Conservation geneticist Kristin Brzeski has engaged a broad network of grassroots support in her efforts to restore the red wolf population in the American South.
There's more than one way to save endangered species, and new advancements in biotechnology are opening conservation doors that scientists would have once thought impossible. Kristin Brzeski, associate professor of wildlife science and conservation in Michigan Tech's College of Forest Resources and Environmental Science, is exploring avenues that may be able to revive wild red wolf populations in the Southern U.S. Her research with a unique population of "ghost wolves" along the Gulf Coast has attracted partners across the full spectrum of the scientific community — from citizen scientists to the de-extinction-focused biotech company Colossal Biosciences.
Brzeski conducts her research in partnership with Bridgett vonHoldt, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton University. The duo — informally known as Team Ghost Wolf — gathers data using non-invasive research methods such as wildlife cameras, collars and widespread surveys to get a more complete picture of the animals' behavior in the wild.
"Using crowdsourced, non-invasive sampling tools paired with captive animal studies, we're looking at how ancestry and landscapes are impacting the retention of distinct genetic variation these animals have," said Brzeski.
The goal is the conservation of one of America's most iconic species — and of the biodiverse ecosystems it relies on.
What Makes a Wolf?
Under pressure from indiscriminate hunting, shrinking habitat and forced migration into suboptimal environments, the red wolf population dwindled along regions of the Gulf Coast in the mid- to late 1900s, prompting the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to lead a capture effort to save the species through captive breeding. By 1980, the red wolf was declared extinct in Texas and Louisiana, but remnant wolves interbred with resident coyotes and produced offspring, a process known to scientists as hybridization. Several generations of hybridization followed, resulting in admixed canids, or ghost wolves, persisting along the Gulf Coast, some with as high as 70% red wolf DNA.
Untangling where genetic traits come from is more complex than it might seem. Dogs, coyotes, gray wolves and red wolves are all closely related. Admixed canids in some areas of the Gulf Coast are likely to have both historic and contemporary genetic mixing with coyotes and red wolves, and some DNA is difficult to assign clearly to any specific ancestry.
Admixture and hybridization are natural evolutionary processes often driven by sexual selection and assortative mating, where animals prefer reproductive partners with certain traits, like size and coloring. Those natural processes provide novel genetic information that inbred or isolated populations may need to persist in a changing world. Brzeski wonders if admixed canids with high red wolf DNA have the genetic traits to persist along the Gulf Coast in ways non-admixed red wolves under human care may not be able to.
The ghost wolves' existence raises several complex questions that Brzeski and her colleagues at the Gulf Coast Canine Project are pursuing in their research: Where is the line between a coyote and a red wolf? What makes a wolf a wolf? If hybridization diluted the DNA of red wolves, how can it also be part of the solution for preserving the species? Are there more of these unique animals in other parts of the historic red wolf range?
"I believe in species, so I'm not saying we don't call it a wolf," said Brzeski. "But the reality is that there is no such thing as a 'pure' genome; lineages have crossed and intermixed through evolutionary history. Think of humans having remnant Neanderthal DNA! The same is true of a red wolf historically and contemporarily. So what we're really trying to preserve is our native biodiversity and the distinct ecological and behavioral function of these animals. In this effort, we may need to expand the definition of a red wolf."
Conservation is a Grassroots Effort
The Endangered Species Act currently has no policy to protect hybrid animals like the admixed canids of the Gulf Coast. Instead of striving to gain federal endangered species status for the ghost wolves, Brzeski and her colleagues are focusing their conservation efforts on partnering with local groups and individuals to provide understanding of the animals' value to the ecosystem and local heritage.
Citizen scientists have been an essential part of Brzeski's work with admixed canids since a Galveston resident first reported their existence in 2008, eventually gaining vonHoldt's attention in 2016. Since then, the network of citizen scientists supporting Brzeski and Team Ghost Wolf's work has grown, especially in the Houston and Galveston regions. Now, when she presents to groups about her research, the question Brzeski most often gets is, "How can I help?"
At the start of the project, citizen scientists mostly reported sightings and provided photos. Now those interested in helping receive a scat kit they can use to collect fecal samples and send them to the team. Brzeski and her colleagues are already sequencing the DNA in the first batch of scat samples, and she is building an online database that will organize the data collected from this sampling and display it in real time.
