All royalties from sales of this book go to Yellowstone’s wolf recovery project Few animals inspire such a mixture of fear, curiosity, and wonder as the wolf. Highly regarded but often misunderstood, the wolf has as many friends as enemies, and its reintroduction into Yellowstone National Park has sparked both fascination and controversy. Early in Yellowstone’s history, wolves were thought supernaturally evil, and scores were destroyed. Northern Rocky Mountain wolves were native to Yellowstone when the park was established in 1872, but “predator control” led to determined eradication, and by the 1940s they were gone. Amid much fanfare, however, wolves were reintroduced to one of the nation’s oldest national parks in the 1990s. This comprehensive reference documents the prehistory, management, and nature of the Yellowstone wolf. Historian-naturalist Paul Schullery has assembled the voices of explorers, naturalists, park officials, tourists, lawmakers, and modern researchers to tell the story of what may be the most famous wolf population in the world. This unique book includes numerous scientific studies of interest to wolf enthusiasts and scholars of western wildlife issues, conservation, and national parks. In a new afterword, Schullery discusses recent developments in the recovery project.

This beautifully illustrated volume on the Yellowstone Wolf Project includes an introduction by Jane Goodall and an exclusive online documentary. The reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park was one of the greatest wildlife conservation achievements of the twentieth century. Eradicated after the park was first established, these iconic carnivores returned in 1995 when the US government reversed its century-old policy of extermination. In the intervening decades, scientists have built a one-of-a-kind field study of these wolves, their behaviors, and their influence on the entire ecosystem. Yellowstone Wolves tells the incredible story of the Yellowstone Wolf Project, as told by the people behind it. This wide-ranging volume highlights what has been learned in the decades since reintroduction, as well as the unique blend of research techniques used to gain this knowledge. We learn about individual wolves, population dynamics, wolf-prey relationships, genetics, disease, management and policy, and the rippling ecosystem effects wolves have had on Yellowstone’s wild and rare landscape. Featuring a foreword by Jane Goodall, beautiful images, a companion online documentary by celebrated filmmaker Bob Landis, and contributions from more than seventy wolf and wildlife conservation luminaries from Yellowstone and around the world, Yellowstone Wolves is an informative and beautifully realized celebration of the extraordinary Yellowstone Wolf Project.

"This book documents the changing tenets of landscape preservation and species protection in preserves of the United States and Canada through a capacious study of canine history."--BOOK JACKET.

Historical records and intensive field surveys 1975-77 provided information on the population history, ecology, and current status of wolves (Canis lupus) in Yellowstone National Park and vicinity. Wolves occurred in unknown but seemingly low densities during the latter 1800s in several areas of Yellowstone where they were controlled periodically until 1926. Populations apparently began increasing about 1912, primarily in the northeast, and may have reached nonequilibrium levels of 30-40 animals (postwhelping). Intensive control 1914-26 removed at least 136 wolves, including about 80 pups. During this period Yellowstone wolves characteristically lived in packs of 3-16 members, some of which followed the ungulates in their seasonal migrations. Litters averaging 7.8 were born in late March and April, primarily in the north central sector of the park. Limited evidence suggests that elk (Cervus elaphus) were important food for wolves during all seasons. Wolves either survived the control era or moved in shortly thereafter for singles, pairs, and a pack of four were reported the following decade. Resident wolf packs, however, were eliminated from Yellowstone National Park by the l940s. Large canids have been sighted intermittently to the present, but their identity has not been established. Singles and pairs comprised 89% of 116 "probable" reports over the past 50 years. Speculation about factors limiting the Yellowstone wolf population considers its relative geographic isolation from viable wolf populations and possible genetic problems (including wolf-coyote hybridization) associated with prolonged minimal population status. A transplant of wolves from British Columbia or Alberta, or perhaps Minnesota, is recommended to restore a viable population of this native predator to Yellowstone National Park.

The wolf is one of the most widely distributed canid species, historically ranging throughout most of the Northern Hemisphere. For millennia, it has also been one of the most pervasive images in human mythology, art, and psychology. Wolves and the Wolf Myth in American Literature examines the wolf’s importance as a figure in literature from the perspectives of both the animal’s physical reality and the ways in which writers imagine and portray it. Author S. K. Robisch examines more than two hundred texts written in North America about wolves or including them as central figures. From this foundation, he demonstrates the wolf’s role as an archetype in the collective unconscious, its importance in our national culture, and its ecological value. Robisch takes a multidisciplinary approach to his study, employing a broad range of sources: myths and legends from around the world; symbology; classic and popular literature; films; the work of scientists in a number of disciplines; human psychology; and field work conducted by himself and others. By combining the fundamentals of scientific study with close readings of wide-ranging literary texts, Robisch astutely analyzes the correlation between actual, living wolves and their representation on the page and in the human mind. He also considers the relationship between literary art and the natural world, and argues for a new approach to literary study, an ecocriticism that moves beyond anthropocentrism to examine the complicated relationship between humans and nature.

In the tradition of Peter Matthiessen's Wildlife in America or Aldo Leopold, Brenda Peterson tells the 300-year history of wild wolves in America. It is also our own history, seen through our relationship with wolves. The earliest Americans revered them. Settlers zealously exterminated them. Now, scientists, writers, and ordinary citizens are fighting to bring them back to the wild. Peterson, an eloquent voice in the battle for twenty years, makes the powerful case that without wolves, not only will our whole ecology unravel, but we'll lose much of our national soul.

