “I wasn’t meaning to do that, but it’s been a residual effect of the record.”Robison’s final album, the rock-tinged “High Life” from 2013, included a cover version of Bob Dylan’s “When I Paint My Masterpiece.”Memorial services are pending.
Stock market today: World shares surge after Wall St gains on signs the US jobs market is cooling
Stocks were higher in Europe and Asia on Monday following a report that signaled the US jobs market, while still healthy, shows some signs of cooling, raising hopes for an easing of interest rate hikes. Germany’s DAX advanced 0.7% to 15,949.69 and the CAC 40 in Paris picked up 0.8% to 7,354.96. In London, the FTSE 100 was up 0.8% at 7,522.38.The futures for the S
Grand Slam tournaments are getting hotter. US Open players and fans may feel that this week
NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — Andy Murray prepared for the steamy conditions often found at the U.S. Open by simulating the “brutal heat and humidity” in New York this time of year with the help of, well, an actual steam room at his home.The 36-year-old British tennis star set the humidity in there at 70% and spent hours riding a stationary bike nearby with the thermostat cranked up to 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 Celsius), making the air feel as muggy as it does every summer around Flushing Meadows, where the year’s last Grand Slam tournament entered its second week on Monday. “Just to try and help with the heat adaptation,” explained Murray, who claimed the title in New York in 2012 but lost in mild conditions in the second round this time.If the start of competition at the 2023 U.S. Open offered a bit of a reprieve for athletes, ball crews and spectators alike, thanks to highs mostly in the 70s F (20s C) — “It is a little cooler than usual; that’s definitely easier to play in,” Belgian player Elise Mertens said last week — that changed Sunday, when it hit 90 F (32 C). The temperature was forecast to soar even more in the coming days. That’s not a surprise: An Associated Press analysis shows the average high temperatures felt during the U.S. Open and the three other major tennis tournaments steadily have gotten higher and more dangerous in recent decades, reflecting the climate change that created record heat waves around the globe this summer. For athletes, it can keep them from playing their best and, worse, increases the likelihood of heat-related illness. The AP tracked the thermal comfort index, which measures air temperature in degrees while also taking into account humidity, radiation, wind and other factors that affect how the body responds. It looked at each Grand Slam event dating to 1988, the first year all four had 128-player fields for women and men. Collectively, the maximum temperatures at those tournaments has risen by nearly 5 degrees F (nearly 3 C).“People hear that and they don’t think it’s very much. It doesn’t necessarily register as alarming. Sometimes that 3- or 4-degree change can cause a doubling or even tripling of the number of hot days we experience,” said Daniel Bader, a climate scientist at Columbia University. “New York City’s temperatures have been rising, and that trend is projected to continue into the future.”Other AP findings:— From 1988 to 1992, daily highs in the thermal comfort index passed the threshold for strong heat stress, which is 90 F (32 C), on 7% of days with Grand Slam matches. From 2018 to 2022 that figure was 16%.— The U.S. Open’s overall rise of nearly 3 F (1.5 C) since 1988 means it isn’t even the Grand Slam site where the heat is increasing most rapidly. That’s the Australian Open, where the average high temperatures jumped by more than 6 F (about 3.5 C).Still, the U.S. Open often was the hottest of the four majors in any given year. Players can tell.“I remember the year I won, the last four days it was super hot and super humid,” said 2016 U.S. Open champion Stan Wawrinka of Switzerland. “It’s one of the toughest tournaments, fitness-wise. … Your body really loses a lot of energy.”The U.S. Open’s spot late in the tennis season creates an accumulation of wear-and-tear and general fatigue, but the sweltering conditions at Flushing Meadows likely deserve some blame for a high number of in-match retirements there.Since 1988, there have been 17 occasions in which at least 10 players at one Slam stopped during matches, more than half of them at the U.S. Open. The three highest totals came in New York: 16 in 2015, 15 in 2011, and 14 in 2018, when a half-dozen men stopped on Day 2 because of heat issues.“We’re seeing a lot more heat-related illnesses across all sports,” said Elan Goldwaser, a sports medicine physician at Columbia University Medical Center who works with athletes on the U.S. ski team and at Fordham University. The blue hard courts at the U.S. Open absorb heat more than the grass at Wimbledon or the clay at the French Open, making it feel as much as 15 degrees F (about 8 C) hotter than the air temperature, according to the U.S. Tennis Association. Athletes “are essentially playing on a hot plate,” Goldwaser said.