A couple months ago, I visited my family in Missouri, and we took a trip to a wolf sanctuary.

Wolves used to roam across all 48 of the contiguous United States.

Now they're endangered.

Thanks to things like poaching, trapping, habitat loss, and eradication campaigns, some

breeds have only 10 members living in the wild.

When we arrived at the center, we wanted to hear the wolves howl, but you can't get

within sight of the wolves.

They're actually really shy.

Instead, our two guides let us down a long gravel road through the woods.

After about 10 minutes of walking, we stopped in the middle of the road.

We had to be very quiet.

The guides tried to get the wolves to howl at us from afar.

One of them walked ahead further down the road, and the other stayed back.

They began to howl back and forth to one another.

Honestly, they sounded super wolf-like.

They were trying to get the actual wolves to join in.

I'm Johanna Mayer, and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible,

and wondrous places.

Today, a trip to the endangered wolf center in Urika, Missouri, and the story of one

extraordinary wolf who made the center his home, and who gives us hope about the future

of wolf survival after this.

The endangered wolf center we were actually founded just over 50 years ago by Marlin and

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