Wolf Nation

by Brenda Peterson

  Wolves did not kill more than they could eat: Haber and Holleman, Among Wolves, 221–223.

  CHAPTER 4. A TAXIDERMIST’S DREAM

  Online photo collections of Alaska caribou herds: Caribou Herd in Snow, Master file, www.masterfile.com/em/search/#id=&color=&colour_key=0&format=hvsp&imgtype=IPV&releases=&keyImage=&keyword=caribou+herd+in+snow&license=ALL&mode=search&sort=alice&aspectRatio=mediumAspect.

  His words reminded me of a chilling fact: Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, The Hidden Life of Deer (New York: HarperCollins, 2009), 166–168.

  the managers’ traditional bias: Haber and Holleman, Among Wolves, 106.

  I’d just learned at this summit from an ex-Game Board member: Vic Ballenberghe, US Forest Service employee and ex-Alaska BOG member report to Defenders of Wildlife Conference, Seattle, WA, 1998.

  “You’d think she believed wolves had souls”: Brenda Peterson, Build Me an Ark: A Life with Animals (New York: Norton, 2001), 184, 191; Egan, “Alaska to Kill Wolves to Inflate Game Herds.”

  As the US Humane Society recently noted: “State Wildlife Management: The Pervasive Influence of Hunters, Hunting Culture, and Money,” Howling for Justice, March 22, 2010.

  The very last afternoon of the Wolf Summit: Peggy Shumaker, “Caribou,” in Wings Moist from the Other World (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994); Shumaker, “The Story of Light,” Underground Rivers, www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/237596.

  The year after the Wolf Summit Haber said: Susan Reed, “The Killing Fields,” People, March 21, 1994.

  A brief ban on aerial wolf hunting voted in: Shannyn Moore, “Wolf in Governor’s Clothing…,” Shannyn Moore: Just a Girl from Homer, September 23, 2008.

  Under Governor Sarah Palin wolves were shot: Karin Brulliard, “Feds to Alaska: Stop Killing Bears and Wolves on Our Land,” Washington Post, August 4, 2016.

  Over twelve hundred wolves were still killed: Associated Press, “Alaska Puts $150 Bounty on Wolves,” Environment on NBC News, March 22, 2007, www.nbcnews.com/id/17735990/#.VnBgdYS7lTZ.

  State wildlife managers have failed to provide: “Alaska’s Predator Control Programs,” Defenders of Wildlife, www.defenders.org/sites/default/files/publications/alaskas_predator_control_programs.pdf.

  In the summer of 2016 the Obama administration’s: Paul Bedard, “Feds Reclaim Control of Alaska Gamelands, Ban Bear, Wolf Hunts by Air,” Washington Examiner, August 3, 2016.

  In 2015 the Denali Park wolves—once so admired: Emily Schwing, “Wolf Population Declining in Denali National Park,” Alaska Public Media, June 4, 2014.

  This is “the lowest number since wildlife: Melissa Cronin, “7 Boneheaded Things Sarah Palin Has Done to Animals,” The Dodo, February 19, 2015.

  The National Park Service biologist who had studied: Krista Langlois, “Wolf Wars: Alaska’s Republican Governors Find Vicious Ways to Kill Predators and Mark Their Territory with the Feds,” Slate, October 31, 2014.

  In the summer of 2016 the watchdog group: “Hunting Compounds Record Low Denali Wolf Survival,” PEER news release, May 7, 2015, www.peer.org/news/news-releases/hunting-compounds-record-low-denali-wolf-survival.html.

  Even then the winter-kill of wolves goes on: “Alaska Confirms Massive Decline in Rare Wolves, Still Plans to Hunt Them,” Howling for Justice, December 4, 2015.

  Along with so many of Alaska’s wolves: Haber and Holleman, Among Wolves, 106; Bill Sherwonit, “Gordon Haber’s Final Days.”

  Two longtime Alaska residents heard: Haber and Holleman, Among Wolves, 106.