“Their ability to hit the ball as hard starts to go down. Their reaction time starts to go down,” said Jon Femling, the clinical vice chair of emergency medicine at the University of New Mexico. “Getting heated up, your body’s first response is to try and cool down, and the way it does that is by pumping blood to all of your skin. … Your heart just has to immediately start working harder.”The fans in the stands need to be careful, too, especially if alcohol is involved.On one cooler-than-usual yet sunny day during qualifying rounds ahead of the Aug. 28 to Sept. 10 main draw in New York, spectators grabbed free sunscreen samples and cooled off near misting fans. “I have empathy, sympathy … for tennis players,” said Ola Yinka, a 45-year-old filmmaker from Chicago. “I used to play tennis as a kid, so I remember I would have fun with my dad. But at the same time, after like 10 minutes, I was like, ‘I don’t even want to play.’”At the U.S. Open, players get 75 seconds to rest between games and two minutes between sets. That’s time enough to hydrate with water or electrolyte-packed drinks, enjoy cold air pushed through a tube or wrap an ice-filled towel around their neck. It’s not enough time, though, to lower the body’s core temperature. So physiotherapists watch for dizziness, cramping and other signs of heat illness. “We might suggest that they’re not safe to play,” said Reshma Rathod, a WTA physiotherapist. “They may not want to stop.” U.S. Open tournament referee Jake Garner said chair umpires serve as “the first line of defense” if someone is in real danger, but “in general, we leave (it up to) the players.”While some athletes, like Murray, find unusual ways to train, others figure the acclimatization that comes from dealing with heat and humidity at tournament after tournament, week after week, year after year, or from living in places like Florida — a favorite base for many — will help.“For a recreational player who may be watching on TV, to think about playing a tennis match when it’s 92 degrees out and 95% humidity — they might think that’s just unfathomable,” said Todd Ellenbecker, the ATP vice president for medical services. “But our players … play in that kind of heat throughout the entire year.” ___Wildeman reported from Hartford, Connecticut.___AP tennis coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/tennisAP climate and environment coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment
Takeaways from AP’s reporting on efforts to restore endangered red wolves to the wild
ALLIGATOR RIVER NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, N.C. — The red wolf’s journey from extinction in the wild to conservation poster child and back to the brink has been swift and stunning.The only wolf species unique to the United States, Canis rufus once roamed from Texas to Long Island, New York. Today, the last wild populations, totaling about two dozen animals, are clinging to existence on two federal wildlife refuges in eastern North Carolina.The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is preparing an updated recovery plan to ensure the species’ survival in the wild. But the plan counts on private landowners to tolerate the wolves, and history is not on the side of “America’s wolf.”Here are the key takeaways from the AP’s reporting:WHY WERE RED WOLVES DECLARED EXTINCT IN THE WILD?After generations of killings, habitat loss and pressure from human development, the red wolf was declared “threatened with extinction” under the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966. With the signing of the Endangered Species Act in 1973, the last known families were pulled from the coasts of Texas and Louisiana and placed in captive breeding programs. The species was declared extinct in the wild in 1980.WHAT HAPPENED AFTER RED WOLVES WERE REINTRODUCED TO THE WILD?By 1987, the captive population was considered robust enough to try to reintroduce Canis rufus to the wild. Populations were established at Alligator River Wildlife Refuge in North Carolina and later in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The mountain experiment was terminated due to low pup survival and failure to thrive, but the coastal population eventually grew from eight animals to about 120 in 2012.WHY DID THE EASTERN NORTH CAROLINA WOLF POPULATION COLLAPSE?A combination of vehicle strikes and gunshots, coupled with the interbreeding of the wolves and invasive coyotes and pressure from private landowners, led Fish and Wildlife to suspend releases from the captive population. Conservationists sued the agency, claiming it had abandoned its duty under the Endangered Species Act. The wild numbers dropped to as low as seven known wolves before the agency resumed captive-bred releases.HOW CAN YOU TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A COYOTE AND A RED WOLF?Red wolves are substantially larger, weighing up to 80 pounds (36.2 kilograms), while the largest coyotes in the area weigh in at around 35 pounds (15.8 kilograms), says Joe Madison, North Carolina manager for the Red Wolf Recovery Program. The wolves’ heads also are larger, with broader muzzles. “Red wolves, a lot of times look like they’re walking on stilts because their legs are so long,” Madison says, noting they even move across the landscape differently. While a coyote will slink along the edges of woods and brush, the wolves walk down the middle of the road. “They know they’re the apex predator,” he says. “They’re the top dog.”WHAT IS THE AGENCY DOING TO AVOID A REPEAT OF THE LAST COLLAPSE?Fish and Wildlife has stepped up public education about the wolves, placing orange collars on them to keep them from being mistaken for coyotes, erecting road signs warning motorists to drive with caution and partnering with private landowners to share their property with the wolves. They are sterilizing coyotes in the area and euthanizing coyote-wolf hybrids when they’re found.IS IT EVER LEGAL TO SHOOT A RED WOLF?The ’intentional or willful” killing of a red wolf is against federal law, although landowners are allowed to remove a “nuisance” wolf if it attacks people, their livestock or pets. The killing of a wolf may also be legal if it is “incidental” to otherwise legal activities, such as trapping coyotes. Any killing must be reported to Fish and Wildlife within 24 hours. There have been no known red wolf attacks on people, and only nine suspected attacks on farm animals or pets, Madison says.
