Wolf

Wolves are a species of canine pack animal, found throughout North America and Mexico at the time of Red Dead Redemption.

Description
Wolves are predators and scavengers, and will usually hunt in groups. Wolves are known to chase down their prey, relying on speed, agility and their ability to cooperate and separate their prey from other animals of the species. The player can encounter wolves in the wilderness and hunt them. Wolves may also prey on the player, their mount, and other NPCs. Players need to stay alert, as they will often attack from behind. Listen for them howling or barking in the background. Like Cougars, they are notorious for interrupting the player in the most uncalled for moments while he/she is in the middle of something.

They hunt in large groups (10+ wolves), so if a small pack (4-5 wolves) has been taken down then either move on quickly or get ready to take on another group of them. Wolves, unlike coyotes, are not afraid of gun fire, however, they may begin to run away if another wolf is killed; or if they are shot at, especially when using a shotgun.

Wolves are needed to be killed for Master Hunter: Rank 3: Kill 5 wolves with a knife and also need to kill Lobo the Wolf at Aurora Basin, for Master Hunter: Rank 10.

A pack of wolves can quickly dispatch a sleuth of Bears; this can be witnessed by getting a pack of wolves to chase the player, then running into a bear territory. When both are chasing the player, go full speed, and they should give up pursuit and attack each other. Watch on with binoculars or a sniper rifle. Return after to skin the animals for profit.

Location
Wolves are also found in abundance north of MacFarlane's Ranch and south of Armadillo. Be warned while hunting in Tall Trees. There are even more to be found west of Blackwater, near but not on, the river. A group of 15-20 wolves resides there. They are also found in Repentance Rock in small packs of about 2-4.

Hunting Tips
Wolves are very fast, therefore a kill by gun fire can be difficult without Dead Eye. A substitute is using the Hunting Knife, wolves have low health and can easily be killed with several slices, be wary however, of how easily a wolf can drain a player's health. When a wolf latches onto a player's arm, the player cannot fire until the beast is shaken off, and it only takes around 3 to 4 bites to kill a player. Usually when using the knife an entire pack attacking at once is not a problem, as wolves do not keep a constant speed with each other, so one will usually follow another, not them all attacking at once, a few quick stabs can easily kill off a wolf, and usually dispatch the wolf before another arrives.

A good tactic to use if the wolves are getting the better of you is to pull out your Sawed-off Shotgun and just firing off a random shot or two. Wolves aren't afraid of most gunfire but they are afraid of the boom from the shotgun. So firing it will cause them to turn and run away, allowing you to regenerate health and pursue if you so desire.

The bottom east corner of West Elizabeth is a good spot to hunt wolves, the wolves will come at you in packs of 3-5 so the damage per wave is minimal and as long as you stand by the corpses, you can rack up 50 wolf pelts (and other wolf items) in a matter of a few minutes. Be careful if you plan to do this at this spot, as cougars can come from behind, while wolves come from the front. My personal experience always have me ending in death by being ganged up on by cougars and wolves, losing many of my wolf items. Make sure to save frequently.

To kill many wolves in one location, stand by the Marston's house in Beecher's Hope near the wooded area. Many wolves will come at you. It will seem as a never ending swarm of wolves. Good tactic if you want to kill plenty of wolves.

If there are any rattlesnakes in the area, the wolves will go out of there way to kill it, even if that means stop attacking you. You will comonly find dead rattlesnakes when wolf hunting, and a good tactic is to kill them before they kill the rattlesnake, so they will keep swarming it.

Quick profit
For this trick, get some Bait, Medicine and Tobacco (Moonshine/Snake Oil/Tonic also helps). It is also useful to be near the Manteca Falls and Butter Bridge area. Having a horse deed means calling a new one if the wolves kill the horse.

To easily amass money find a spot where there are wolves, then drop down 2-3 baits. Kill and skin all animals that come into the area. After a relatively short time, there are Wolves howling. Using a combination of Dead Eye and rapid aim, shoot to kill as many of the incoming wolves as possible. They usually attack in packs of 3-6 animals. There's no need to kill the whole pack at once - killing one or two, the rest will usually flee and come back later. Don't skin the wolves as this would leave you open to attacks.

Eventually, players end up with a spiraling effect where dead animals lures more packs, which leads to more dead wolves in the area, which leads to even more packs.

Trivia

 * The vast majority of Wolves featured in game, have black fur which in real life typically indicates that they possess dog ancestry (see Black Wolf article from wikipedia for more information)
 * In-game wolves can be heard barking while in reality wolves only rarely bark and when they do this is usually when a wolf is startled or otherwise surprised.
 * Sometimes in wolf packs, animals or humans may be seen acting like a wolf and making the same sounds. This is a common bug that does not only occur with wolves.
 * Undead Wolves appear in the Red Dead Redemption DLC Undead Nightmare.
 * Wolves are one of the few animals 'the hunter', who is randomly encountered during the game, wants the player to hunt and kill. Using bait given to the player when he calls the player to join him.
 * When a wolf attacks the player, it will sometimes hang on to Marston's arm before being thrown a short distance, similar to how German Sheperd police dogs hold on to a trainer's arm when training to attack criminals. The same thing will sometimes happen when the player attacks a domesticated dog in any town or settlement in the game.
 * If John gets attacked by a wolf while wielding the Hunting Knife, he will say, "How do you think I got these scars?!", suggesting he got his scars from wolves sometime in the past.

Achievements/Trophies
The player must kill a wolf to successfully complete the following achievement/trophy:

Lobo