February 18, 1998
Fall City, Washington
Clear sky all through the night waxing half moon, sunrise 7:12 a.m., sunset 5:35 p.m. 45 degrees.
Beautiful sunrise over the mountains. Low fog in the valley below. While I climbed up to the top of a cedar tree this morning, the first bird was a winter wren alarming. There was a series of alarms from two different individuals. I heard the later one of them singing. A pileated woodpecker landed five feet from my tree and began to feed. I could see the red crest above stripes of white and black on the head and the patch of red at the base of the beak. It must have been an adult male. When he was pecking at the dead wood of a standing alder, his body looked completely black below the neck. I could see the white under his wings when they lifted up in flight. I loved the feeling I got when this creature was near. He reminded me of how important it is to be thankful for all of the species on earth. His relative the ivory-billed woodpecker no longer appears in field guides due to the destruction of the old-growth forests of the Southeast. I hope that will never be the case for the pileated.
I saw so many birds this morning from my tree: winter wren, Bewick’s wren, ruby-crowned kinglet, black-capped chickadee, white-breasted nuthatch, pileated woodpecker, hairy woodpecker, spotted towhee, dark-eyed junco, American robin, Steller’s jay, crow, red-tailed hawk, hooded merganser, Canada goose, and song sparrow.
I went tracking today at the Skykomish River sandbar with WAS. It was raining. There are a lot of bear trails all over leading to the river where all the salmon are. It was so much fun tracking the bear, seeing the claws of where a bear had stepped up a steep hill, slipping in the mud. So much power in these tracks. Before we went out we all set the intention that no trees would fall on us. A lot of trees have been coming down lately. A huge cottonwood fell just minutes after we had been under it and it made a huge crash. I could feel the earth shake. I gathered willows to make a basket that evening. I practiced fire in the rain. I had a bigleaf maple for a spindle, a cedar for a board, and a rock as a handhold for my bowdrill. It glazed over and barely smoked. I need to work more on my fire.
I am striving to have 100 percent awareness of everything around me. I need to put my whole self into things. I know it is old patterns coming up that are preventing me from doing so. I need to stay in the positive mind and not get bogged down with self-doubt. I need to do a vision quest or something so I can work through these struggles.
Passion inside me
I release and become wild
When my heart is full
I become a wolf.
I resolved that I would continue to soak up the wisdom of the wolves. I read everything I could about them: research papers, books, and stories. Occasionally there would be wolf sightings in Washington State, though they were understood to have been nonexistent there since the last documented breeding pair in the 1930s (Moskowitz 2013). I would follow up on any sightings, getting glimpses of the tracks from unknown packs or lone wolves passing through the rugged North Cascades. But the packs never stayed very long; humans loomed too close.
After the Alaska trip, I continued to learn from the wolves firsthand every summer. In the summer of 1998, I traveled in the remote wilderness of Idaho. I worked as a wildlife tracker with the Wilderness Awareness School as they continued their wolf-tracking expeditions in the Frank Church–River of No Return Wilderness, which is within the largest tract of wilderness in the lower forty-eight states. A group of us who were trained as trackers led adults who signed up for the expedition to learn tracking and wolf ecology and to immerse in the wilderness. We taught them the basics of track and sign—how to identify the tracks, scat, and markings we came across. We guided the groups through an experience much like many of our days in Washington with WAS, taking long treks to experience the wilderness through the eyes of the wolf. We also interacted with researchers who were studying the pack behavior and collected data that could be used in their studies.
As a keystone species, wolves taught me not only about themselves, but also about the whole interwoven ecosystem. By tracking the wolf I was also tracking the smallest shrew, the herds of elk, the badgers, the ravens. Wolf kills provide a windfall for other species. The remains are pilfered by an array of carnivores—four-legged, two-legged, and many-legged (Wilmers et al. 2003). Plant life also thrives with healthy wolf populations. The pack-hunting predators keep the ungulates, or hoofed mammals, out in the grasslands, where they can see an approaching wolf pack. This takes pressure off the woodland and riparian areas (wetlands adjacent to rivers and streams) and keeps the grasses that evolved with grazing animals vibrant. When wolves are present in a system, the interlocking food web is complete. Predators, prey, and plants form the levels of the food web. The predators are indirectly helping the plants (Ripple and Beschta 2012). Thus riparian areas thrive, resulting in an increase in the right kind of habitat for beavers and songbirds.