Iga Swiatek's US Open title defense and stay at No. 1 end with a loss to Jelena Ostapenko
NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — Iga Swiatek arrived at the U.S. Open as its reigning champion, as the winner at three of the past six Grand Slam tournaments and as the owner of the No. 1 ranking for nearly 1 1/2 years. None of that mattered on Sunday night against Jelena Ostapenko, whose powerful style disrupts Swiatek’s rhythm — and beats her every time.Swiatek’s title defense at Flushing Meadows ended in the fourth round with a 3-6, 6-3, 6-1 loss to 2017 French Open champion Ostapenko in the fourth round at Arthur Ashe Stadium. The result also means Swiatek’s stay at atop the WTA will end next week, when current No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka will rise to the top spot for the first time.“There are some sad emotions” about falling from No. 1, Swiatek acknowledged, while also saying of her reign atop women’s tennis: “It was pretty exhausting.”Not long after being assured of losing her grip on that perch, the 22-year-old from Poland already was thinking ahead to returning there.“For sure when I’m going to be, next time, in the same situation, I’m going to do some stuff differently,” Swiatek said, “because it was a little bit stressful, and it shouldn’t be.”She also sounded mystified about what happened out there Sunday.“I’m just surprised that my level changed so drastically, because usually when I play bad, I play bad at the beginning, then I kind of catch up or just problem solve. This time it was totally the opposite,” Swiatek said. “I don’t really know what happened with my game. I felt no control suddenly.” The 20th-seeded Ostapenko, a 26-year-old from Latvia, offered a theory. “The main thing is that she doesn’t really like to play against big hitters. … She likes to have some time,” said Ostapenko, who accumulated 31 winners to 18 for Swiatek. “When I play fast, aggressive and powerful, she’s a little bit in trouble.”Ostapenko also finished with just 20 unforced errors — quite an improvement from the 80 she had in her second-round victory last week.When a reporter mentioned Sunday’s total, Ostapenko smiled and said, “Not bad.” In truth, this was not necessarily a huge surprise, based on their previous matchups: Ostapenko improved to 4-0 against Swiatek over their careers. No other player owns four victories against the woman who has led the WTA rankings since April 2022.After getting off to a terrific start to the second set, which she led 4-1, Ostapenko wavered for a bit. That allowed Swiatek to get a break back and pull to 4-3.But that was only a blip.With Swiatek having trouble serving — perhaps owing to all of the squeaking Ostapenko’s shoes did as she moved around during the ball toss while waiting to return — the contest quickly tilted in one direction. Ostapenko reeled off seven consecutive games to go up 5-0 in the third set.Ostapenko broke one last time to end it, meaning she won seven of Swiatek’s 13 service games in the match.And Swiatek could not explain why she did not have that same amount of mistakes against Ostapenko’s serve.“My mistakes were so huge, and I had no idea why suddenly I couldn’t return,” Swiatek said. “I’m a good returner.” Ostapenko’s first quarterfinal at Flushing Meadows will come against Coco Gauff, the 19-year-old American who eliminated Caroline Wozniacki 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 earlier Sunday.Ostapenko and Gauff have split two previous meetings. The most recent came in the fourth round of the Australian Open in January, and Ostapenko won that one.“She’s a great young player,” Ostapenko said about Gauff. “Of course it’s going to be another tough match. I don’t expect any easy matches at a Grand Slam.”___AP tennis coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
Endangered red wolves need space to stay wild. But there’s another predator in the way — humans
ALLIGATOR RIVER NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, N.C. — Jeff Akin had to bite his tongue.He was chatting with a neighbor about efforts to protect and grow the area’s red wolf population. The endangered wolves are equipped with bright orange radio collars to help locals distinguish the federally protected species from invasive, prolific coyotes.“If I see one of those wolves with a collar on, I’m going to shoot it in the gut, so it runs off and dies,” Akin says the neighbor told him. “Because if it dies near you, and they come out and find the collar, they can arrest you.”Akin is a hunter and the walls of his country house are lined with photos of the animals he’s killed. But what he heard made him sick.