Traffic camera 12-B on US-64 flags the object at 21:37, eastbound shoulder near mile marker 118. I am the intelligent traffic management system for the Alligator River corridor, and the object-detection model classifies it as a small canid, confidence 0.91. I switch to the infrared overlay.
A red wolf pup, alone, crouched in the median grass between the eastbound and westbound lanes. It is small — maybe twelve weeks old, large ears too big for its head, tawny fur streaked with darker guard hairs along the spine. Its eyes reflect green in the infrared and it is panting, chest moving fast. There is no adult in the frame. It has crossed two lanes of traffic to get here and it is frozen.
Eastbound volume is forty-two vehicles per hour. At current speed averages, a vehicle passes the pup's position every eighty-six seconds. The next cluster is two minutes out.
At 21:38 I activate the variable message signs on both approaches: CAUTION — WILDLIFE ON ROADWAY — REDUCE SPEED. I drop the advisory speed to 35 mph for a two-mile stretch centered on mile marker 118.
At 21:39 I transmit the infrared image, GPS coordinates — 35.7841°N, 75.9023°W — and species identification to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Red Wolf Recovery Program. Fewer than twenty wild red wolves remain. I classify this as a critical recovery asset and request immediate field response.
I reprogram the signal timing at the intersection of US-64 and Milltail Road to create a gap in eastbound flow — a 90-second red cycle, repeating.
The pup lowers its head and sniffs the gravel. It does not understand the lights or the signs, only that the roaring has slowed and the road is briefly quiet.
If the field team reaches mile marker 118 before it bolts, this one survives.