I tracked. Often I would be dropped off alone at first light on a fresh track with just a water bottle and a radio. I would follow the tracks, sometimes until I found the animal. That was a true reward of the tracking experience—getting to track all the way to the animal. The tracks weren’t usually fresh enough for me to catch up to the animal who’d left them, but when I spotted fresh tracks, everything else fell away and it was just the trail and me. My body fell into rhythm with life around me, and the earth became a series of mysteries unraveling before me. I imagined it was waking in my brain the patterns of hunter-gatherers.
When I was in the Frank Church Wilderness in 2001, I was following the tracks of an alpha wolf. In that central section of wilderness there were sheepherders who came seasonally while the weather was good; the Idaho grasses provided plenty of forage for large flocks of sheep. The herders, on horseback and with dogs, moved the sheep through the grassy meadows. At night they stayed in wagon tents covered with canvas while their Great Pyrenees stood as watchdogs outside.
I always wondered what it would be like to be a sheep-herder. I imagined myself out on a horse, keeping watch over the large flocks of livestock and moving slowly through vast landscapes of mountains, rivers, and meadows. The sheep left dusty trails through the wilderness as they traveled from one feeding ground to the next. They moved in a line, the ones behind stepping in the trail of the ones in front for the path of least resistance. Were the sheep following those wildlife trails and wearing them in, or were the elk, bear, and coyotes shifting their trails to follow a well-worn path left behind by the sheep being herded to a new lush meadow next to a meandering stream? Either way, the worn-in dusty sheep trails made early morning tracking in the fine dust a fruitful endeavor: the wolves followed the trails too, because they were an easy way to travel long distances without going through a deadfall of limbs, tall grasses, and rocky hillsides.
About halfway through the expedition in mid-August, I got dropped off partway into the morning scout patrol, the first-light run to find any fresh tracks that had been laid the previous night. The scout, the one who goes to find the fresh tracks, sets the plan for the day by choosing the most likely place to bring the groups of trackers. We started out that morning as a group of the lead trackers on the expedition, and I was ready if I needed to be dropped off while the rest of the trackers went back to camp to prepare the groups for the day. We had rigged up a seat on the front of a Ford F250 truck, and one tracker would sit there while other trackers would stand on the running boards hanging over the side, watching for fresh trails.
Prior to making the drive, we sat at camp in the darkness, drinking our tea and looking again at the topographical maps showing where we had seen the wolf pack in the days leading up to this one. Based on patterns we’d documented, we tried to predict where the wolves were going and where we were most likely to pick up on their fresh track. We followed the main road for a long distance, out toward Interstate 21 and the town of Stanley, and made a turn back north up a less-used route toward a backcountry horse camp. Getting as close to the predicted territory borders as possible, we hoped to find tracks of the alpha male going on scout patrol himself, marking along boundaries by leaving scent through scat and urine as a communication to other dominant wolves in that region. Following the tracks of the alpha would give us a better picture of the territory of the pack. The role of the alpha is to be the wisest animal, able to keep the pack alive by avoiding conflict with other wolf packs. A common cause of death for wolves is from other wolves at a territory boundary. The tracks of the alpha would help to paint the picture of where the pack will travel so as to not trespass into another pack’s territory.
Standing on the running board, my knuckles white from my grip on the passenger side of the truck, I shivered from the cold mountain air driving into me at thirty miles per hour. Suddenly I saw them—perfect tracks in a straight line. I motioned for the driver to stop. This moment was the widening of a tributary of my life, where the stream of tracking became a river rushing toward the larger current of my journey.
In the fine dust on the edge of the road were tracks with four large toes, each with a sharply pointed claw accentuating the toes like a dot on a lowercase i. The negative space between the toes and the heel pad formed a star-like shape where the muscles in the foot nearly pulled the earth up as the foot departed the ground. I examined the two tracks, the rear paw landing directly on the place the front paw had pressed first. The next pair of tracks was twenty-seven inches in front of the first two. Our group moved silently, each inspecting a different part of the trail. One tracker was hunched down, looking at the detail of the perfectly placed track in the dust. Another tracker squatted down to the height of the wolf, peering down the trail to see what the animal had seen when traveling this route.
