“In honor of Halloween, we're bringing you a Short Wave (The Science podcast from NPR) ghost story — featuring an animal that has long been the stuff of conservationist legend: the American red wolf.

This small, cinnamon-colored canid roamed free across the American Southeast, preying on deer and small mammals and occupying a key spot in Gulf Coast ecosystems. But early European settlers saw wolves as their enemies – predators that competed with human hunters for game, and that threatened farmers' livestock and livelihoods.

Federal programs offered bounties to trap, hunt and kill wolves, further incentivizing their extermination. And as the number of people spreading across the continent went up, the number of red wolves went down.”

Listen to the full interview on NPR here