Wolves touch the wildness within
Dan Hansen
Staff writer
Reverence for predators changing lives, driving economies
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK _ Brian Connolly wept the first time he saw
wolves.
It was the New Yorker’s second trip west in search of the animals. The
previous year, he’d seen none.
But on the third morning of his trip in 1997, Connolly heard a member of
the Druid pack howl in Yellowstone National Park’s Lamar Valley. Then he
heard a second wolf. Then more.
Connolly describes that morning’s song, heard from a turnout along a paved
road, as “a choir in a cathedral.”
An adult wolf and three pups appeared on a ridge several hundred yards
away. The pups frolicked, jumping on their den mates, tugging on ears and
tails.
“I had the deepest feeling that America had finally done something right
after so many wrongs,” Connolly said. “Like many people, I cried.”
Just as wolves incite deep hatred among some Americans, they provoke
reverence among others. Observers say it goes well beyond the admiration
paid to bears and other “mega-fauna.”
“Wolves are telepathic. They know what’s going on inside a person,” said
Bill Taylor, owner of Wolf People, a store and education center with 16
captive wolves in Cocolalla, Idaho.
Taylor said he once saw his wolves “kiss” away the tears of a grieving
visitor. He does not consider it odd that single women sometimes drop by
with potential mates, to see how the wolves react.
“If the wolves don’t like them, (the women will) dump the guys,” he said.
“One of them finally married a guy because the wolves … liked what they
saw.”
Observers believe the attraction stems partly from the family structure of
wolf packs, in which all adults chip in to help raise pups born to the
alpha male and female.
“There are a lot of people who relate (to packs) in a human perspective.
They see a mother and father and aunts and uncles and a whole extended
family,” said Judy York, of Sandpoint, who spent a week in March as a
volunteer wolf observer in Yellowstone.
“Also, they’re canids, dogs,” said York, a Forest Service technical writer
with a background in biology. “In this country, we have a deep
relationship with dogs as pets.”
Like wolf opponents, the most ardent wolf fanatics often spread
misinformation, said Ed Bangs, wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service.
Those who hate wolves often claim the animals are a threat to human lives.
But Bangs has also heard wolf lovers say that they’d never hurt anyone.
In truth, Bangs said, people have been bitten on rare occasions, usually
by wolves that were fed by humans. But there are no documented accounts of
fatal wolf attacks in North America. In fact, experts say, the fear of
wolves is a European phenomenon, largely absent in Native American
cultures that lived among wolves.
While many who hate wolves claim that packs will wipe out big game herds
in the West, wolf lovers sometimes deny any impact on wildlife. Biologists
say wolves will never eliminate their prey base, but acknowledge that
animals like elk will likely decline — perhaps dramatically in some
places.
Biologists got hate mail from those who opposed the reintroduction of
Western wolves in 1995 and 1996. And they get it from wolf lovers when
they must kill a wolf that’s preyed on livestock.
“Some people love wolves so much, they don’t even want them
radio-collared,” said Yellowstone biologist Dan Stahler.
The love of wolves has brought changes to Yellowstone.
Park officials estimate that 4,000 visitors saw wolves in 1995, when packs
roamed the park for the first time in more than 50 years. They believe
that sometime in July 2002, some Yellowstone visitor became the 100,000th
to see a wolf. The University of Montana has not yet completed an economic
impact study, but businesses are clearly cashing in.
T-shirts and other products featuring wolves are thick in Yellowstone
souvenir shops — thicker, even, than those featuring bears. The Super 8
motel in Gardiner, Mont., puts out a sign welcoming wolf-watchers.
A new motel in West Yellowstone, Mont., is called the Gray Wolf Inn &
Suites. It’s on Gray Wolf Avenue, across the street from the Grizzly &
Wolf Discovery Center.
“Here, you’re guaranteed to see wolves,” even if you missed them in the
park, said zookeeper Camille Austin.
Carl Swoboda started Safari Yellowstone as a one-man business in 1993. It
grew modestly until wolf sightings became common. Now, he has a fleet of
four vans and three SUVs to carry customers who come from as far away as
Europe.
Among Swoboda’s spring customers was Pam Rutherford, of California, who
was thrilled by fleeting glances of wolves — the first she’d seen in the
wild.
“I used to own a dog that was part wolf, and it was the best dog I’ve ever
had,” she said. “I’ve loved wolves ever since.”
Before wolf reintroduction, the Lamar Valley of northern Yellowstone was
visited primarily by fishermen, photographers and biologists. It was
Yellowstone’s quiet corner.
There still are no gift shops in the valley. But turnouts are crowded each
summer day with people hoping to see wolves. A sighting — often just a
black or gray speck through a spotting scope — can draw a crowd of more
than 100 people.
Most regulars can identify individual wolves at a glance, referring to
them by the numbers used by researchers: “21” is the alpha male in the
Druid Pack; “42” is the alpha female; “302” is a dark male with a bent,
feathered tail.
Anthropomorphic comments — the humanizing of animals that is the bane of
biologists — sometimes slip into the conversations of the wolf fanatics.
“Twenty-one brings sticks home to the kids. He stops on the way home to
get a toy,” said Bruce Conrad, a retired electrician from Sumner, Wash.
“That’s a real dad.”
Since his first wolf sighting in 1997, Connolly has returned to the Lamar
Valley every summer, for increasingly longer periods. He has moved from
New York to Oregon, partly to be closer to the wolves. His plan as of
Memorial Day was to spend eight solid weeks in Yellowstone this summer,
and possibly return in winter.
During his 1998 visit, the retired creative writing teacher watched for
wolves all day, every day, then spent each night writing a novel called
“Wolf Journal.” It’s about the fictitious return of wolves to Connolly’s
native Pennsylvania.
“A forest without a wolf is just a big park,” says one of Connolly’s
characters.
John Sterling agrees. He and his wife, Heather, quit jobs in California
last year and spent two winter months as volunteer wolf observers. They
return to Yellowstone as often as possible, while trying to reestablish
their careers in John Sterling’s native Oregon.
Sterling said he has spent many days backpacking in California’s
Sierra-Nevada Mountains. “I thought that’s what wildness was,” he said.
Now, he said, no place feels wild if it’s absent its native predators.
“We’ve so unraveled the fabric of the West,” Sterling said. “When you see
a remnant of it, it’s very moving.”