Wolf Nation

by Brenda Peterson

  Time and again the national polls tell us that a large majority: National Survey Results, Public Policy Polling, Center for Biological Diversity, www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/gray_wolves/pdfs/NationalSurveyResults4.pdf.

  In 2013, when the Obama administration proposed permanently: Noah Greenwood, “New Poll: Americans Love Wolves and Want Them to Stay Protected,” Huffington Post, July 22, 2013.

  Many wildlife scientists vehemently decried: Scientists’ Letter to Secretary Sally Jewell Against Delisting Wolves in U.S., Center for Biological Diversity, www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/gray_wolves/pdfs/scientists_letter_on_delisting_rule.pdf.

  In a letter to Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell scientists argued: Jim Dutcher, Jamie Dutcher, and Garrick Dutcher, “Don’t Forsake the Gray Wolf,” New York Times, June 7, 2013.

  All manner of bounties, hunts, and trapping was allowed: Garret Ellison, “Endangered or Not? Scientists, Lawmakers Renew Gray Wolf Debate,” Michigan Live, December 13, 2015.

  In Idaho, during the winter of 2016, a virulently antiwolf Governor: Associated Press, “20 Wolves Killed in Northern Idaho to Boost Elk Population,” Billings Gazette, February 11, 2016.

  By the end of 2015 a federal judge, Beryl Howell, reversed: Mark Hicks, Associated Press, “Great Lake Wolves Ordered Back to Endangered List,” Detroit News, December 19, 2014.

  He and other congressional Republicans were “plotting: Timothy Cama, “GOP Plots New Course on Endangered Species Act Reform,” The Hill, May 17, 2015.

  And even though in 2016 only five to six thousand wolves now occupy: “Restoring the Gray Wolf,” Center for Biological Diversity press release, www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/gray_wolves.

  The first voice belongs to Mike: Brenda Peterson, “Living with Wolves, Losing Our Orcas,” Ampersand, June 11, 2015.

  The bottom line is that western ranchers can also learn: Brenda Peterson, “Wild Wolves: The Old and the New West,” Huffington Post, November 16, 2015.

  Friedman wants to use dialogue between ranchers and: Chase Gunnell, “Ranchers in Wolf Country Finding Continued Success with Range Riding,” Conservation Northwest, December 18, 2014.

  When wolves killed one of his cows in the summer of 2015: Don Jenkins, “‘Stuck’ with Wolves, Rancher Says He’ll Make the Best of It,” Capital Press, The West’s AG Website, August 5, 2015, www.capitalpress.com/Washington/20150805/stuck-with-wolves-rancher-says-hell-make-the-best-of-it.

  In Washington, Oregon, and California, ranchers are learning nonlethal: Sandi Doughton, “As Wolves Rebound, Range Riders Keep Watch over Livestock,” Seattle Times, August 2, 2015.

  In the summer of 2016 Washington hosted nineteen: Associated Press, “Washington State Reports New Wolf Pack,” Oregon Public Broadcasting, June 16, 2016, www.opb.org/news/article/washington-state-reports-new-wolf-pack.

  By the year 2020 “more than half of the nation’s children: Bill Chappell, “For U.S. Children, Minorities Will Be the Majority by 2020, Census Says,” NPR, March 4, 2015, www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/03/04/390672196/for-u-s-children-minorities-will-be-the-majority-by-2020-census-says.

  As the United States grows more diverse and urban: Ashley Broughton, “Minorities Expected to Be Majority in 2050,” CNN, August 13, 2008, www.cnn.com/2008/US/08/13/census.minorities.

  In another shift, there are now as many Millennials: “Millennial Voters: More Liberal, But Will They Turn Out?” Here & Now, February 29, 2016; “The Millennial Generation Is Bigger, More Diverse than Boomers,” CNN Money, http://money.cnn.com/interactive/economy/diversity-millennials-boomers; Derek Thompson, “The Liberal Millennial Revolution,” Atlantic, February 29, 2016.

  An interesting note is that while few Millennials label: “Are Millennials Environmentally Friendly?” Carbon Xprint, July 1, 2015.

  They support sustainable companies, solar and wind energy: Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais, “How Green Are Millennials?” New Geography, February 5, 2013.

  This so-called Green generation bodes a different future: “Millennials Drive a New Set of Animal Welfare Expectations,” AgWeb, www.agweb.com/article/millennials-drive-a-new-set-of-animal-welfare-expectations-naa-news-release.

  As one Millennial writer noted, “Environmentalism and modern: Molly Tankersley, “Average Is the New Green: How Millennials Are Redefining Environmentalism,” Huffington Post, August 16, 2014.

  A Millennial I interviewed in North Carolina: Courtney Perry, “In Sickness and in Sleep: Married to a Chronic Sleep Walker,” Huffington Post, February 17, 2015.