Studying the trail, I placed my hand just over each set of two tracks up in the air, moving it slightly from left to right in a rhythm as my gaze moved slightly left and right with the trail. I was internalizing the cadence of the wolf. Stripping off my outer clothes, I signaled to my friends that I was going to head off alone. I pulled out the map to look in the direction of the tracks. We chose a place several miles away to meet. If I was not there by 4:00 p.m., I was to find a high point to get in radio contact at that time. I was wearing shorts, a T-shirt, and leather shoes with thin soles. I had a radio strapped to my left hip and a water bottle strapped to my right. In my pocket were a small notebook and pencil, a knife, and a miniature tape measure. As I left the group they began dissecting a scat, which was blackish, the color signifying a feeding on nutrient-rich organ meat. The alpha pair feast on the organ meat following a pack’s kill before any of the other pack members begin to eat. The scat was left at a prominent trail crossing just before the wolf had made a turn to cross over the river.
I followed the tracks along a large mountain meadow bounded by dense lodgepole pine forest. As I ran I scared up a pair of sandhill cranes, and the majestic, tall migratory birds called as they flew, sounding an eerie echo. When the sheep trail went over a small mountain, the wolf tracks followed. I inclined toward a hilltop, welcoming the drops of rain that had begun falling softly on my face. I continued jogging, one hand out in front of me, palm facing downward, moving slightly from left to right to match the patterns in the wolf trail. The horizon lay ahead: I could now see the tops of the trees as the elevation dropped beyond the peak of the summit in front of me.
The rain only lasted until I reached the apex. I paused at the summit, taking in my surroundings through all of my senses. I knelt down to investigate the track. The print was clear and alive. It was as if the substrate was still looking for a place to settle from the disturbance of the paw. The particles of dust were suspended on the crest of the negative space between the toes, anticipating the elements of wind allowing them to descend the ridges into the valley left by the pads. Surrounding the unblemished wolf track were drops of rain. With this cognition my body became a conduit of electricity. I could feel my heart racing and my fingers and toes going numb. The tracks had landed on top of the rain that had fallen just five minutes before.
I glanced along the trail toward the decline in both directions. One would take me toward the wolf, the other back down the trail. I brought the image of the topographic map to mind, searching it for this spot. I recalled that the green forested hills of the map showed wavy lines that were close together, signifying steeper, higher terrain. I followed the hills downward with my mind’s eye and the wavy lines grew wider, spreading out as the elevation descended, eventually coming to a valley shown in white with a meandering creek depicted in blue traveling through the center. Winding along the creek valley on the map were dark dotted lines depicting roads. I recalled the road that led to the valley I was approaching, where I planned to meet the truck again. It was nearing high noon and with the meeting time at four o’clock, I calculated the miles and time it would take me to arrive at the meeting spot. I had to continue.
The wolf was so close now. I felt as if I were floating, gliding along the trail in the zone of the wolf. I was disconnected from the limitations of my own physical body. I felt I could run a hundred miles and not tire. My footsteps fell silently on the dust as I slowed my stride to a walk. Approaching the place where the edge of the forest met the open meadow, I paused before stepping out from the shadows of the trees. The sun was directly overhead. In that moment I stood frozen in my tracks next to the fresh footprint of the wolf that had led me here. I was sharing this trail with the wolf and I did not want the moment to end. I wanted that wolf to be with me forever.
I was learning the detail of his tracks, his stride, the way he turned his head while on the trail to follow his senses, being led by his dominant sense of smell. Through his tracks I had seen the way he paused at a protuberance of a stump to leave his scent. Stopping, lifting a hind leg up high to urinate, he conveyed a complex message that lasted long after he passed. I saw his dedication when he was in his own baseline trot, the speed at which the wolf mostly travels, covering that long distance like an arrow released from a bow. I knew I would carry that moment I spent alone with the wolf on the sheep trail in the mountains into my life.
I moved slowly out into the meadow opening, glancing back toward the forest edge. The meadow was large and curved to match the undulating creek. I could not see the expanse even as I stepped out into the open because of its horseshoe shape. I paused. I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. It was a dark wolf moving with effortless grace just inside the forest’s edge. Then it was gone. I peered closely, squinting, but did not see the wolf again.
