Where: Columbia, North Carolina
When: year-round
If you like: conservation
Why you should go: Four painted red wolves gaze out from a mural on the walls of the Red Wolf Center, and just beyond, visitors can see the real thing: a pair of the critically endangered canines, who reside in an enclosure out back. “This year we have the first breeding pair we’ve ever kept there,” says Kim Wheeler, the executive director of the Red Wolf Coalition and a volunteer caretaker of the captive wolves. Wheeler is hopeful the pair will produce puppies this spring, giving the public the even rarer chance to see a family group up close. Meanwhile, inside the center, an exhibition shares the larger story of the world’s most imperiled wolf: The apex predators once lived all over the American South before habitat loss and hunting drove them extinct in the wild in 1980. Captive breeding allowed them to regain a toehold, and now a recovery program is working to restore the population on North Carolina’s Albemarle Peninsula, in a five-county area just west of the Outer Banks—the only place in the world where red wolves roam wild.
G&G tip: To try and catch a glimpse of one of the wild red wolves, drive slowly through the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, ideally in winter, when there’s less foliage to conceal them. Keep your eyes peeled for black bears, river otters, and tundra swans, too.