  As we talked about this sad decline in red wolves: Joanna Klein, “Red Wolves Need Emergency Protection, Conservationists Say,” New York Times, May 31, 2016.

  Rancher’s influence in politics is also shrinking: Tay Wiles and Brooke Warren, “Federal-Lands Ranching: A Half-Century of Decline,” High Country News, June 13, 2016.

  That struggle is embodied in the occupation of the Malheur: Brooke Warren, “Photos: A protest over imprisoned ranchers becomes an occupation of a wildlife refuge,” High Country News, January 25, 2016.

  An irony that the occupiers seemed to miss: Sara Sidner, “Native Tribe Blasts Oregon Takeover,” CNN, January 6, 2016, www.cnn.com/2016/01/06/us/native-tribe-blasts-oregon-takeover.

  One of the most vivid reactions to the Malheur: Dave Seminara, “Angry Birders: Standoff at Oregon Refuge Has Riled a Passionate Group,” New York Times, January 8, 2016.

  The letter also pointed out that “Wildlife photographers: Norwegian Chef, “Warning from the Birding Community to the Terrorists in Oregon: We’re Watching You,” Daily Kos, January 5, 2016, www.dailykos.com/story/2016/01/05/1466254/-Warning-from-the-Birding-Community-to-the-Terrorists-in-Oregon-We-re-Watching-You.

  CNN security analyst Juliette Kayyem: Juliette Kayyem, “Face It, Oregon Building Takeover Is Terrorism,” op-ed, CNN, January 3, 2016, www.cnn.com/2016/01/03/opinions/kayyem-oregon-building-takeover-terrorism.

  Oregon locals held town halls demanding: Patrik Jonsson, “In Oregon, a Counterpoint to Armed Standoff Emerges,” Christian Science Monitor, January 22, 2016.

  Many of the Malheur occupiers mistakenly believed: Hal Herrin, “The Darkness at the Heart of Malheur,” High Country News, March 21, 2016.

  “The fate of the West has, almost from the very beginning: “A Wildlife Refuge Is the Perfect Place for This Standoff” (print headline: “Cowboy Nihilism in Oregon”), Seattle Weekly, January 5, 2016.

  The Malheur occupation, in the tradition: Jack Healy and Kirk Johnson, “The Larger, but Quieter than Bundy, Push to Take Over Federal Land,” New York Times, January 10, 2016.

  When the Malheur armed takeover was winding down: Jenny Rowland and Matty Lee-Ashley, “The Koch Brothers Are Now Funding the Bundy Land Seizure Agenda,” Think Progress, February 11, 2016.

  In the federal trial, all of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge occupiers: National Audubon Society, “Audubon CEO: Public Lands Don’t Belong to Those Who Hold Them at Gunpoint,” Audubon, October 27, 2016.

  And in the West some of those states—especially the ones: “GOP Politicians Planned and Participated in Key Aspects of Refuge Occupation,” KUOW.org/NPR, March 17, 2016, http://kuow.org/post/gop-politicians-planned-and-participated-key-aspects-refuge-occupation.

  With press releases that declare “This is a war on rural America”: David DeMille, “Stewart Joins Chaffetz in a Call to Disarm Federal Agencies,” Spectrum, March 9, 2016.

  After the Malheur occupation there were news reports: Nancy Benac, “Who Are the Koch brothers?” AP on PBS News Hour, January 28, 2016, www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/koch-brothers.

  CHAPTER 10. WOLVES AT PLAY

  One of these conservation warriors is Amaroq Weiss: “Meet the Staff,” Center for Biological Diversity, http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/about/staff.

  Amaroq is here in Washington to attend: “Wolf Advisory Group,” Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, http://wdfw.wa.gov/about/advisory/wag.

  Along with their many s
uccessful lawsuits on behalf: RareEarthtones, Center for Biological Diversity, www.rareearthtones.org/ringtones/preview.html; Endangered Species Condoms, Center for Biological Diversity, http://www.endangeredspeciescondoms.com.

  Veterans with PTSD struggling to reunite: Sidney Stevens, “How Wolves and Warriors Help Each Other Heal,” Mother Nature Network, January 5, 2016.

  Play is essential to evolution and change: Joseph W. Meeker, The Comedy of Survival: In Search of an Environmental Ethic (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1997).

  New research in Science Daily: “‘Gambling’ Wolves Take More Risks than Dogs,” Science Daily: Frontiers in Psychology, September 1, 2016.

  We touch on the lifework of Dr. Stuart L. Brown: Stuart Brown, “Animals at Play,” YouTube, August 22, 2007, https://youtu.be/iHj82otCi7U; Brown, “Play Is More than Just Fun,” TED Talk, May 2008.

  In his article “Animals at Play,” Brown expands: Stuart Brown, “Animals at Play,” National Geographic, December 1994.