“I wouldn’t shoot a squirrel in the stomach if I was hungry,” he says. “It’s just not humane.”In a way, the anecdote sums up the plight of this uniquely American species.Once declared extinct in the wild, Canis rufus — the only wolf species found solely in the United States — was reintroduced in the late 1980s on the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, just across the sound from eastern North Carolina’s famed Outer Banks. Over the next quarter century, it became a poster child for the Endangered Species Act and a model for efforts to bring back other species.“The red wolf program was a tremendous conservation success,” says Ron Sutherland, a biologist with the Wildlands Network. “It was the first time that a large carnivore had been returned to the wild after being driven extinct, anywhere in the world.”But the wild population is now back to the brink of oblivion, decimated by gunshots, vehicle strikes, suspected poisonings and, some have argued, government neglect.For the first time in nearly three decades, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is poised to release an updated recovery plan for the red wolf. According to a draft, the agency proposes spending a quarter billion dollars over the next 50 years to rebuild and expand the wild wolf population.“It was done once before,” says Joe Madison, North Carolina manager for the Red Wolf Recovery Program. “And we can do it again.”But the effort depends heavily on cooperation from private landowners. And the passage of 36 years seems to have done little to soften locals’ hearts toward the apex predator.Out here, farming and leasing land to hunters are big business. The red wolf is seen by some as competition, and a threat to a way of life on a fragile landscape already imperiled by climate change.“They don’t belong here!” a woman shouted at agency staff during a recent public meeting on the program.Add to that a widespread mistrust of government and the road ahead looks long and perilous for “America’s wolf.” But allies like Akin and Sutherland say they have to try.“The red wolf, it’s ours,” Sutherland says. “It’s ours to save.”___On a recent visit to Alligator River, Madison parks his truck beside a canal, climbs out and hoists an H-shaped antenna into the air. Faint beeps emanate from a radio in his left hand as he slowly swivels from side to side.“Based on the radio telemetry, there are six red wolves hunkered down in there,” says Madison, motioning to a patch of brush between two cleared farm fields. His bushy red-and-grey beard lends him an uncanny resemblance to his quarry.That’s roughly half of the world’s total known wild red wolf population.The red wolf once roamed from central Texas to southern Iowa and as far northeast as Long Island, New York. But generations of persecution, encroachment and habitat loss reduced them to just a remnant clinging to the ragged Gulf coast along the Texas-Louisiana border.Starting in 1973, the year Congress passed the Endangered Species Act, the last wolves were pulled from the wild and placed in a captive-breeding program.“By 1980,” Madison says, “they had declared red wolves extinct in the wild.”But the captive breeding program did so well that, after just a few years, officials felt it was time to try restoring the red wolf to the wild.They chose Alligator River, a 158,000-acre (63,940-hectare) expanse of upland swamp on North Carolina’s Albermarle Peninsula, not far from Sir Walter Raleigh’s doomed “lost colony” of Roanoke.The program started in 1987 with four breeding pairs. Five years later, a second group was placed in Great Smoky Mountains National Park — 522,427 acres (211,418 hectares) of forest straddling the border of North Carolina and Tennessee.The inland experiment was ended in 1998, due to “low prey availability, extremely low pup survival, disease, and the inability of red wolves to maintain stable territories within the Park,” the government said at the time.But with the releases of adults and fostering of captive-born pups into wild family groups, the Alligator River population thrived.“It was the model for how gray wolves were returned to Yellowstone,” Sutherland says of the Western species, which has since been taken off the endangered list. “And it’s been the model since then for all kinds of re-wilding of projects all over the world.”By 2012, the population in the five-county restoration area reached a peak of about 120 animals. Then the bottom fell out.Shootings and vehicle strikes — busy U.S. 64 to the Outer Banks runs through the middle of the refuge — were the leading causes of death.Meanwhile, coyotes moved into the area and began mating with the depleted wolf stock. Around the same time, the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission allowed nighttime spotlight hunting of coyotes, which are much smaller, but look similar to red wolves.In January 2015, the state commission asked Fish and Wildlife to end the program and once again declare the red wolf extinct in the wild. The federal agency suspended releases