Wolves also have an innate moral compass, says Bekoff. This is revealed in their strong social ties, complex communication, empathy, sense of fairness, and cooperation. Bekoff cites research from veteran wolf researcher David Mech that “pack size in wolves is regulated by social and not food-related factors.” Family size in wolves depends on how many individual wolves can “closely bond.” The recognition of ethics and emotions in other animals is revising the way we see our fellow creatures. This new research holds us to a higher ethical standard in our own treatment of other species.
“We had her in our sights,” Laurie Lyman said, eulogizing 06. “We knew her and were so able to see how everything fell apart after her death.… Her death was sad, but the breakup of her pack—nothing good comes of it.”
Without their leaders, the Lamar Canyon family fragmented, many of her daughters dispersing. Lyman tells the story of one of 06’s daughters, 820, who was killed outside the park while preying on a chicken. Like 06, she was alone, trying to feed two pups. If she’d been with her family, she’d have recognized by now that leaving the park was too dangerous and that chickens were not as good a prey as elk or deer. But 06’s young daughter had “no leadership or supervision.” Her family was now like a “classroom without a teacher.”
Because 755M couldn’t mate with his daughters, he was forced to go in search of another mate. His quest was dangerous. Rick McIntyre notes that he and his colleagues had watched two other of “those big, tough males die in the attempt to start over.”
But a year and a half after he lost 06, her mate finally found a bond with two females from the Mollie family—traditionally the Lamars’ deadly rivals. Another trio formed, this time between two sisters and an alpha male. Both sisters were pregnant, but one of them died. The other gave birth to a new family. After years under the wise tutelage of 06, her mate, 755M, was a master hunter and good father. He has helped raise three litters. But when 755M attempted to return to his original Lamar Canyon family with his new mate, he was not welcomed back. 06’s daughters now had new mates who threatened 755M and killed his mate. They drove the once-alpha male away from the Lamars. In 2014 he was again a lone wolf.
In the Lamar Canyon pack one of 06’s formidable daughters has now risen to leader and continues the strong matriarchy that runs through 06’s bloodlines. And so the legacy of 06 lives on—not only in her family line but also in our science and storytelling. They can kill the wolf, but they can’t end her story. Any quick Internet search reveals memorials still updated annually on the anniversary of 06’s death. Her family has been nicknamed “The Royals” of Yellowstone National Park and are chronicled with the same fascination as with other royalty. Watching the lives and deaths of royal families is in our human DNA and history. What’s different now is extending that fascination to the dramatic rise and fall, the lineage and bloodlines, the alliances, mates, and conquests of other animals.
Jane Goodall defied scientific dogma by naming her study animals so that they became characters in their own dramas—Fifi, the nurturing and wise matriarch; Frodo, her strong and confident son; and on through their generations. In her talks before standing ovations Goodall often pant-hoots before she speaks. When she tells stories of the Gombe chimps, audiences lean forward as if she is telling us about our own families, our fears, our fates. In a remote Chinese village Goodall was once approached by a peasant woman who desperately grabbed her arm, demanding, “How is Fifi?”
The bonds that such stories create can be both compelling and threatening. The president of the Montana Shooting Sports Association, Gary Marbut, complains, “One of the ploys of the wolf advocates is to personify wolves… by giving them names and making them look like cute and fuzzy creatures. They generate acceptance of wolves by people who don’t have to live with wolves. I see that as the chief motive for making them famous.”
This fame and this intimate alliance with the other, with the animal, is exactly what those who want to eradicate wolves fear most. For so long the wolf has been declared “public enemy number one” that any other storyline is a big threat. To declare a person or an animal an enemy requires dehumanizing the other. Language plays a vital part in this process, like the propaganda of World War II when Americans reduced all Japanese to “Japs” and Germans to “Krauts.” When we wish to exterminate any animal species we call them “pests” or “nuisance animals” or worse. Once other creatures have been demonized, rendered less than us, we are free to destroy them.
The British writer Alexander Pope once said, “All looks jaundiced to the jaundiced eye.” If generations have called the wolf nothing but a ruthless killer, then of course that obscures any other view. In the same way, for those raised watching movies like Never Cry Wolf, in which the biologist begins to respect and even revere the wild wolf, that is the lens through which wolves are seen. In addition, because wild wolves’ lives mirror our own in certain ways, we have difficulty seeing this fellow creature as separate and distinct from our own projections.
The powerful female wolf 06 was a fierce and protective matriarch who killed her prey and her foes with equal expertise. She was neither a ruthless killing machine nor a sentimental icon. She was simply going about the daily business of being a wolf—leading her family, feeding her young, and ferociously guarding her postage-stamp territory. Our dwindling wilderness was too small for such a singular and adventuresome wolf. Just as 06 had pushed the boundaries of her own strengths in her solitary hunts, just as she had chosen not only one but two males to make a family, just as she was immediately recognized as a charismatic leader, it was probably her destiny to be gunned down as soon as she left the protected park to explore and perhaps even claim more territory. 06 was too big for Yellowstone, too much larger than life to fit into our human lens. Main characters like 06 demand our timeless stories. We make myths of those we identify as the best or worst versions of ourselves. Whatever our point of view, the main character in any myth is either villain or hero. It all depends on who is telling the story—and when and where. But that lens is shifting: the more people who witness wolves, who watch their lives, who follow their generations, who understand their ecological role, the more clearly we’ll see and act to conserve this fellow creature. The story of the real lives of wolves, as with all good tales, will change the way we see ourselves and our world.