  James C. Halfpenny’s Yellowstone Wolves in the Wild: James C. Halfpenny, Yellowstone Wolves in the Wild (Helena, MT: Riverbend Publishing, 2003), 59.

  Does play always have to have some evolutionary purpose: Brenda Peterson, “Apprenticeship to Animal Play,” in Intimate Nature: The Bond Between Women and Animals, ed. Linda Hogan, Deena Metzger, and Brenda Peterson, 428–437 (New York: Fawcett, 1999).

  Laughter as well as play is hardwired into us: Stefan Lovgren, “Animals Laughed Long Before Humans, Study Says,” National Geographic News, March 31, 2005.

  Smuts notes that “friendship among animals: Barbara Smuts, “What Are Friends For?” Humanistic Science, July 11, 2012.

  With the return of the wild wolf we’re learning: Sharon Levy, “Wolf Family Values: Why Wolves Belong Together,” New Scientist, wolf.nrdpfc.ca.

  One summer Curby camped near a wolf den, using her: Cathy Curby, “A Family of Wolves,” US Fish and Wildlife Service, www.fws.gov/refuge/arctic/wolfstory.html.

  Balancing the hopes of “hunters who want to take: Michael Wright, “Commission Rejects Tripling Wolf Hunting Quota Near Yellowstone,” Bozeman Daily Chronicle, May 12, 2016.

  New reports show that wolf sightings in both: Michelle Ma, “Wolf Hunting Near Denali, Yellowstone Cuts Wolf Sightings in Half,” University of Washington News, April 28, 2016.

  Important new research from scientists: Adrian Treves, “Open Letter from Scientists and Scholars on Wolf Recovery in the Great Lakes Region and Beyond,” ResearchGate, December 2015.

  One of the rationales for lethal management of wolves: Carter Niemeyer, Wolf Land (Boise, ID: Bottlefly Press, 2016), 214.

  This study found that the exact opposite was true: Niki Rust, “When You Start Killing Wolves, Something Odd Happens,” BBC Rare Earth, May 11, 2016, www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160510-why-it-is-a-bad-idea-to-let-people-hunt-wolves?ocid=fbert.

  Culling wolves is not the answer: Guillaume Chapron and Adrian Treves, “Blood Does Not Buy Goodwill: Allowing Culling Increases Poaching of Large Carnivore,” Proceedings of the Royal Society Publishing 38, no. 1830 (May 2016), http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/283/1830/20152939.

  The study concludes with the truism: Judith Davidoff, “Is Hunting Really a Conservation Tool?” ISTHMUS News, May 10, 2016.

  She prefers the word “conflict transformation”: Matthew Weaver, “Wolf Advisory Group Seeks Common Ground,” Capital Press, May 21, 2015.

  Amaroq showed me the YouTube video: Amaroq Weiss, “What to Wear at a Wolf Rally?” YouTube, September 18, 2013, www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGJB1y1uw9E.

  Amaroq also shared with me a darkly comic video: Amaroq Weiss, “One Determined Husky Takes on the Planet’s Most Pressing Environmental Problems,” YouTube, October 31, 2015, https://youtu.be/Qark1Kw_4C4.

  just as Senator Inhofe’s attacks on endangered species: Jim Inhofe, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Inhofe.

  CHAPTER 11. RAISED BY WOLVES

  Authors, artists, and musicians are creating a rich habitat: Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf (Boston: Little, Brown, 1963); Barry Holstun Lopez, Of Wolves and Men (New York: Scribner, 1978); Nick Jans, A Wolf Called Romeo (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2014); Jiang Rong, Wolf Totem (New York: Penguin, 2008); Jean Craighead George, Julie of the Wolves (New York: Harper and Row, 1972).

  It’s not just natural history classics: “List of Fictional Feral Children,” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictional_feral_children.

  Perhaps the most famous of all the stories of a child raised: Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book (London, Oxford University Press, 2008 [original 1894]).

  the Indian news sensation in the 1920s of “a pair of sisters: Jane Yolen, Introduction to The Jungle Book (New York: Tor Classics, 1992).

  Kipling’s own father had written stories: John Lockwood Kipling, Beast and Man in India: A Popular Sketch of Indian Animals in Their Relations with People (London: Kessinger Publishing, 2010).

  The timeless appeal and what the New York Times: Mary Jo Murphy, “Predicting the Staying Power of ‘The Jungle Book,’” New York Times, April 7, 2016; Brooks Barnes, “‘Jungle Book’ Captivates Moviegoers and Captures Box Office,” New York Times, April 17, 2016; The Jungle Book (video clip), YouTube, https://youtu.be/GgGOcEgRh7k. Voices in The Jungle Book video clip: https://youtu.be/McZyOEekZy4.

