If the wolf seems a mysterious, remote, dangerous, unfathomable creature, that’s because it is. Yet in its defense, the wolf probably is the most misunderstood inhabitant of the animal kingdom. Misunderstood, misinterpreted and mischaracterized as something other than what it is.

“The truth is we know little about the wolf,” Barry Lopez wrote in Of Wolves and Men. “What we know a good deal more about is what we imagine the wolf to be.”

The wolf has been mysticized by man, and just as often demonized: big bad wolf; a wolf in sheep’s clothing; he’s a lone wolf; a wolf at the door; cry wolf. Wolves howl at the moon, and Jack Nicholson transforms into a murderous, blood-thirsty wolf in the movie Wolf. According to Lopez, the Bella Coola Indians “believed that someone once tried to change all the animals into men but succeeded in making human only the eyes of the wolf.”

The wolf has always been an easy target. Hunters have slaughtered them for sport by shooting from hovering helicopters, and ranchers have poisoned wolves because they sometimes attack livestock.

But how much do we really know about wolves? Biologists, conservationists and other wolf experts all agree: Not much.

That lack of knowledge – and concern – nearly meant the total loss of North America’s red wolf population.

According to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS), the red wolf is one of the world’s most endangered wild canids. Once common throughout the southeastern United States, red wolf populations were decimated by the 1960s due to intensive predator control programs and loss of habitat, the USFWS reports. A few individuals were found in Texas and Louisiana. After being declared an endangered species in 1973, efforts were made to round up as many wild red wolves as possible. Of the 17 remaining wolves captured by biologists, 14 became the founders of a successful captive-breeding program. Consequently, the USFWS declared red wolves extinct in the wild in 1980.

Relatively few people ever see a wolf in the wild, either red or gray wolves, two of the wolf species found in the world. At the Children’s Zoo, visitors will be able to observe red wolves from several viewing areas. Each was designed with a special feature meant to attract the animals to that area. These include a water-misting system where wolves can cool off on hot days, a shallow pool and stream, and a rock den with a heated floor.

Even when they come into view, the wolves won’t reveal much of themselves. That was just one of the traits many Native American tribes admired about the animal. “The wolf’s devotion to his family and his pack parallels the relation between an Indian and his tribe,” the website aboutwolves.net reports, “and the hunting skills of the wolf were envied” by many Indians.

The red wolf gets its name from the reddish highlights of its fur most prevalent behind its ears and along its neck and legs. Otherwise, this species is mostly brown and buff colored. The average red wolf is about the size of a golden retriever, ranging from about 45 to 80 pounds. An adult pair of red wolves lives with its offspring in a pack of five to eight animals. Deer, raccoons and rabbits are their main prey.

By 1987, the USFWS reports, enough red wolves were bred in captivity to begin a restoration program on Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge in northeastern North Carolina. Since then the experimental population area has expanded to include three national wildlife refuges, a Department of Defense bombing range, state-owned lands and private property, totaling 1.5 million acres. The main threats to the wolf’s survival remain loss of habitat due to development and persecution by humans.

According to USFWS estimates, some 100 red wolves live in the wild in northeastern North Carolina, and another 150 comprise the captive-breeding program. Lincoln Park Zoo will follow breeding recommendations for its wolves established by the American Zoo and Aquarium Association’s Species Survival Plan.