Many Japanese once revered the wolf as Oguchi no Magami, or Large-Mouthed Pure God, but as Japan began its modern transformation wolves lost their otherworldly status and became noxious animals that needed to be killed. By 1905 they had disappeared from the country. In this spirited and absorbing narrative, Brett Walker takes a deep look at the scientific, cultural, and environmental dimensions of wolf extinction in Japan and tracks changing attitudes toward nature through Japan's long history. Grain farmers once worshiped wolves at shrines and left food offerings near their dens, beseeching the elusive canine to protect their crops from the sharp hooves and voracious appetites of wild boars and deer. Talismans and charms adorned with images of wolves protected against fire, disease, and other calamities and brought fertility to agrarian communities and to couples hoping to have children. The Ainu people believed that they were born from the union of a wolflike creature and a goddess. In the eighteenth century, wolves were seen as rabid man-killers in many parts of Japan. Highly ritualized wolf hunts were instigated to cleanse the landscape of what many considered as demons. By the nineteenth century, however, the destruction of wolves had become decidedly unceremonious, as seen on the island of Hokkaido. Through poisoning, hired hunters, and a bounty system, one of the archipelago's largest carnivores was systematically erased. The story of wolf extinction exposes the underside of Japan's modernization. Certain wolf scientists still camp out in Japan to listen for any trace of the elusive canines. The quiet they experience reminds us of the profound silence that awaits all humanity when, as the Japanese priest Kenko taught almost seven centuries ago, we "look on fellow sentient creatures without feeling compassion."

By the turn of the millennium, it had become painfully apparent that the United States had made some serious misjudgments in its interactions with the natural world. The country's treasured national parks, while remaining immensely popular tourist destinations, were not immune to the damage. Preservation alone would no longer be enough; by this time, repair and restoration were necessary. Can the United States reverse the mistaken policies that severely damaged the crown jewels of its national park system? This thoughtful and hopeful book, in turns analytical and personal, investigates that critical question by focusing on four of America's most-loved public paces. In Repairing Paradise, William Lowry, an eminent expert on U.S. natural resource policy, details and assesses four ambitious efforts to reverse environmental damage in the national parks: • The reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone • Reducing the impact of vehicle traffic in Yosemite • Restoring fresh water to the Everglades • Removing structural impairments to river flows in the Grand Canyon Repairing Paradise combines authoritative research with extensive personal experience. Lowry has spent time in all four of the parks—observing conditions, talking to the most informed decisionmakers, and taking photos. He deftly combines his field research with solid public policy analysis to paint an instructive portrait of the mission to restore the natural health and glory of some of the world's most wondrous places.

A killer. A manhunt. The triumph of justice and of the wolf. The greatest event in Yellowstone history. Greater Yellowstone was the last great truly intact ecosystem in the temperate zones of the earth—until, in the 1920s, U.S. government agents exterminated its top predator, the gray wolf. With traps and rifles, even torching pups in their dens, the killing campaign was entirely successful. The howl of the “evil” wolf was heard no more. The “good” animals—elk, deer, bison—proliferated, until they too had to be “managed.” Two decades later, recognizing that ecosystems lacking their keystone predators tend to unravel, the visionary naturalist Aldo Leopold called for the return of the wolf to Yellowstone. It would take another fifty years for his vision to come true. In the early 1990s, as the movement for Yellowstone wolf restoration gained momentum, rage against it grew apace. When at last, in February 1995, fifteen wolves were trapped in Alberta and brought to acclimation pens in Yellowstone, even then legal and political challenges continued. There was also a lot of talk in the bars about “shoot, shovel, and shut up.” While the wolves’ enemies worked to return them to Canada, the biologists in charge of the project feared that the wolves might well return on their own. Once they were released, two packs remained in the national park, but one bore only one pup and the other none. The other, comprising Wolves Nine and Ten and Nine’s yearling daughter, disappeared. They were in fact heading home. As they emerged from protected federal land, an unemployed ne’er-do-well from Red Lodge, Montana, trained a high-powered rifle on Wolf Number Ten and shot him through the chest. Number Nine dug a den next to the body of her mate, and gave birth to eight pups. The story of their rescue and the manhunt for the killer is the heart of The Killing of Wolf Number Ten. + Read this book, and if you are ever fortunate enough to hear the howling of Yellowstone wolves, you will always think of Wolves Nine and Ten. If you ever see a Yellowstone wolf, chance are it will be carrying their DNA. The restoration of the wolf to Yellowstone is now recognized as one of conservation’s greatest achievements, and Wolves Nine and Ten will always be known as its emblematic heroes.

In view of the current rhetoric surrounding the global migrant crisis – with politicians comparing refugees with animals and media reports warning of migrants swarming like insects or trespassing like wolves – this timely study explores the cultural origins of the language and imagery of dehumanization. Situated at the junction of literature, politics, and ecocriticism, Wolves at the Door traces the history of the wolf metaphor in discussions of race, gender, colonialism, fascism, and ecology. How have 'Gypsies', Jews, Native Americans but also 'wayward' women been 'wolfed' in literature and politics? How has the wolf myth been exploited by Hitler, Mussolini and Turkish ultra-nationalism? How do right-wing politicians today exploit the reappearance of wolves in Central Europe in the context of the migration discourse? And while their reintroduction in places like Yellowstone has fuelled heated debates, what is the wolf's role in ecological rewilding and for the restoration of biodiversity? In today's fraught political climate, Wolves at the Door alerts readers to the links between stereotypical images, their cultural history, and their political consequences. It raises awareness about xenophobia and the dangers of nationalist idolatry, but also highlights how literature and the visual arts employ the wolf myth for alternative messages of tolerance and cultural diversity.