  “The pack’s decline was fast and drastic: Elise Schmelzer, “The Last Wolf Family of Alaska’s Denali National Park Has Vanished,” Star Tribune, August 10, 2016.

  National Park Service has proposed a ban: “National Park Service Proposed Permanent Ban on Predator Hunting Practices in Alaska’s Preserves,” KUAC TV 9/FM 89.9, September 8, 2014, http://fm.kuac.org/post/national-park-service-proposes-permanent-ban-predator-hunting-practices-alaskas-preserves.

  A new governor, independent Bill Walker: Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, “Gov. Walker Adopted into Kaagwaantaan Clan,” April 21, 2015, http://gov.alaska.gov/Walker/press-room/full-press-release.html?pr=7136.

  “The most astonishing fact to one: Patricia Nelson Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West (W. W. Norton and Company, 1987).

  CHAPTER 5. YELLOWSTONE: “A WOLF’S PARADISE”

  “Rick McIntyre wolf biologist” recent images: Wolf Mcintyre Wolf Biologist, Google search, www.google.com/search?q=wolf+mcintyre+wolf+biologist&biw=1407&bih=728&site=webhp&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiuiLWonPXOAhUY6GMKHRBVA8EQ_AUIBigB.

  Photos of F5 and chart of original Yellowstone wolves in 1995: Michael K. Phillips, Douglas W. Smith, and Teri O’Neill, The Wolves of Yellowstone (Stillwater, MN: Voyageur Press, 1996), 46–47.

  “They were cavorting, playing: “Wolves Leave Pens at Yellowstone and Appear to Celebrate,” New York Times, March 27, 1995.

  She raised her magnificent head: Phillips, Smith, and O’Neill, The Wolves of Yellowstone.

  Usually wolves simply run coyotes off: “Who Eats Who?” National Park Service, www.nps.gov/glac/learn/education/upload/Who%20eats%20who%20chart.pdf.

  “The Yellowstone landscape those first animals stumbled: Douglas W. Smith and Gary Ferguson, Decade of the Wolf: Returning the Wild to Yellowstone (Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2005).

  He would become as well known: Josh Dean, “Pack Man,” Outside, November 11, 2010.

  Outside magazine would call him “Pack Man”: Carl Safina, Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2015).

  In his preface, “Witness to Ecological Murder”: McIntyre, War Against the Wolf, 13.

  “I have concluded that it is OK to have feelings: Diane Boyd, “Living with Wolves,” in Intimate Nature: The Bond Between Women and Animals, ed. Linda Hogan, Deena Metzger, and Brenda Peterson (New York: Fawcett, 1999), 96.

  Because usually only the breeding male and female: Sarah Marshall-Pescini, Ingo Besserdich, Corinna Kratz, and Friederike Range, “Exploring Differences in Dogs’ and Wolves’ Preference for Risk in a Foraging Task,” Frontiers in Psychology 7 (August 2016): 1241.

  Number 10 was the largest and most confident of all: Smith and Ferguson, Decade of the Wolf.

  “That’s a wolf, Dusty,” he says: Thomas McNamee, “The Killing of Wolf Number 10,” Outside, May 2, 1997.

  Stevens noted that wolves “are as various: William K. Stevens, “Wolf’s Howl Heralds Change for Old Haunts,” New York Times, January 31, 1995.

  He would later tell a reporter, “Certain wolves: Carl Safina, “What Do Animals Think?,” excerpt from Beyond Words, The Week, September 18, 2015.

  Longtime and respected wolf advocates such as Laurie Lyman: Laurie Lyman, Yellowstone Reports blog, www.yellowstonereports.com.

  In fact, the author of the wildly popular Game of Thrones: Earthjustice, The Weekly Howl, print version, June 21, 2015.

  In Yellowstone the Druids, another group of the original: “In the Valley of the Wolves: The Druid Wolf Pack Story,” Nature, PBS, June 4, 2008, www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/in-the-valley-of-the-wolves-the-druid-wolf-pack-story/209.

  But as Number 40, the once-mighty and malicious matriarch: Smith and Ferguson, Decade of the Wolf, 86.

