The American West, Ep.14: Wolf West

Host: Dan Flores (with panel & guests)
Release Date: November 4, 2025
Podcast: MeatEater – The American West

Episode Overview

In this wide-ranging episode, “Wolf West,” historian Dan Flores delivers a sweeping history of wolves and their place in the American West. Using vivid historical accounts, recent scientific research, and engaging conversations, the episode explores wolves as ancient keystone predators, their near-eradication due to European settlement, and how folklore often mismatched reality. The story covers the evolutionary saga of American wolves, indigenous perspectives, European attitudes, the strychnine era, and closes with reflections on the recent “de-extinction” of dire wolves and the complex legacies of predator management.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Wolves as Ancient Keystone Predators

• Wolves’ Longevity and Ecological Impact:

  • Wolves have been major shapers of North American ecosystems for millions of years, long before human arrival (~22,000 years ago) ([04:30]).
  • As keystone predators, wolves not only regulated prey populations, but also indirectly stabilized entire landscapes, influencing forest composition and other predator species:

    “Virtually every ecology in the west was shaped from the top down by the presence of wolves.” (Dan Flores, [05:13])

• Evolutionary Background:

  • North American canids go back 5.5 million years, with dire wolves as the dominant species before going extinct after the Pleistocene ([06:15]).
  • The “buffalo wolf” (Canis lupus nubilus) was the most prevalent in historical times ([09:22]).

2. The Wolf’s Place in Native and Early American Worlds

• Native American Relationships:
  • Indigenous peoples saw wolves as kin, totem animals, and teachers, allowing them to fill their natural role as apex predators ([12:45]).
• Early European Observations:
  • Early explorers like Michael Steck and John James Audubon described an “astonishing abundance” of wolves — “hundreds in a day” ([02:38], [03:00]).
  • Wolves were notably unafraid of humans, often described as “tame” or curious, due to long co-existence with Native populations who didn’t persecute them ([24:03]).

3. Old World Folklore and the Roots of Anti-Wolf Sentiment

• Disorientation of Settlers:

  • European colonists brought deep-seated fear of wolves (from folk tales and religion), but were perplexed when American wolves showed “no aggression toward people” ([13:30]).
  • William Wood (1630s, Massachusetts) noted, “it was never known yet that a wolf ever set upon a man or a woman” ([13:55], [45:19]).

• Cultural Baggage & Scientific Explanation:

  • Cultural suspicion extended to black wolves, seen as especially sinister. Modern science links black coat genetics to early hybridization with dogs ~13,000 years ago ([15:25]).
  • Native admiration for wolves (for bravery, loyalty) contrasted sharply with European views of wolves as “bloodthirsty monsters” ([16:30]).

4. European Settlement and the Wolf Eradication Campaign

• Initial Policy – Bounties:
  • The first environmental law in colonial America was a wolf bounty ([20:00]).
• Industrial-Scale Killing:
  • Strychnine poison (introduced 1834) revolutionized wolf-killing; single carcasses could kill up to 40 wolves and many more non-target species ([34:45], [35:25]).
  • “Wolfers” (professional poisoners) decimated populations, causing untold collateral damage to raptors, scavengers, and even livestock ([36:30]).
• Government Policy:
  • States like Montana spent huge proportions of their budgets on wolf bounties (e.g., 23,575 wolves destroyed in Montana in 1899 alone) ([38:10]).
  • Additional cruelties included deliberate infection of wild canids with mange ([39:25]).

5. Wolves’ Social & Hunting Behavior: Misunderstood by Settlers

• Pack Structure & Emotional Life:
  • Wolf packs are matriarchal, highly cooperative, and exhibit complex emotions and culture (“rallies,” teaching pups, nuanced body language, contagious howling) ([17:49]).
• Hunting Strategies:
  • Wolves primarily scavenge or target the weak/young/injured; hunts are dangerous, with low success rates (~10%) ([18:50]).
  • Settlers mischaracterized them as rampant killers, ignoring the risk and cost to wolves themselves.

6. Eradication’s Broader Ecological Ripple Effects

• Trophic Cascades:
  • The near-extirpation of wolves led to surges in coyote populations and changes in the types of vegetation and other animal abundances ([10:50]).
• Wolves’ Role in the Buffalo Era:
  • Wolves regulated bison herds (Old Pawnee saying: wolves devour 4 out of 10 bison calves), maintaining a balance over millennia ([24:28]).

7. Legend of Lobo and the Changing Perception

• End of the Wolf West:
  • By the early 20th century, wolf extermination was nearly complete; the last individuals became legends (“Snowdrift,” “The Custer Wolf”) ([40:00]).
  • Ernest Thompson Seton’s account of “Lobo, King of Currumpa” personalized the last wolves, emphasizing their “individuality, compassion, cooperation, loyalty,” and highlighting Americans’ shifting attitudes ([39:59]).