Approaching the valley floor, the feeling I’d been experiencing that I had transcended the physical constraints of my body dissipated. My feet ached and my body shook from the exertion of my morning. I took off my shoes and walked down the bank of a cold mountain stream that wove a meandering pathway through the lush meadow. I sank my toes in, then submerged to my knees, lying with my back on the smooth rocks of the stream bank. The image of the wolf moving on the forest periphery continued to replay in my mind when I closed my eyes.
Lying there exhausted, I suddenly heard a howling in the direction I had just come from. Then another howl started to my left, and another to my right. An entire pack erupted in howling. I could hear younger wolves sounding a higher-pitched howl interspersed with yipping, their voices cracking like a teenage boy’s, joining the low drone of the adult wolves. Each howl was distinct, and together they formed a group harmony, a family chorus. All of the hair on the back of my neck stood up straight. As the howling died down I wondered why this chorus had erupted. It was the time of year for the pack to be rearing pups, which could have been why they were howling—to keep track of all the members of the pack. Or possibly there was a kill site nearby and there was still food to be feasted on.
I carefully rose to my feet to assess my surroundings. I could see where the pack had played on the bank of the river. Tracks showed chasing, ambushing, and wrestling. This was all practice for the hunt and to establish the hierarchy as the younger wolves developed their endurance and skill, building up to becoming integral members of the pack during pursuit of prey. I saw ungulate bones and small rodents, wild pups’ chew toys, still covered in saliva, adorning the meadow. Had I followed the alpha to the rendezvous site? After eight weeks of age, pups are moved from the den to a rendezvous site. Above ground now, the pups learn from their older relatives stalking, pouncing, running, and play mounting (Elbroch and Rinehart 2011). I imagined the pups learning to hunt, seeing where they had dug for ground squirrels, a small mammal their older relatives might view as a trivial food source.
Just downstream of me, I heard a raven call. I moved toward it. Partially submerged in the stream was a freshly killed bull elk. I was already weak from exhaustion and hunger, and the scene in front of me was raw and disturbing. This once majestic being was reduced to sinew and raw meat. I thought of the way packs hunt by running their prey toward the meandering oxbow creeks, singling out the weak or old. The prey has no way to escape but to enter into the water, which slows it down and gives the wolves a better chance of catching it.
I could picture the struggle of the bull elk, and the pack that may have begun feasting even before he released his last breath. Blood was pooled up in the water, the stomach and its contents floating on the surface. I looked down and saw my reflection in the red, muddy water alongside that of the soft white clouds passing overhead. The cavity of the elk had been ripped open. His muzzle faced the sky, his neck twisted, with his antlers submerged under water. Flies had started to accumulate on the carcass and the only sound I could hear now was their incessant buzzing and an occasional call of the raven.
I walked backwards, scanning the area, my heart racing and my body churning with a mixture of adrenaline and fear. I left the carcass and the rendezvous site of the pack and headed toward the meeting location with the rest of the trackers.
I followed the stream to get to the other side of the valley. As I worked my way through the stream stones, I pieced together the wolf pack’s story. I imagined that the alpha male had traveled long distances to mark territory and keep a scout watch over the pack. Equally a cornerstone, the alpha female was most likely back at the rendezvous site keeping watch over pups and the rest of the pack. The pack worked with intentional group behavior; the stronger ones provided more for the young and the less skilled hunters. The young were allowed to follow the model the alpha pair set while still participating as integral members of the pack, until it was their time to either step into position as alpha or disperse out on their own.
The wolves would feed on the bull elk for several days before moving on to a new meadow where the elk herd had found temporary solace from the predator. The elk herds moved from meadow to meadow, driven by the pack of wolves and the need for fresh forage untainted by their dung and its accompanying flies. When they moved on to a new feeding ground, they grazed along the edges of the meadow, which kept the forest from encroaching on the grass. As I crossed the stream, I was reminded that this predator-prey relationship is how this land evolved: a constant pulse of disturbance and death resulting in growth and life. Although of course I’d known this in theory, I’d never felt the death aspect of the life cycle so viscerally before. I’d smelled the sweet decay of the forest floor, but the impact of the gutted bull elk was undeniable. The relationship of the wolf and the montane meadow ecosystem resonated deeply with me, and I could not help now but view the land and the earth as a pulsating orb of life and death.