  The true alpha male demonstrates: Carl Safina, “Tapping Your Inner Wolf,” New York Times, June 5, 2015.

  When biologist Douglas Smith told regular wolf watchers: Greg Gordon, “The Passing of a Yellowstone Cinderella,” High Country News, February 16, 2004.

  CHAPTER 6. TROPHIC CASCADES: A NOT-SO-SIMPLE STORY

  “We think this ecosystem is unraveling: Sandi Doughton, “Can Wolves Restore an Ecosystem?” Seattle Times, January 25, 2009.

  But without wolves to control elk populations: Ibid.

  “The whole ecosystem re-sorted itself: Ibid.

  University of Washington ecologist Robert T. Paine: “Keystone Species
Hypothesis,” University of Washington, February 3, 2011; R. B. Root. “Robert T. Paine, President: 1979–1980,” Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America 60, no. 3 (September 1979): 156–157.

  Conservation biologist Cristina Eisenberg of Oregon State University: Cristina Eisenberg, The Wolf’s Tooth (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2010, 4–5; “Dr. Cristina Eisenberg Wants Wolves in Our Backyards,” OSU College of Forestry, www.forestry.oregonstate.edu/dr-cristina-eisenberg-wants-wolves-our-backyards.

  This trophic cascade concept has deep roots: “Predators Keep the World Green, Ecologists Find,” Duke Today, February 28, 2006.

  In The Wolf’s Tooth Cristina would later write: Eisenberg, The Wolf’s Tooth, 163–164.

  This kept us in check and enabled a form of equilibrium: Arwen, “On the Prowl—A Better Understanding of Wolves with Dr. Cristina Eisenberg,” Viral Media Lab, May 23, 2012.

  A few researchers recently argued that wolves are not: Arthur Middleton, “Is the Wolf a Real American Hero?” New York Times, March 9, 2014.

  Another article in Nature also questions any overly simplistic: Emma Marris, “Rethinking Predators: Legend of the Wolf,” Nature, March 7, 2014.

  There’s a clear threshold for ecosystem recovery: “Yellowstone Ecosystem Needs Wolves and Willows, Elk and… Beavers?” National Science Foundation, www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_images.jsp?cntn_id=126853&org=NSF.

  Storms, drought, disease—all of these contribute: Cristina Eisenberg, “Wolves in a Tangled Bank,” Huffington Post, December 23, 2014.

  Since 2008 Cristina has been experimenting: “How Fires Benefit Wildlife,” Learning Corner, http://familyonbikes.org/educate/lessons/animals_wildfires.htm.

  Certainly her successful and well-funded research grants: “Benefits of Fire,” California Department of Fish and Fire Protection, www.fire.ca.gov/communications/downloads/fact_sheets/TheBenefitsofFire.pdf.

  Interestingly, even with that many elk, the wolves: “Controlled Burning,” USDA Forest Service. www.fs.usda.gov/detail/dbnf/home/?cid=stelprdb5281464.

  We need to talk about returning wolves: “Wolf Range in North America: Past, Present and Potential,” Defenders of Wildlife, www.endangered.org/cms/assets/uploads/2013/07/PlacesForWolves_VisionMAP1page.pdf.

  federal protection for red wolves languished: “North Carolina Landowners Express Support for Recovery of Endangered Red Wolves,” Animal Welfare Institute, January 26, 2016.

  “Bringing keystones back, because of their far-reaching: Eisenberg, The Wolf’s Tooth, 165.

  CHAPTER 7. 06: THE WORLD’S MOST FAMOUS WOLF

  Photos of 06: “Wolf 06,” Shumway Photography, www.shumwayphotography.com/Yellowstone/Wolf-06/n-f58Vq/i-B2qFdr4.

  Because the Yellowstone wolves have been so intensely studied: James C. Halfpenny, Yellowstone Wolves in the Wild (Helena, MT: Riverbend Publishing, 2003), 90–91; Mike Link and Kate Crowley, Following the Pack: The World of Wolf Research (Darby, PA: Diane Publishing Co., 1994).