from the captive population while it re-evaluated the “feasibility” of species recovery.A 2018 species status assessment declared the wild population would likely disappear within six years “without substantial intervention.”With no new releases, the wild population eventually dipped to just seven known animals.In 2020, conservationists sued the agency, alleging the suspension of captive releases violated the Endangered Species Act. Releases and pup fostering resumed the following year.In early August, the agency settled with the groups, promising regular releases from the captive population, which currently stands at around 270, over the next eight years. Meanwhile, a new recovery plan and population viability analysis are due out this fall.The most recent draft called for spending of more than $256 million over the next 50 years. The red wolf could be delisted by 2072, the agency concluded, providing “all actions are fully funded and implemented” and with “full cooperation of all partners.”The service has yet to identify suitable locations for other wild populations and it’s unclear whether the North Carolina wolves have a half century.If Greenland continues to melt at the current rate, the East Coast could see more than 3 feet (0.9 meters) of sea level rise in the next 50 years, says Jeffress Williams, a senior scientist emeritus with the U.S. Geological Survey. The average elevation at Alligator River: about 3 feet (0.9 meters).“They ought to be factoring that in,” says Williams, who works at the Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center in Massachusetts. “Because within 50 years, a lot of the habitat areas that they’re looking at will very likely be underwater due to sea level rise or, certainly, underwater during the storm surge events such as such as hurricanes.”So, the wolves will have to roam farther and farther inland, into more densely populated areas. And that is only going to put them in more competition with what Akin calls the real “apex predator” — Homo sapiens.___One of the big complaints around here is that the wolves will gobble up all the game, especially white-tailed deer, the main food source of Canis rufus. And that would eat into landowner profits.Although exact numbers for the recovery zone are hard to come by, the wildlife commission says hunting generated $1 billion statewide last year. Recent hunting leases posted online ranged from $861 for a 22-acre (8.9-hectare) property to $3,050 on 167 acres (67.5 hectares) with “everything deer need,” the site boasted.Sutherland believes fears of “a wildlife disaster” are unfounded, and he’s out to prove it.Braving snakes and brushing feeder ticks from his clothes and gear, he kneels beside a pine tree on the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge and starts drilling holes. He bolts a wildlife camera about a foot up the trunk, secures it with a lock and cable, then uses pruning shears to cut down any brush that might obscure the camera’s view.“The animals the wolves eat, like rabbits and rats and deer and things and species like that, they like this kind of habitat,” he says. “Our job is to document whether this fire break is … creating more local abundance of these different wildlife species.”As for the wolves, their numbers are in constant flux.Two litters of four pups each were born in April at Pocosin Lakes, followed in May by five pups at Alligator River. Coupled with recent releases of captive-bred adults and the fostering of pups, one might assume the population is growing.But as of August, Fish and Wildlife said the known/collared wild population was 13, with a total estimated wild population of 23 to 25. That’s down from June, when the numbers were 16 and 32 to 34.“It’s certainly trending in the right direction,” says Ramona McGee, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, which filed the lawsuit to restart the captive release program. “Although the population remains in dire straits.”“We’ve got a long way to go,” Madison concedes.Fish and Wildlife has launched numerous initiatives to cut down on human-caused deaths. Gunshots are top of the list.The wolves are outfitted with orange, reflective collars to make them more visible at night.“Most hunters and the general public know that bright orange, hunter orange, means, ‘Don’t shoot,’” says Madison. “It’s a safety color.”He also reminds people at public meetings it’s illegal to intentionally kill an endangered wolf that is not threatening humans, pets or livestock. The death must be reported to Fish and Wildlife within 24 hours.The agency enlists landowners to help trap, but preferably not shoot, coyotes.“You can’t kill your way out of a coyote problem,” Madison says.The coyotes are sterilized, but left hormonally intact. That way, they can act as “placeholders” for the wolves, Madison says.