Another local partnership has grown from a spiritual affinity with the ghost wolves. The Karankawa people, a tribe indigenous to the Texas Gulf Coast, reached out to the red wolf conservation project after hearing about their work with the admixed canids in the region. The word Karankawa roughly translates to "dog raisers." Their tribal council has expressed a connection between the tribe's cultural restoration and that of the ghost wolves. In 2023, the Karankawa tribe of Texas Five Rivers Council held a naming ceremony for the first cloned ghost wolf. They named her Neka Kayda: "ghost daughter." Since then, they have continued communicating with Team Ghost Wolf to support a gentler approach to wildlife research.
Dire Problems, Colossal Solutions
This past April, Colossal Biosciences made international headlines when Time magazine reported on the biotech company's successful birth of three healthy dire wolf puppies cloned from genetically edited gray wolf DNA. Colossal pairs all of its de-extinction efforts with traditional conservation. This is where Brzeski's research and ghost wolves come in.
Brzeski and her team banked admixed canid tissue biopsies and scat samples, which Colossal used for cloning. Brzeski's team and vonHoldt conducted genetic analysis of admixed canids and identified individuals with distinct red wolf genetics. Those cell lines were used to clone Neka Kayda at a private Colossal facility.
"This is science-driven, not science-fiction driven," Brzeski said.
Though the cloned ghost wolf is not eligible to be rewilded, Brzeski said she is the first step in innovative conservation tools, like genetic rescue, already used for other species like the black footed ferret. The cloned ghost wolf will be cared for and monitored for health issues and for any unanticipated downstream consequences from the cloning process — all part of testing and developing cloning as a tool for genetic rescue of an endangered species.
"The goal is to help diversify the red wolf species," said Brzeski, "Providing much-needed new genetic material, either through breeding experiments or advanced biotechnology, to increase the resilience of our native red wolves."
Public Partnerships
The Gulf Coast Canine Project is also gaining support from the International Wolf Center, a research and educational organization that promotes healthy coexistence between humans and wolves. The center funds the David L. Mech Fellowship, which sponsors undergraduate or recently graduated pre-professional researchers interested in pursuing careers in natural sciences and wildlife. One fellow, Sylvia Reed, will be assigned to Team Ghost Wolf in 2025-26 to aid their research.
The project also received a $2.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation and Paul G. Allen Family Foundation to support fieldwork and captive breeding efforts in partnership with the Endangered Wolf Center.
"We need resilient wildlife in order to maintain species on the landscape. We might not be successful, but we're going to try. It's worth trying."
In the field, Brzeski and her team will continue monitoring this unique canid population and gathering samples to identify admixed canids with high red wolf DNA. Those individuals will then be candidates for selective breeding at the Endangered Wolf Center. Brzeski and her team theorize that the resulting offspring will also have high red wolf ancestry and morphology. If these offspring are introduced to the red wolf population, they could provide red wolves the genetic material they need to grow and thrive resiliently in a swiftly changing environment. Similar work has been proposed with Galapagos tortoises, once again pushing the bounds of conventional conservation.
The ultimate impact of conservation efforts is never guaranteed. Even if Team Ghost Wolf's methods fail, eliminating them as options for preserving the species is still progress toward a viable solution. Hope for the red wolf population lies in the growing network of citizen scientists and professional researchers fighting for their survival.
"It may be a new and challenging concept to think about admixture in mammals as a helpful tool to recover something, or to make a species more resilient," said Brzeski. "The whole environment is going to change continually — and probably drastically — in the next 50 years. We need resilient wildlife in order to maintain species on the landscape. We might not be successful, but we're going to try. It's worth trying."
Michigan Technological University is an R1 public research university founded in 1885 in Houghton, and is home to nearly 7,500 students from more than 60 countries around the world. Consistently ranked among the best universities in the country for return on investment, Michigan's flagship technological university offers more than 185 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science and technology, engineering, computing, forestry, business, health professions, humanities, mathematics, social sciences, and the arts. The rural campus is situated just miles from Lake Superior in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, offering year-round opportunities for outdoor adventure.
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