  Laurie Lyman, a retired teacher who has been documenting: Laurie Lyman, Yellowstone Reports, www.yellowstonereports.com.

  By spring she was seen galloping around meadows: Joe Rosenberg, “06 Female,” Snap Judgment NPR, May 23, 2014, http://snapjudgment.org/06-female.

  Through word of mouth, social media, and YouTube: Natalie Bergholz, “06 The Legend,” Legend of Lamar Valley, http://legendoflamarvalley.com/06-of-the-lamar-canyon-pack; “06 Female Wolf: The Legend of Lamar Valley,” YouTube, November 28, 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qMw8IA2qCU.

  two brothers forsook seven sisters: “06 to Be Immortalized on Film,” Howling for Justice.

  In one scene in the documentary about 06, She-Wolf: Bob Landis, “She-Wolf,” film, National Geographic interview with Laurie Lyman, Rick McIntyre, Doug Smith, 2014, http://tvblogs.nationalgeographic.com/2014/01/19/she-wolf-rise-of-the-alpha-female.

  Once McIntyre witnessed 06, weakened after: Rosenberg, “06 Female.”

  She was a legend. And some legends don’t outlive: Jeff Hull, “Out of Bounds: The Death of 832F, Yellowstone’s Most Famous Wolf,” Outside, February 13, 2013.

  One of the wolf watchers, Dr. Nathan Varley: Nathan Varley, “Witnessing the Clash: A Newly Collared 06 Leads Her Pack into Battle,” Yellowstone Reports, February 11, 2012.

  He describes how they leave scent marks: Rick Lamplugh, “Life and Death Among Yellowstone Wolves,” Rick Lamplugh’s Blog, November 2, 2015, http://ricklamplugh.blogspot.com/2015/11/life-and-death-among-yellowstones-wolves.html; “100 Wolf Facts,” Wild World of Wolves, http://wildworldofwolves.tripod.com/id7.htm.

  But as Rick McIntyre poignantly noted: Rosenberg, “06 Female.”

  The New York Times eulogized 06 as “beloved: Nate Schweber, “Famous Wolf Is Killed Outside Yellowstone,” New York Times, December 8, 2012.

  Editorials and social media weighed in with the suspicion: Hull, “Out of Bounds.”

  That same year the Montana State House of Representatives: Wolves of the Rockies, Action Alert, May, 2016, http://us5.campaign-archive1.com/?u=c797c2deeb0a61161eed3c9bd&id=8eb9eee140&e=c174a7773d.

  Wolves, one of the most social animals of all, grieve: Mark Bekoff and Jessica Pierce, Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2009).

  Like our domesticated dogs, wolves’ expressions: Rick Lamplugh, “Wolves and Coyotes Feel Sadness and Grieve Like Humans,” The Dodo, May 4, 2015.

  But a year and a half after he lost 06, her mate: Pat Shipman, “The Cost of the Wild,” American Scientist, November–December 2012.

  In the Lamar Canyon pack one of 06’s formidable daughters: “Wild Yellowstone: She Wolf,” National Geographic documentary, http://natgeotv.com/za/wild-yellowstone-she-wolf/videos/the-invaders.

  This fame and this intimate alliance with the other: Hull, “Out of Bounds.”

  In addition, because wild wolves’ lives mirror: Nick Jans, A Wolf Called Romeo (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2014).

  CHAPTER 8. OLD GROWTH AND YOUNG HOWLS

  Photos of the original eight members of Sawtooth Pack: “Sawtooth Pack Wolves of the Nez Perce” (Elder Eight photo by Michael Dustin), Tripod, http://wolf-whisper305.tripod.com/id15.html.

  “But wolves have been slowly coming back here since 2008”: PDF info from Oregon State, USDA Forest Service, http://andrewsforest.oregonstate.edu/lter/pubs/pdf/pub3654.pdf.

  Only three weeks earlier, in April 2011, the Republican Congress: Brenda Peterson, “Despite Howling of Humans—Silencing of the Wolves,” Huffington Post, March 21, 2014.