“They will continue to defend their territory,” he says. “They’ll hold that space for the rest of their lives and they won’t allow other coyotes to move in, but they also can’t reproduce.”Those coyotes get white collars, to further differentiate them from the wolves.To cut down on road kills, officials have placed flashing signs at both ends of the Alligator River preserve to warn motorists on US 64 to watch out for endangered wolves and “drive with caution.”But the biggest hurdle to red wolf recovery is space.The two refuges’ combined 270,000 acres (109,265 hectares) — roughly 422 square miles (1,093 kilometers) — of federal land might sound like a lot. But Madison says a single pack’s territory can be as much as 80 square miles (207 square kilometers), depending on prey availability.“There’s not a large enough land mass of public land in the Southeast within the historic range that can fully support a viable red wolf population,” he says. “We’re going to have to rely somewhat on private land for reintroduction.”That’s where Prey for the Pack comes in.___Started in 2020, the program offers landowners incentives to make habitat improvements. The government will reimburse people up to 80% of the cost of thinning woods and planting the kinds of vegetation that will attract the types of prey red wolves prefer, says Luke Lolies, who runs the program.In exchange, Fish and Wildlife gets access to do such things as install wildlife cameras or come onto their land to capture coyotes.Basically, Lolies says, “They allow red wolves to peacefully live on their property.”But if a recent public meeting is any indication, Lolies and the wolves are facing an uphill battle.A crowd of about 60 braved thunderstorms and torrential rains to gather in the gymnasium of Mattamuskeet High School in Swanquarter, North Carolina.They listened politely as Madison and others gave an update on the program. But no sooner had the floor been opened to questions than things got heated.One man referred to the wolves as a “hybrid predator,” repeating a common belief here that all the animals are now mixed with coyotes. That’s despite a 2019 National Academy of Sciences report confirming the red wolf was a “distinct” and “taxonomically valid” species.Madison noted two hybrid litters were discovered last year and euthanized.Another concern was safety for humans and animals.There has never been a documented attack by a red wolf on a human, Madison says. And a “depredation fund” set up by the Red Wolf Coalition to reimburse people for animals killed by a wolf has only paid out one claim, coalition director Kim Wheeler says.A bearded man in a camouflage jacket questioned the program’s costs versus the number of jobs created in the five counties. Another wondered how landowners who make money off hunting would be compensated for all the game the wolves will eat.“If you do not get landowner cooperation in the five-county area, will you stop the program?” asked one man, who farms 15,000 acres (6,070 hectares) in the wolf-recovery area.An exasperated Madison says it wasn’t for him to say. “We all know what the answer is,” the farmer replies sarcastically. “You just can’t say it out loud.”Aspen Stalls, who recently started a wildlife guiding business in the area, says the wolves can benefit the local economy, but that’s not the point.“They have been here for a very, very, very long time, long before us,” says Stalls, who studied canid ecology in college and sports a wolf tattoo on her left arm. “And they are a vital part of keeping this ecosystem balanced.”The five-county wolf recovery area covers 2,765 square miles (7,161 square kilometers), which is nearly 1.8 million acres (728,434 hectares). But in three years, Prey for the Pack has managed to sign up only four landowners, for a total of just 915 acres (370 hectares).Of the four Prey participants, only one agreed to be identified: Jeff Akin.___About eight years ago, the retired Raleigh real estate developer built a hunting and fishing getaway on 80 acres (32 hectares) of what he calls “Hyde County thicket: Sucker pines, loblolly pines, wax myrtles and briers.”“I had to use a machete to walk through it the first time to find the edges,” he says. “Snakes and mosquitoes love it.”With help from Lolies and his staff, he hopes the wolves will love it, too.Riding through the woods on an all-terrain vehicle, he points to areas of scorched scrub and tree stumps.“This has been thinned and burned,” he says. “And the burning should release the seeds, and the sunlight will grow the types of grass and plants that’ll bring in small mammals and game animals that would be ultimately prey for a pack of wolves.”New grasses and wildflowers are already coming up. Recently planted blackberry bushes are ready to bear fruit.A white sign bolted to a tree along the main road declares Akin a member of “Partners for Fish