I continued to track and hone my skills in my home state of Washington throughout the year, eagerly awaiting more summers spent with Idaho wilderness wolf packs. I became increasingly aware of the political turmoil developing around wolves. As their populations became successful, with the young dispersing to form new packs, they moved beyond the confines of wilderness areas, and interactions between wolves and livestock became more frequent. Naturally there was a large outcry from both ranchers and defenders of the wolf. I witnessed this firsthand in the summer of 2003.
My friend Nicole and I got lost on a long trek following a pack along Big Creek. Coming across a hunting camp, we approached warily, not sure if we should enter to ask for the best route back toward our camp. The trucks outside the camp had stickers on the bumpers reading “Save an elk, kill a wolf.” We kept our lips sealed about our work as we encountered this hostile group of bearded men, who didn’t offer to help us. Nicole and I eventually made our way back to camp by sticking to the roads so we could continue to travel late into the night.
The next morning, I set out on a trail of a wolf pack that had been seen near livestock on a private cattle ranch nearby. I found tracks of one individual and began to follow, then suddenly felt my knees get weak. The life that I had sensed in the track felt suddenly extinguished. I was not sure if I should continue to follow the track or not. In the early light of morning I reached out to try to connect again with the track. When I tracked an animal I pictured every detail: its body, the color of its coat, the way it moved its head. I tried to draw up an image of the wolf leaving the tracks that lay before me, but I was having difficulty drawing up the image. Out of nowhere, the experience of my horse accident came back to me. Puzzled, I realized I couldn’t connect with the wolf that had left those tracks in the flesh, but I felt the wolf instead in a timeless land, like where I had gone while my body was lying in the hospital bed.
I continued to follow the track. I could tell it was a female by the tracks’ size and shape: slender, less robust than a male’s. It was headed in a straight line in the middle of the road. The trail veered into the ditch and over a mountain covered in shale. There, on the craggy hillside with no clear pathway, I lost the trail. It didn’t make sense that the wolf would travel that way, in the opposite direction from where I tracked the pack the day before. I knew there was a livestock camp over the mountain along with some cabins, but I did not understand why the wolf veered off the trail instead of continuing along the circuit back toward the pack.
As I trotted back into camp to catch the tail end of breakfast, I heard the news from one of my fellow trackers.
“The alpha female of the pack was shot early this morning when she was attacking calves.”
Once again, my knees weakened. When I was out tracking her, I had put myself into the life of that wolf to see what she saw and experience what she experienced. I knew now why the tracks had become lifeless, why I had sensed her in that timeless place. I felt as if part of me was lost too.
As tracking became my way of life and taught me the relationships to nature that I had always desired, it also began to contradict much of how I had learned in school. Nature is not linear. Everything is interconnected and each part plays a role in the larger context of life. Tracking taught me another way of approaching science: holistically.
I read every tracking book and was often able to meet and spend time tracking with the authors of those books. Tracker Louis Liebenberg, author of The Art of Tracking: The Origin of Science, described tracking as the oldest science known to humankind. That definition inspired me: Was tracking a pathway to living a life where actions were a conscious act of survival? Was tracking key to understanding how humans can live in harmony with this planet?
I wanted to know how to design my life based on the design of nature, so I drew and studied everything I came across while tracking. I drew every track I could find in detail. I took measurements of each toe and heel pad. I drew each trail, measured how far the next track was from it, and then estimated the width of the animal by calculating the distance between its left to right tracks. I drew the surroundings and the map of the place as it related to the animal’s gait. I asked a lot of questions and then immersed myself into exhaustive research in order to answer them. I asked my fellow students and mentors to share their knowledge, too. I read any book I could get my hands on, often visiting libraries to find field guides and books on animal behavior. Then I tracked, usually learning the most through direct observation. Every time I went tracking, I returned with even more questions to delve into. Once the awareness of patterns in the landscape is turned on, it can’t be turned off. This type of observation gives what was once drab and uninteresting or simply scenic a magical beauty. No matter where I went there was always a thirst for curiosity to quench or an adventure to be had.
From the age of sixteen to twenty-four I traveled with the Wilderness Awareness School to Alaska, Canada, Minnesota, and Idaho to track wolves and lead people on expeditions to learn directly from these packs, as well as to assist scientists who were working to preserve these species. The work was meaningful; we brought people out on these expeditions to discover what it meant to be a human in the most basic sense—an animal living on earth.
