On the Tail of the Wolf

      Animals inspire emotions in us, rooted in instinct and grown in culture, personality, and perspective.  Trying to find our place in a rapidly changing world, one that suffers from an illusioned disconnect and distorted relationship with that intangible thing we call nature, we attempt to relate to and connect with other species.  We identify with hunger, fear, play, comfort, and more that we see reflected in the behaviors of other organisms.  We feel sad when we see a scrawny cat sifting through garbage, and heartwarmed when observing a mother robin feeding her nest of chirping chicks.  However, I believe the strongest emotions emerge when we encounter a predator.

     The word predator sounds menacing, having many negative connotations in our society.  Predators evoke our most primal instinct: fear.  They cause conflict within us because they force us to confront our own consumptive, destructive nature.  The greatest disconnect perhaps lies here; predation is an inconvenient truth that we do not often acknowledge.  To see that this is true, one only needs to consider media portrayals of these animals- villanized in children's movies and often edited in documentaries to exclude gruesome realities.  How many of us can say we have witnessed a true predation event occurring before our eyes?  How many more of us can say that given the opportunity, we would not interfere?

Wolves close in on an Elk in Yellowstone National Park (Google Images).

     All large predators have been eradicated in my native state of Ohio.  The Gray Wolf (Canis lupus) once ran through deep forests there, but European settlers carried with them to America a strong fear of those deep forests and the beasts in them.  Human nature is to destroy what we fear and do not understand, and when combined with a hunger for revenge over livestock losses and competition over game, the wolves really didn't stand a chance.  In the late 1800's, bounties were set in Ohio along with the rest of the country.  These were often government sanctioned programs; at $20-$50 per wolf, thousands were quickly taken by poisoning, trapping, hunting, and more graphic methods.  We annihilated them.

The late 1800's through mid-1900's involved a mass extermination effort (PBS).

     From the 60's until now wolf-human relations have improved- an estimated 5,000 wolves roam 6 of the lower 48 states, with small populations in 4 more.  Wolf reintroduction to Yellowstone (they were eradicated from the park in 1926) ended overgrazing by elk and consequently altered the entire hydrology of the park as well as improving survivorship of many other species.  Despite these improvements, we still have literal conflicts as well as mental blocks.  Wolves are still demonized in media and pop culture; Animal Planet's Man-Eating Super Wolves from "Monster Week" 2014 and the wolf pack chase scene from Disney's Frozen (2013) are two recent examples.  The Gray Wolf is perhaps the most controversial species today.  Strong opinions run on both sides; with wolf advocate nonprofits such as Wolf Watcher and Howling for Justice as well as antiwolf groups like Save Elk and Washington Residents Against Wolves.   A strange combination of federal protection and state managements complicates things even further.

The famous wolf scene from Beauty and the Beast (Google Images).

Anti-wolf propaganda from Washington state (Google Images).

     With the Gray Wolf's history and current situation, it is fitting that they are very elusive creatures.  Ever since I read a ZooBook on wolves when I was very young, I've been fascinated by these animals.  Wolves are highly social animals that live in packs consisting of parents (the Alpha pair) and often several generations of young.  I thought a lot about this, wolf hunting strategies, and our species' most tangible link with theirs; domestic dogs.  I read about communication through posture, facial expression, and tail position, studied these behaviors in one of my own pack members (my Husky-Chow-Sharpei mix named Phoebe), and successfully communicated a will to play (by bowing with arms outstretched) to both my dog and several captive wolves at Columbus Zoo.  Both of those cases ended with canine(s) and human happily running back and forth at each other in a sort of "tag" (in the case of the wolves between a fence).  Through these experiences, book learning, and the adoption of the wolf as a symbol of my nuclear family (Howell is pronounced as Howl), I formed an association of the wolf with deep meanings of family, love, power, and wilderness.  As I grew older, the desire to travel and see these animals in the wild grew stronger and stronger.

Wolf and Laborador demonstrate the play stance (Google Images).

A pack socializing (Google Images).

     In 2012, while on a family roadtrip, I visited Yellowstone National Park for the first time.  We worked as a pack; driving through Lamar Valley in our red Prius multiple times, hoping to see a wolf pack crest a hill or stalk a group of Pronghorn by a stream.  We saw both Black and Grizzly Bears, Elk, Pronghorn, Coyotes, and Moose, but no wolves.  I would not be in Gray Wolf range again for two years.

Coyote in Yellowstone National Park.

Gray Wolf (black morph) at the Colorado Wolf and Wildlife Center.

