There was a programme about this on tv last night. A husband & wife team of scientists were investigating. At first I thought it was going to be a Hunting Bigfoot type programme but it was much more interesting.
They met a man who said he'd witnessed an unknown creature in remote locations on 3 occasions going back a few years. He was hunting deer at the time. He never saw it but heard the howl a couple of times & spoke about a distinctive musky smell. He took them to the places his encounters happened.
They find many creatures native to the area but no sign of a howler. They come across a cabin in which a moonshiner was going about his business. They agree to keep the location secret. He tells them his grandfather, also a moonshiner, shot a howler decades before. He said he had the pelt, which he produced & which turned out to be canine. He let them take a sample of fur to test. He also had his grandfathers home made ‘growler’ which he’d used to scare people away from his moonshining & consisted of a barrel with a piece of string attached inside. It made a fairly convincing growl sound. He let them sample the spirits he made. He also had his own man-made version of the howl which he let them record.
They noted a lack of apex predators in the area. They found a dead deer which hadn’t been predated. They had an encounter with a large black bear which came within about 20 feet of them but didn’t attack.
They analyse the fur which turns out to match wolf fur. They then go with the hunter to a wolf sanctuary in which American Red Wolves are being raised in protected environment, the idea being to re-introduce them to the wild. They’re a very rare & threatened species which were once much more common in the area but have been hunted to near extinction. The wolves are much smaller & skinnier than grey wolves. The hunter recognised their musky smell & says it’s the same as the one he’d smelt years before. They play the moonshiners recorded howl & get a reply howl from the wolves.
So the Ozark Howler is identified, at least in this programme, as an American Red Wolf.