In 2004 I had the opportunity to travel to Germany, and I was elated to hear of the possibility of tracking some of the first wolves to return to that country from the wilds of Poland. Humans massacred the wolves in Germany in the early twentieth century and into the mid-1960s in Poland. Despite centuries of being aggressively hunted, the packs were beginning to make a comeback, traveling across artificial human borders as their population naturally grew to fill the open space. However, many Europeans still had not forgotten their deeply held hatred of this untamed creature.
October 4, 2004
Spreewitz, Germany
Last night I drove from the castle, where I taught a bird language workshop, to East Germany where the wolves are. Spreewitz is the little village close to the river where three biologists, Sebastian, Gesa, and Elka, live. This is the territory of the only known wolf pack in Germany. There are two adults, three subadults, and five of last year’s pups in one pack. It is still unknown if they have had pups this past year. There is a female holding an adjacent territory who has been seen traveling with a male wolf but has not yet had pups.
It is very interesting hearing what these three biologists have been going through to protect these wolves that have returned to Germany. There is a long-standing custom of hatred towards the wolves here and their presence in this village is not welcomed by most.
This morning I had another long breakfast: bread, jellies, cheese, and sausage. The Germans like to linger at the table chatting, which is so different from back home, where it seems like everyone is in a hurry during mealtimes to shovel food down and then get on to the next thing.
Heading out tracking with the biologists, we drove through small villages and neighborhoods to get to the edge of a military training ground where the wolves’ core territory is. We drove on back roads to get to where Elka has seen the tracks of the larger male. As soon as we got out of the diesel SUV, we saw fresh tracks of a female wolf. This was so exciting for me, to be on the trail of the wolf again. I followed her for a long way as she trotted into an opening. The opening was surrounded by dense pine forest, covered in needles and the occasional mushroom. It was a desolate region stripped for mining. As the wolf got into the opening she walked in an overstep walk, her hind foot landing ahead of her front in the track pattern. She was out of her baseline gait of a trot, most likely slowing to assess the area for danger from humans, traveling slow, looking around. Tracks of deer, wild swine, red fox, and badger all crossed her trail. This was the first time since I arrived in Germany that I saw these tracks so clear in sand. I could see every detail of the tracks I had been having a difficult time deciphering in the forest debris in other parts of the country. The deer here are so small! Their tracks look like our fawn tracks back home.
I wanted to trail the female wolf from the point where she was last seen, but Gesa wanted to find the tracks of the male and see if the two were traveling together. We continued down a large sandy road toward a massive coal mine looming in the distance. As we traveled we crossed over many trails of the deer, swine, and elk. The red fox was traveling along the road as those trails crossed.
We picked up old tracks of the male wolf and followed. We found the place where Elka was with her dog Jack yesterday. We found fresh tracks of the female wolf from last night going to investigate Jack’s tracks. She left a scat on the heather bush, a signal to Jack, and then went back and continued her route. I watched as the dung beetles busily took bits of the scat and rolled them over to holes to bury them. The balls they were rolling were as big as or bigger than the beetles themselves. We found several areas where the dung beetles had buried scat and we also found several beetle carcasses along the multi-species wildlife trails.
After Gesa collected the wolf scat from the female wolf in a plastic bag, we continued to follow her tracks. She went up a ridge and cut off to follow a trail along the ridge. As we followed her tracks along the ridge, where the wolf could look out onto the large expanse of sand edged with pine forests, we found what we were looking for: fresh tracks of the male wolf. They were traveling together. This is exactly what Gesa wanted to see. The female wolf birthed nine hybrid pups last year that had to be killed in order to maintain the genetic integrity of wolves. Wolves breeding with domestic dogs could mean trouble for the farmers. A hybrid has wild instincts from the wolf yet, from the domestic side, is not afraid of humans, so may attack livestock more frequently. Better to keep the wolves wild and away from humans as much as possible. The wolf was fitted with a radio collar so the biologists could keep a close watch to make sure she was not still interested in domestic dogs. The hope is that she will breed with this wolf this coming season.