  A more realistic book, informed to some extent: George, Julie of the Wolves, 24, 140, 170; Julie’s Wolf Pack sequel: Jean Craighead George, Julie’s Wolf Pack (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1997).

  Because of this wolf-human ancestry, the Mongol herdsmen: Tuguldur Enkhtsetseg, “A Gift of Wolves,” Up Close, Nature Conservancy, October 6, 2014; Amy Qin, “Q. and A.: Jiang Rong on ‘Wolf Totem,’ the Novel and Now the Film,” Sinosphere, February 26, 2015.

  The Mongol culture, like their wolves, is endangered: Amy Qin, “China Looks West to Bring ‘Wolf Totem’ to Screen,” New York Times, February 23, 2015.

  Amy Qin of the New York Times wrote, “Political dissenters: Ibid.

  The venerable role of the wild animal as psycho-pomp: Ibid.

  And if China protects its nature, the rest: “Bringing Wolf Totem to the Big Screen,” Writing Studio, November 15, 2015, http://writingstudio.co.za/bringing-wolf-totem-to-the-big-screen.

  Wolf Totem was filmed under strict environmental protections: Fu Yu, “Environmental Protection While Filming Wolf Totem Worth It: Director,” CRJEnglish News, December 5, 2014.

  Media coverage of the 2016 Orlando massacre: “Make It Stop,” Boston Globe, June 16, 2016; Thomas L. Friedman, “Lessons of Hiroshima and Orlando,” New York Times, June 15, 2016; “On ‘Lone Wolves,’” New York Times, June 12, 2016.

  The Christian Science Monitor ran a headline: Taylor Luck, “Orlando Attack: ‘I Am the Lone Wolf That Terrorizes the Infidels,’” Christian Science Monitor, June 13, 2016.

  Tellingly, American gun violence is the most widespread: A. J. Willingham, “US Home to Nearly a Third of World’s Mass Shootings,” CNN, June 16, 2016, www.cnn.com/2016/06/13/health/mass-shootings-in-america-in-charts-and-graphs-trnd/index.html.

  The states most resistant to gun control are also: “Death by Gun: Top 20 States with Highest Rates,” CBS News, www.cbsnews.com/pictures/death-by-gun-top-20-states-with-highest-rates/21.

  Four of the high gun-death states are: Erica R. Henry, “These States Have the Highest Gun Death Rates in America,” Aljazeera America, November 3, 2015, http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/america-tonight/articles/2015/11/3/these-states-have-the-highest-gun-death-rates-in-america.html; Alexander Kent, “10 States with the Most Gun Violence,” Wall Street Journal, June 10, 2015; Gun Violence Archive, www.gunviolencearchive.org.

  Feral children are, most of all, survivors: Michael Newton, Savage Girls and Wild Boys: A History of Feral Children (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2002), 14, Kindle version.

  Whenever I teach wildlife conservation and ecology: Brenda Peterson, “Animal Allies,” Orion, Spring 1993, reposted on Brend
a Peterson Books, www.brendapetersonbooks.com/display/ShowJournal?moduleId=18475789®isteredAuthorId=2406057¤tPage=6.

  CHAPTER 12. WOLF MUSIC

  The University of Cambridge led a team: “Wolf Species Have ‘Howling Dialects,’” University of Cambridge research, February 8, 2016, www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/wolf-species-have-howling-dialects.

  Root-Gutteridge concludes that wolves: Holly Root-Gutteridge, “The Songs of Wolves,” Aeon, https://aeon.co/users/holly-root-gutteridge.

  They have found, for example, that red wolves and coyotes: Sarah Griffiths, “Wolves Have Accents, Too! Canines Can Be Identified Using 21 Different Types of Howling ‘Dialects,’” Daily Mail, February 8, 2016.

  In The Culture of Whales and Dolphins, biologist Hal Whitehead: Hal Whitehead and Luke Rendell, The Cultural Lives of Whales and Dolphins (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015), 13.

  Every wolf group develops “its own unique: Haber and Holleman, Among Wolves, 249.

  In my search for musicians who are listening to wolves: Wolf Conservation Center, http://nywolf.org.

  Her memoir, Wild Harmonies: A Life of Music and Wolves: Hélène Grimaud, Wild Harmonies: A Life of Music and Wolves (New York: Penguin Group, 2003).

  In declaring their acoustic territory, the wolf chorus: Rudy C. Spatz, “Why Do Wolves Howl?” FACTFIXX, February 27, 2012.

  An interdisciplinary team of Montana State University researchers: Marshall Swearingen, “MSU Researcher Helps Untangle the Language of Wolf Howls,” Montana State University News, March 10, 2016, www.montana.edu/news.

  Any online search reveals many audio clips: Fred H. Harrington, “What’s in a Howl?” PBS NOVA: Wild Wolves, November 2000, www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/wolves/howlhtml.