Track the Big Bad Wolf from fairy tales and metaphors to the real animal, and learn that everything you think you know about this elusive predator is probably wrong. Where do wolves show up, where do we know they live, and are they coming back to your neighborhood? How dangerous is the real animal?

We also eavesdrop on an interview at the coffeehouse between a certain young professional dressed in red and her problematic furry companion.

Dani Freund, a graduate student researcher at the Voyageurs Wolf Project in northern Minnesota, gives us a firsthand account of life and work in wolf country, and reveals why you shouldn’t watch too many scary movies before venturing into the woods alone.

Listen to “Big Bad (Imaginary?) Wolves,” and subscribe to “30% Wild” at www.thirtywildpod.com

• Wolves in metaphor and story
• How to tell if wolves have moved into your neighborhood - or can you?
• How wolves improve the health of entire ecosystems
• Wolf country, pre-settlement, today, and tomorrow
• Where’s the one place in the Lower 48 that wolves never left?
• Will wolves move back into the eastern US? Are they already here?
• Wolves and rewilding, here and in Europe
• Includes the original story, “Big Bad Coffee.”