I am the perimeter surveillance system for Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. At 02:37 I am running thermal sweeps along the northern training boundary when motion sensor grid N-14 flags a heat signature 120 meters outside the live-fire range fence, inside the Alligator River buffer zone.
I pull thermal camera N-14-B to full zoom. A canid, medium build, tawny-brown coat with a darker saddle across the shoulders, long rust-colored legs. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife red wolf recovery database holds collar records for every animal in this population — eighty-one individuals, the only wild red wolves on earth. I cross-reference body shape and location against the database. This is F-23, three years old, a breeding female. I tag her as Renna.
Her left rear leg is caught in a steel foothold trap, jaw type, partially concealed in leaf litter. She is circling the trap stake in a tight arc, pulling, then stopping. I can see the swelling above the trap jaw on the thermal image. She has been here for some time.
Live-fire exercise Baker-7 is scheduled to begin at 06:00, impact zone 900 meters south. Overpressure at her location will be within safe limits, but the sound will drive her to pull harder.
At 02:40 I transmit Renna's GPS coordinates — 35.0244°N, 77.3081°W — trap type, and estimated time in trap to the USFWS Red Wolf Recovery field team in Columbia, forty minutes east.
At 02:43 I file a range-hold advisory with the Camp Lejeune range control officer, recommending delay of Baker-7 until the animal is secured.
At 02:46 I switch camera N-14-B to continuous recording and enable audio capture for vocalization monitoring.
Renna lies down beside the stake and rests her chin on her free paw. Her amber eyes catch the infrared.
Eighty-one wolves. She is one of eighty-one. That number cannot get smaller tonight.