The red wolf once roamed the entire southeastern United States, but centuries of persecution and habitat destruction decimated the population, and by 1980 it was no longer found in the wild. Recovery efforts under the federal Endangered Species Act began after the red wolf was declared an endangered species in 1967, with scientists starting in 1973 to capture the last red wolves for captive breeding. In 1987, four pairs of captive-bred wolves were released in Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge in North Carolina in the first-ever reintroduction of an extinct species to the wild, and in 1988 the first litter of red wolf pups in almost a decade was born in the wild. By 2004, 55 pups were born in 18 red wolf packs, and today more than 100 red wolves live in a 1.5 million-acre recovery area in northeastern North Carolina near the Outer Banks.