I absolutely enjoyed Stephen Swinburne's book on bringing the gray wolf back into Yellowstone park. I teach Environmental Science to high school students and I think this book would help them understand the significance of the predator-prey relationship in nature. We constantly discuss the fact that everything in nature is connected. I especially enjoyed the chapter of the early conservationists. Their work help people understand the difference between the legend of the wolf and the facts associated with how the wolves obtain their food. The book points out that wolves will usually kill the "old, diseased or crippled animals." I appreciate that the scientists let the public know that this type of killing is actually good for the survival of prey. Sigurd Olson, a naturalist that studied wolves for more than eighteen years states, "for without the constant elimination of the unfit, the breeding stock would suffer." The book also notes that if the wolves still had some of their natural prey in some parts of the world such as buffalo or deer, they would may not attempt to kill livestock. The shrinking of their food source have made them find other sources of food to survive.
I think this book would be great to share with middle school or high school biology or environmental science classes. It would show students how raw but beautiful nature is. Nature is delicate and there needs to be a balance and this book would help students appreciate that.

Just want to share a passage from the book that I thought was beautiful.

"Wolf reintroduction is not a science. It's an art," Smith points out. "You go on gut feelings, on hunches, learn as you go. We have so much to learn, but the wolves are teaching us. They are teaching us that if we are tolerant, we can live side by side with them. They are teaching us what Thoreau already knew: 'In wilderness is the preservation of the world.' By restoring wolves, we restore ourselves." ( )

I truly enjoyed reading this book! It presented facts that were unknown to me. I did not know that wolves were endangered, or that they could go two weeks without eating. I loved the pictures in the book. Of course my favorite pictures show the puppies! ( )

The book Once a Wolf: How Wildlife Biologists Fought to Bring Back the Gray Wolf by
Stephen R. Swinburne and photographs by Jim Brandenburg. This book tells the story of how the wolves almost became extinct. It tell that people were killing them just to be killing. People were wiping out whole families just for the fun of it. Brandenburg shows one mother and her babies lying around her all dead. Killed on purpose! A biologist Aldo Leopold killed his first wolf when he was a young man, and from that time on realized the killing was wrong. From that time on he wrote books and campaigned to save the wolves and place them back to the Yellowstone National Park. It took many years, a lot of studies, and numerous conservationists to pull the process off. However, it was done and this book tells some interesting stories about how it was done. Once a Wolf is a touching and well written piece of work. ( )

The author wanted to be an adventurer when he grew up. Ultimately, he received a degree in Biology, and English for god's sake and held various jobs -- even a park ranger. His book should generate mixed reactions. The wolf is not an easy creature to warm up to. Frankly, when I think of wolves, I don't experience 'happy thoughts'. They are clever and they hunt in packs. The people in the U.S. felt the same way in the late 1800s. They killed them when they could -- wolves were easy to hate. They were poisoned, trapped, and shot whenever possible. What did it matter? It's not as if the creatures brought any positive to the table. In this, you may be surprised. I wouldn't call for saving the gray wolf based purely on pity or liberal silliness. No, I think the best idea is for humans to leave things well enough alone. We are the most errant and ignorant meddlers to ever walk this earth. Sure, the gray wolf is a predator with a functional role in the wild, but the creature may have other connections we don't yet comprehend. Reintroduction efforts have already been found to increase plant biodiversity in Yellowstone. Elk and other browsers can overwhelm the plants they feed upon if they are too great in number. The wolf culls the population, preventing this from happening. Well, the wolves prevent this from happening, if their any wolves around that is. Perhaps reintroduction is also meddlesome, but we are the ones who destroyed the balance in the first place.

This book spans the wolf genocide of the late 1800s to the reintroduction of the gray wolf in Yellowstone National Park. Biologists and naturalists slowly became aware of the problem. The book talks about Leopold's 'new environmental philosophy'. This philosophy boils down to "We are a bunch of ignorant interlopers. Perhaps we should consider how our actions reverberate throughout the ecosystem." This is really good advice in many avenues of life, especially when we understand little or nothing of our world. Mech the 'Wolfman' discovered that the wolf was not a flawless hunter who decimated the wild populations of game. No, the wolf didn't have a scoped 30 ought 6, a hand warmer, and a comfy tree stand. The wolf had to work for his dinner. Someone needed to scape up some sympathy for the predator and this sympathy was slow coming. The Endangered Species Act provided some direction, but it was difficult to sell the wolf as 'needed species'. Ranchers had no interest in their being more wolves. Nature is fine in its own pretty way unless it begins to interfere with the your bottom line. Regardless, the reintroduction would be tricky and this is largely the best part of the book. So, I won't spoil it for you.

This is a book teaching about man’s relationship with wolves and how in some places men hunted to wipe out all the wolves in the region. This is a good book in learning about nature and trying to understand what happened and why. We should learn about animals before we pass judgment on why they do what they do and if they have a right to be there. The book also teaches about man trying to bring back the wolves because they play an important part to the ecosystem. ( )