  The rider set a troubling precedent: Brad Knickerbocker, “Budget Bill Cuts Federal Wolf Protection, Environmentalists Howling,” Christian Science Monitor, April 16, 2011.

  Even the former director of the USFW, Jamie Rappaport Clark: Peterson, “Wolves Endangered by Political Predators.”

  This skill at following a human’s gaze: Virginia Morrell, “Wolves Can Follow a Human’s Gaze,” Science, February 23, 2011.

  I knew all about forest canopy research from reading: Jerry F. Franklin, Kermit Cromack Jr., William Denison, Arthur McKee, Chris Maser, James Sedell, Fred Swanson et al., “Ecological Characteristics of Old-Growth Douglas-Fir Forest” (US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1981).

  Franklin called his research “a clarification: Matt Rasmussen, “A Night in an Ancient Douglas-Fir Reveals the Forest Hidden Amid the Treetops,” California Wild, Spring 2006.

  Filmmakers and wolf researchers Jim and Jamie Dutcher: Jim Dutcher and Jamie Dutcher, The Hidden Life of Wolves (Washington, DC: National Geographic, 2013); Jim Dutcher and Richard Ballantine, The Sawtooth Wolves (Bearsville, NY: Rufus Publications, 1996).

  But those tree-climbing kids had already made plans: “Owyhee Pack—The Rescue,” YouTube, May 4, 2012, https://youtu.be/wZ6HREUWIMo.

  He added that the return to wolf hunts to “placate hunters”: Jim Robbins, “Hunting Wolves Out West: More, Less?” New York Times, December 16,
2011.

  Bloodlust and backlash against wolves: Michael Babcock, “Montana’s Wolf Hunting Season Ends; 166 Killed,” Timber Wolf Information Network, www.timberwolfinformation.org/montanas-wolf-hunting-season-ends-166-killed.

  To put this in historical perspective, in the past hundred years: Statistics from Living with Wolves, www.livingwithwolves.com.

  A billboard paid for by Washington Residents Against Wolves: Matthew Weaver, “Spokane Group Uses Billboards to Take Stand on Wolves,” Capital Press, January 15, 2015.

  And the tab that taxpayers paid for Wildlife Services to destroy: Wildlife Services, “Tell Congress: Don’t Sell Out Wolves, Wildlife,” Center for Biological Diversity, June 13, 2016.

  Washington State high schooler Story Warren: Kids4Wolves, Facebook, www.facebook.com/Kids4Wolves.

  Sometimes these wolves were collared for research, but sometimes: “Idaho’s Wolves,” Kids4Wolves, March 12, 2016.

  This Judas wolf strategy is officially called: “USDA-Collared Judas Wolves Used Over and Over to Lead Killers to Their Families,” Timber Wolf Information Network, www.timberwolfinformation.org/usda-collared-judas-wolves-used-over-and-over-to-lead-killers-to-their-families.

  One of the most poignant and remarkable of Story’s: Kids4Wolves, “Kids to Secretary Jewell: Follow the Science,” YouTube, March 23, 2014, https://youtu.be/WfUUoLYwUe4.

  CHAPTER 9. WOLVES AND THE NATIONAL COMMONS

  Our whining about the dull farmland allowed my father: Wilderness and Federal Land map, Virtual Hermit Unleashed, Tumblr, http://67.media.tumblr.com/b2c5193b470193f2a72073a9d6842ab0/tumblr_najwjyA0lo1sgyd3ro1_1280.jpg.

  In fact, in a few years he would be part of passing the landmark: “What Is Wilderness?” Wilderness Act of 1964, Wilderness.net, www.wilderness.net/NWPS/WhatIsWilderness.

  My father informed us that in the whole world: Bec Crew, “Half the World’s Population Lives on 1% of Its Land,” Science Alert, January 8, 2016; World Urban Population Density by Country & Area, Demographia, www.demographia.com/db-intlua-area2000.htm; People Per Square Kilometer in U.S., Per Square Mile, http://static.persquaremile.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/us-europe-high-speed-rail-and-density.png.