What do we really know about wolves? What do we merely imagine? Author Peter Steinhart explores these questions and shows us why this elusive creature has taken center stage in the debate over the preservation and use of the wilderness. No other animal engages our emotions as fiercely as the wolf does, largely because we are so alike: both wolves and humans evolved as hunters in groups, as complex social animals who survive through an unpredictable mix of cooperation and competition, nurturing and aggression. Only recently have we had the technology and inclination to study wolves in the wild, but because human persecution has made wolves shy and wary, we still know very little about how they live. We fill the gaps in our knowledge with reflections of our own human nature. The wolf to us is both a biological and mythological species; we cannot avoid infusing it with symbolism. In exploring the tangled relationships between wolves and humans, Steinhart has listened to biologists, wildlife managers, ranchers, trappers, wolf lovers, and wolf haters, and what emerges is clear evidence that when we talk about wolves, we are saying something about ourselves, about how uneasy we are with aggression, predation, and ferocity--with wildness itself. He takes us to the woods of Ontario; to an Indian village in northern Alberta; to Alaska, where wolves have been hunted from the air; to a wildlife refuge in North Carolina, where wolves have been reintroduced; and to Arizona, New Mexico, and Yellowstone Park, where reintroduction was still hotly debated at the time of writing. He talks to a besieged rancher neighboring Yellowstone; to an Indian trapper who frequently shoots wolves; to David Mech, the "alpha male" of wolf researchers; to Diane Boyd, who follows wolves on skis and by plane in Glacier National Park; to John Theberge, who pioneered the study of howling; and to Rolf Peterson, who studies the mysterious population crash of the wolves of Isle Royale. All of these people, in various ways, argue for and against wolves. In this book we are powerfully persuaded of how much is at stake: not only the preservation of a fellow creature but the marvelous complexity of the unfolding process of evolution.--Adapted from dust jacket.
"Scientific studies undertaken in the last half century have produced a vast body of literature revealing the realities of the wolf's nature and the animal's prospects for survival in today's world. Steinhart apparently read it all. He also interviewed biologists who work with wolves in the wild and in captivity and talked with both enemies and friends of the wolf. From all this, he has distilled important information, and, to boot, he has added his own intelligent insights to it. Effectively and interestingly, he communicates to the reader what the wolf means to various people, as well as an understanding of the wolf's value as a continuing presence in our world. If not the best, this is one of the best compendia of information on and philosophies of wolf management. It contains few factual errors. One of these is that on page 199, Ghost Ranch Museum, at Abiquiu, New Mexico, is called "a Department of Game and Fish facility." It was in fact owned by the U.S. Forest Service and was never acquired by the game department. The discrepancy likely results from imperfect communication between interviewer and interviewee. The few errors do not detract from the effectiveness of the book's plea for continued efforts on behalf of one of the most controversial of endangered species. The volume arrives as political changes bring challenges to the structure and existence of the Endangered Species Act. Steinhart's support of the wolf goes beyond ecological arguments to an analysis of our spiritual need for the company of wolves, a species with which we evolved."--Science Books and Films.
|