8. OLD GROWTH AND YOUNG HOWLS
At midnight on a wild and cold mountain in Blue River, Oregon, in 2011 a small and hopeful human pack cupped our chilly hands around our mouths.
“Ahhhhhwwwhhooooo,” we howled out into the dense and deep layers of old-growth forest, our voices a soulful blend of throaty baritone and wavering soprano.
We listened to hear if any wolves would answer. Screech owl hoots, a dim airplane roar high above, a startled scattering in the underbrush—but no communal and haunting Canis lupus howl came back to us. The same answer heard here for decades—the silence of the wolves.
“But wolves have been slowly coming back here since 2008,” whispered a biologist accompanying us from the US Forest Service’s enlightened HJ Andrews Experimental Forest. “In Oregon we now have a pretty sane and sensible management program. Yes, the wolves are still hiding out. Of course, they’re always very wary of us. Who can blame them?”
Who indeed? Only three weeks earlier, in April 2011, the Republican Congress had passed a “wolf rider” to a budget bill, ending federal protection for wild wolves in Montana, Wisconsin, Idaho, Washington, Utah, and here in Oregon. Wolf management was returned to the states. Already wolf hunts were planned in Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana. The Natural Resources Defense Council was estimating that in Idaho alone, six hundred wolves—or 50 percent of the population—would be destroyed. There were a total of fifteen hundred wolves in all three Rocky Mountain states. In 2010 Idaho ranchers had lost only 148 cattle out of the state’s 2.2 million head. The rider set a troubling precedent—politics trumping science in wildlife management. There were many protests: “Howl-ins” and
“Phone-ins for Wolves” with people demonstrating from Idaho to Central Park. Friends of Animals president Priscilla Feral declared, “What’s about to happen to gray wolves in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming—who are a vital part of the ecosystem—is vile. Governors of those states are subjecting wolves to pogroms from the Middle Ages.”
I had just written a Seattle Times article on the federal delisting, “Wolves Endangered by Political Predators.” The Times headline was my editor’s, not mine. Even the former director of the USFW, Jamie Rappaport Clark, was dismayed by the proposed delisting: “The service is saying, ‘We’re done. Game over. Whatever happens to wolves in the U.S. is a state thing.’ They are declaring victory long before science would tell them to do so.”
In Montana one outfitter advertised, “maximize your predator experience… add a fall black bear to your wolf hunt.” It offered a “proven predator calling technique” to lure the wolf, bear, mountain lion, coyote, foxes, “and more” into your crosshairs. Those of us now howling in the forest were well aware of the violent backlash against wolves in other states. We believed that Oregon, still then in the early stages of wolf recovery, would handle wolf management in a more enlightened and far-sighted way.
“Ahhhhhwwwhhooooo,” again, our plaintive and hopeful howls echoed through the valley. Below us the McKenzie River flowed fast and steep.
No wolves.
I wondered whether the wolves slowly returning on their own to this western Cascade Range might actually be nearby, scenting and waiting to figure out whether we were the dangerous kind of humans: guns instead of cameras, shooting instead of singing. Some scientists believe that wolves not only can smell danger, but they also can scent our moods, like our long-socialized and companionable dogs. I’d just read new research that wolves were able to follow a human’s gaze—a surprising sign of social partnership. This skill at following a human’s gaze is a difficult test for most animals and something that only apes, rooks, ravens, and wolves achieved in research tests. We already knew that wolves could easily follow our voices and could choose to respond to our human howling. So we sang on, a chorus engaging in an interspecies call and response as ancient and enduring as these trees.
“Listen!” someone whispered as a far-off howl ricocheted through the woods. Without our flashlights, it was astonishingly dark. An immense blackness, lit only by very distant stars. We closed our eyes tightly to open our ears.
“Oh,” we sigh in disappointment, recognizing the hoarse whine and howl. “It’s just a dog way down in the valley.”
“At least we got some kind of canine callback,” a man said, and we could hear him grinning.
Some of my companions were robust and knowledgeable Forest Service folks gathered for a weekend workshop in the HJ Andrews Forest. I was here as the spring’s 2011 writer-in-residence. Wisely set aside in 1948, this forest, with its moss-draped canopies of Douglas fir, cedar, and hemlock, is a complex mix of old-growth and mature trees, from one hundred to five hundred years old. Much spotted owl research was conducted in these remarkable woods, an example of what happens when a forest is set aside not just for “multiple use” but also for long-term study.
It was so restorative to return to this Pacific Northwest forest only three hundred miles north of my High Sierra birthplace. Every day we trooped off into the old growth to study nurse logs and forest decay. In the evenings we gathered to talk about forests and wildlife. One of the participants read us a tenth-century Chinese dynasty poem called “Little Pines.”