    “We and the beasts are kin.” (Seton, [39:59])

8. Myths vs. Reality: Human–Wolf Conflict, Then and Now

• Wolf Attacks on Humans Are Vanishingly Rare:
  • Flores emphasizes, using colonial and modern examples, that North American wolves simply do not attack people, despite persistent folk fears ([44:45] onwards).
    • “There has not been an instance where a wolf has set upon a man or a woman in our experience.” (Flores, [46:16])
    • In folklore, wolves are dangerous; in reality, “wolves are cowards” — a denigration reflective of disappointment that they weren’t the monsters expected ([46:43]).
• Comparison with Europe:
  • Flores discusses the commonly held belief that Eurasian wolves are more aggressive, but notes that data is unclear and that much of this narrative may also be rooted in folklore or confusion with rabid or hybrid animals ([47:12]–[53:12]).
  • Today, Europe actually hosts more wolves than the lower 48 U.S. states; like in North America, folklore and resistance persist ([52:00]).

9. Wolves, Coyotes, and Predatory Balances

• Coyotes’ Story Diverges:
  • With wolf decline, coyote populations exploded; wolves and coyotes have a fraught evolutionary relationship, with limited hybridization, especially with gray wolves ([54:08]).
  • Anecdote: in a research facility, a coyote that birthed wolf-coyote hybrid pups “immediately killed every one of them… Her hatred of wolves was greater than her love of her own children.” ([56:39])

10. Dire Wolves and “De-Extinction”

• Cutting-Edge Science:
  • Recent bioengineering inserted 20 dire wolf genes into gray wolves, successfully birthing pups named Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi ([07:38], [59:48]).
  • Raises questions: how much “dire wolf” must be present — genetically and culturally — before revival is meaningful?

    “…the whole thing… animals have culture… particularly for social animals like wolves… these dire wolves… are not going to have any culture to rely on.” (Flores, [60:24])

    • The “de-extinct” dire wolves are larger, with thick white coats, but questions about their ecological role and cultural inheritance remain ([61:00]).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On American wolves’ abundance:

  “A common thing is to see 50 at a site in the daytime. We are never out of sight of them, see hundreds in a day.”
  — Michael Steck, 1850s ([02:38])

• Misalignment between folklore and reality:

  "In America, Wood wrote, it was never known yet that a wolf ever set upon a man or a woman."
  — Narrator quoting William Wood ([13:55])

• On wolves’ ecological influence:

  “Wolves apparently influence continental ecology in ways that ripple through nature, affecting not just populations of prey species, but also other predators and scavengers, even down to the kind of vegetation like aspens or cottonwoods found on a landscape with gray wolves present.”
  — Narrator ([10:50])

• On changing perceptions:

  “The theme of Wild Animals I Have Known, he wrote, was ‘we and the beasts are kin.’”
  — Narrator, quoting Seton ([39:59])

• On ongoing wolf fears:

  “I had a neighbor... a pack of wolves would run across the road. ... He walked up to the house one day and said something like, well, I guess you know... 'these wolves are close and these things. They're gonna tear my wife off the front porch and maul her in the yard.' ... I tried to tell him they haven't got, man... But it did not work.”
  — Dan Flores ([48:31])

• On de-extinction and animal culture:

  “Animals have culture. ...these dire wolves...are not going to have any culture to rely on. The culture they're going to be taught... is whatever their human handlers are exposing them to.”
  — Dan Flores ([60:24])

Important Timestamps

• 02:38 — Early eyewitness accounts of wolf abundance in the West
• 04:30–10:50 — Wolves’ evolutionary story, dire wolves, and the ecological shaping of the American West
• 12:39 — Wolves as keystone predators and their unique role in North America
• 13:55–16:30 — Collision between European anti-wolf folklore and actual American wolf behavior
• 20:00 — The first American environmental law: placing a bounty on wolves
• 34:45–39:25 — The strychnine era; mass poisoning and its horrific consequences for wildlife
• 44:45–46:16 — The myth of wolf attacks on humans debunked with colonial and modern accounts
• 52:00 — Contemporary Europe now has more wolves than the US lower 48; ongoing culture wars
• 54:08–56:39 — Wolves and coyotes: evolutionary enmity and hybridization stories
• 59:48–62:35 — Dire wolf de-extinction, genetics vs. culture, and science’s limits

Episode Flow & Tone

Dan Flores' narration is vivid, wryly humorous, and often elegiac, blending scientific rigor with storytelling. The host and guests are curious, skeptical, and sometimes irreverent, using anecdotes and asides to break up the dense history, always maintaining a tone that honors both the animals and the human stories intertwined with them.

Conclusion

“Wolf West” is a rich, deeply informative episode offering both a broad historical sweep and incisive examination of the mythology and reality surrounding wolves in the American West. By exploring how human attitudes — born of fear, folklore, and economic interests — nearly destroyed a keystone species, it asks profound questions about ecological interconnectedness, legacy, and the consequences of our collective narratives. For listeners interested in American history, wildlife, or conservation, this is essential listening.