Eradicating wolves in Colorado was difficult, gruesome endeavor

By the spring of 1923, W.J. Nearing of the U.S. Biological Survey had spent the better part of two years attempting to track and kill a lone female wolf known only as the Phantom in the Book Cliffs north of Fruita.

He’d shot her and thought he’d killed her the previous year, but when he reached the spot where her body should have been, he found only a few splotches of blood. She’d lived up to her nickname.