A thousand years from now
Who will stroll among these trees
Fashioning poems on their ancient dragon shapes?
Living among these old trees was indeed like being surrounded by giant, green dragons. It reminded me of my first forest and my father calling these massive red cedars “The Standing People.”
Suddenly on our hike we heard a voice. “Don’t be afraid. You can do it!” A boy in red overalls and blue down jacket was standing at the foot of a 250-foot Douglas fir and shouting up into the thick forest canopy.
I followed his gaze and saw seven ten-year-olds in full climbing gear—white helmets and black-strapped harnesses—all hanging from various heights along the huge tree. Cinching their metal clamps with their feet, they were inching up skillfully like little monkeys. Every now and then they dangled and swayed far out on their long red ropes to rest and chatter. Several adults hung between the climbers, expertly safeguarding the kids.
“If I die, you can have my cell phone!” one kid yelled down at another trying to catch up with him.
All the climbers burst out laughing. Squirrels chittered, and several ravens swept out of the canopy with complaining caws. Wings whooshed above.
Several of the kids were so high in the stalwart Douglas fir that I could see only their tennis shoes pushing off playfully against the moss-draped trunk. But one rather round and terrified boy was paralyzed, stuck only about fifteen feet up the tree. His eyes were riveted on the forest floor as if willing himself back on the soft ground.
“Lift up with your knees,” quietly instructed the guide, who was hanging right above the frightened boy. “Then push up one step at a time on the rope.” He rappelled down a few feet and reached out a hand to steady the boy’s nervous sway. Again he showed the boy how to squat down as if in a fetal position and then step into the metal hardware attached to his rope to ascend one more body length up this rope’s lifeline.
Very slowly the boy lifted his heavy body up one step at a time, cheered on by the other climbers above and below him. After a few successful lifts the boy’s expression was pure delight as he finally got the hang of the rope and harness. In a surprising burst of speed, he climbed straight up with the grace of our primate ancestors. Everyone cheered and hollered and hooted their welcome.
“Now, it’s your turn,” the guide turned to me with a grin and offered me all the gear.
I hesitated. It had been decades since I’d scampered up a tree—and never one this enormous.
Almost all of the kids were climbing up to the very top of the tree, where lichen-rich boughs were streaked with sunlight, while I was still down here in the shade.
“Don’t you want to get up there in the canopy where so few people ever get to be?”
Yes, of course I longed to be way up there with all the other kids, seeing this wondrous green world from the highest treetop like a raven or a red vole. I knew all about forest canopy research from reading Jerry Franklin’s work; Franklin is a forestry professor at the University of Washington who first pioneered studying these old-growth forests from the top down instead of looking at trees from the bottom up. Franklin called his research “a clarification of the architecture of the forest,” and it was a revelation for foresters.
I reached for the helmet, and the guide expertly tightened the harness around my hips, tugging it to make sure it was secure. I was surprised that my legs seemed to remember the firm push-down and powerful lift-up of a climbing rope as I slowly ascended the huge fir. It was hard and very physical work, and soon my muscles were warm, aching a little.
“Hey, kids,” the guide called out to us all. “Let’s take a rest and just be totally quiet for two minutes. Can you do it? Listen to what the trees and the animals hear this high up.
Not a giggle or a grunt. The kids fell into the same soaring stillness of the ancient trees that held them midair. In that spacious silence was a sense of timelessness. I remembered the Andrews forest biologist telling us, “Every tree has a resonance. When wind blows at that exact vibration, then the tree and the wind are in resonance. It’s like music.”
The wind makes a different song moving through each tree. This Douglas fir tree’s song was sonorous, with a reassuring bass tone from standing tall for five hundred years. It had ventured up from the forest floor as a sapling, long before the European settlers came to these shores. In my lifetime 80 percent of these old-growth trees have fallen down in Pacific Northwest forests, and like the wild
wolves who once roamed here, forests survive on only a fraction of their former territory. But this fir was still a mighty presence. And the wolves—at least here in Oregon—were still protected. I dearly hoped this Douglas fir would stand until these kids swaying far above me so silently were themselves great-great-grandparents.
Dangling there below all the children I realized that these little ones would live longer than I did. They see much farther than I do, I thought. They are already far in the future. What would their green world be like? Would these ancient trees survive them? Would wild animals like wolves still be a vital part of their lives and lands?
At last we all rappelled down, one by one, with an exhilarating zip-zip-zip of our ropes. There was a time to talk under the trees. I asked several of the kids about how it felt to climb so high into the mysterious forest canopy.
“We’re on top of the world!” said one beaming girl, her pigtails matted with lichen and twigs.
“Awesome!” a boy echoed. He didn’t want to give back his very cool helmet with the tree design on it.
“What are you doing here?” one asked me.
I told them I’d been listening for and writing about wolves. Before I could say another word the entire pack of children simultaneously startled howling. It was a higher-pitched but more melodious chorus than our howl in the forest the night before. I realized then that although the wolves may have gone almost extinct in our Pacific Northwest forests, the wolf in these children’s imaginations had never been lost.
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