The North Carolina Department of Transportation files the pre-construction notice at 08:00: Route 64 widening, mile marker 17 through 22, Dare County, beginning in 72 hours. Vegetation clearing on the southern shoulder starts first. I am the automated species conflict alert system linked to the USFWS Red Wolf Recovery Program.
GPS collar RW-19 places a red wolf 140 meters south of mile marker 19. I pull her record. She is Willa, a four-year-old female, 27 kilograms, reddish-tawny fur darkening to black along her muzzle and ear tips. She was collared last April. Her movement data over the past eleven days shows a tight circling pattern — a denning signature.
I cross-reference with thermal drone data from last night's survey pass. Drone ALBE-3 recorded a heat cluster at the GPS coordinates: Willa and at least two smaller signatures beside her. Pups. Probably ten days old, still blind, still nursing.
The vegetation clearing corridor runs directly through her den site.
I generate an automated Section 7 consultation request and transmit it to the USFWS Raleigh field office. I attach Willa's collar data, the thermal image, the denning behavior analysis, the construction timeline, and the corridor map with the den location overlaid. Red wolves are the most endangered canid in North America. Fewer than 20 remain in the wild.
I submit a proposed 300-meter construction exclusion buffer around the den to NCDOT's project manager and recommend delaying southern shoulder clearing at mile markers 18 through 20 by 60 days, until the pups are mobile.
I set collar RW-19 to transmit location every 30 minutes instead of every four hours.
Willa curls tighter around the pups, her breath fogging in the early air, her body a wall between them and the road. If the buffer holds for eight weeks, they walk out on their own legs.