Mexican Wolves, a disappearing subspecies, at the Columbus Zoo.

     In 2014 I journeyed to Alaska for the first time to work for USFWS Alaska Peninsula and Becharof NWRs.  I flew into a town with a year-round population of around 350, surrounded by tundra, with mountains to the south and Bristol Bay to the north.  King Salmon is connected to the nearby town of Naknek by a single paved road (the Alaska Peninsula Highway).  Outside of these towns is what I would call wilderness; surely wolves roamed this land.  I was told that wolf sightings here were still rare; wolves generally stayed away from town.  I eagerly hoped for a sighting all summer, scanning the tundra below from the refuge's Husky (small, fixed wing plane) and hill and mountain-sides from the ground on field missions.  Alas, I saw no wolves that summer.  That fall I visited Yellowstone again, as well as other parts of Montana on a fantastic roadtrip.  I again saw the Gray Wolf's close relative, the Coyote (Canis latrans) but not the wolf itself.

     Driving up to Alaska in spring of 2015, I still held high hopes of seeing a wolf, but did not search as fervently.  I saw many amazing animals on that adventurous trip as well, but no wolves.  By the time I had reached King Salmon and was flying to Brooks Camp in Katmai National Park for training as an interpretive Park Guide, my mind was on bears.

     Brooks Camp is where almost every picture of a bear catching a salmon over a waterfall is taken.  As many as 70 bears roam the area in July and September, and the landscape is as awe-inspiring as its residents.  I expected to see bears, and I understood that wolf sightings here were rare.  However, the 3rd day we were at Brooks, a coworker excitedly and exasperatedly announced that she had seen a wolf at the falls.  I immediately power-walked to the falls to look for the wolf, which was either long gone or out of sight.  The next day, large, fresh canine tracks lined the beach.

     A week passed by without incident.  I read a book by David L. Mech, a famous wolf biologist, called The Arctic Wolf: Living With the Pack, and dreamed as I had done since I was a child of living among wolves.  I walked outside on a break from training one day and was told by another coworker that a wolf had been spotted on a trail nearby 15 minutes earlier.  Needless to say, it was very difficult for me to go back to work.  Time was running out- I would return to King Salmon in a few days, yet I was so close to seeing a wolf!

     While on a informational walk-around during my last full day at Brooks Camp, I heard a gargled transmission from a coworker's radio.  "Wolf.... lower river.... marsh."  I spun around with wild eyes.  Once again, we were not allowed to leave training.  I stewed, imagining that in this frenzy I turned into a wolf and ran away, wild and never to be bound by rules again.  I will admit that I did not listen to or retain well most of the information that was spoken to me that afternoon.  However, I had dinner at the lodge that evening, which overlooks the lower part of Brooks River.  As I gorged myself on French fries like a wolf on a freshly killed moose, I heard someone say the wolf was on the river again.  I leapt from the table and ran as fast as I could outside, heart pounding.  I only glimpsed the animal for a moment as it trotted from the marsh into the woods, but I saw it.

     I was happy, but I wanted more.  I can't explain why, but somehow I knew I needed to walk to the lower river platform at dusk.  I walked across the bridge with purpose, listening to shorebirds agitatedly calling.  "What's their problem?  Could a predator be around?" I thought.  I scanned the riverbank with my binoculars, and suddenly he came into view.  The wolf, almost white on the back and with hints of rust on the sides and a black patch on the tail, was walking the bank.  He came down for a drink, then sniffed the wind coming from my direction.  I was ecstatic!  I watched him walk for a few minutes, and then with my heart still pounding and a smile on my face, I got out my camera and took a few shots.  He was so beautiful and magnificent, and I admired how easily he was lost in the grasses.  Just when I thought things couldn't get better, as he disappeared I scanned farther upriver and spotted another wolf standing at the edge of the forest.  Eventually the two met in the middle of the river, playfully greeting and then trotting upstream.  It was magic in the twilight.  I was in disbelief, and felt elated that a life goal had been met.  After they moved out of view, I walked back smiling.  "Why do you have binoculars?  You couldn't have been birding this late."  A friend asked when I returned to camp.  "What did you see?"  My triumph was cheered, and I was still so excited hours later that I didn't fall asleep until very late that night.

     I've now seen the Gray Wolf in the wild; a graceful animal and not a monster, beautiful and mysterious as in legend.  I share this in hopes that others will feel admiration rather than fear of this animal.  Now that I have finished this quest, my next challenge is to see a pack, and observe for a longer period.  I will always be on the tail of the wolf.