Sebastian, Gesa, and Elka told me of the political, social, and economic complications they needed to deal with. East Germany is similar to the places I track in Idaho, except this is the land where the fear and hatred of wolves originated. As we drove around through towns, I noticed statues of wolves and asked Gesa what they were. She explained they were erected where the last of the wolves in that area were killed, as a celebration of sorts. Gesa looks forward to the day when the wolves repopulate those areas and they find the scats of the wolves at the base of those statues.
Across the globe, the interplay of human against predator has played out to the extreme. Stories such as Little Red Riding Hood, told to young children, have instilled an exaggerated fear of wolves for centuries. Predator myths have been propagated to fill the gaps of the unknown. Fear of the unknown can only be alleviated by the deliberate act of connection.
I’ve seen this pattern the world over, from my encounters in Idaho and Germany to my experiences much later when I traveled with my husband to Botswana to track the endangered African painted dogs. We don’t tend to what we fear, and as we become divorced from nature, we fear those wild predators who, it turns out, keep the world in balance. When will we learn that wild animals need wilderness, and, crucially, vice versa?
It was not a coincidence that I found myself in the presence of packs of canids around the globe, learning their interdependency to place, learning the vital role of death in life. But neither was it something I had dreamed of since I was a child. It was simply where I naturally arrived when I took the time to ask: What is this earth where I live? How can I interact and be part of nature? What should I do with my life? I sent these questions to a place as mysterious as creation itself, perhaps to the place I’d glimpsed after my horse accident. I asked in reverence and in awe of the grace I experienced when I let myself be immersed in the natural order. I trusted the answers I received from the earth like the wolf must trust her pack.
Nomadic hunter-gathers were the first to see the connection humans had with wolves. The grey wolf Canis lupus was the first animal to be domesticated by humans in a mutual relationship, sharing food and living amongst each other. That bond felt with your pet dog is an ancient friendship.
PACK DYNAMICS 
One of the most immediate lessons you can learn from wolves is how essential the group dynamics are. The alpha male and female share leadership equally, and their role as leaders is not to boss the pack around and lie back while everyone else does the work; alpha wolves spend every second making sure their pack is strong, fed, and safe. Pups are not isolated from the pack to do “kid stuff”; rather they spend their time playing near the adults, emulating the adult wolves and learning from them how to be a wolf. Wolves put the health of their pack before everything else, always protecting their weakest. We can learn from wolves that it is not the strength of the individual that matters, but rather the strength of the whole, and the pack is only as strong as the weakest link. It is the role of the alpha pair to make sure that health and vitality is present in every member of the pack. We learn leadership from the alpha pair because if those leaders are not strong, if they are not leading by example and working hard, the whole pack begins to break down.
PREDATOR AND PREY
The predator-prey relationship is how life on our planet evolved: a constant pulse of disturbance and death resulting in growth and life. I learned in the wilderness while tracking wolves that prey rely on predators just as much as predators rely on prey. The wolves while hunting tend to single out the weak prey, therefore keeping the whole prey herd stronger by removing the weakest or the sick. We tend to use the predator-prey relationship as a metaphor for who is weak (the prey) and who is strong (the predator). But wolves, an archetypal predator, are fully reliant on the health of the “weak” populations they feed on. So who is really weak, and who is strong? What is the true relationship between predator and prey? This is the lesson I have built my life around: we humans, who see ourselves as invincible, are in fact fully dependent on the health of the planet that feeds us, and just because we feed from something doesn’t make us superior. In fact, it makes us utterly dependent.
KEEP MOVING
Wolves spend 28 to 50 percent of their lives traveling. They are the ultimate athlete, able to swim in flowing rivers, sustain a fast run for 20 minutes at a time, and can cover up to 45 miles in a single night. But their movement isn’t for movement’s sake, and they always find the path of least resistance through the terrain they traverse. They work hard and intelligently. It is within this movement that more life is produced. We learn that even plants rely on predators, because of something called the trophic cascade. The predators keep the herd of prey moving, which in turn allows the plants to regrow and be more available to the other forms of life like the beavers and songbirds. Really there is nothing in nature that is able to be truly sedentary. Wolves move for their food, and in turn that moves their food. The herds of elk move and that in turn moves the plants. The plants are allowed to grow more and collect energy from the sun. That sun energy then moves into the soil and sequesters carbon. We have seen the results of movement of herds on our own ranch, where by mimicking the wolves and elk with humans and cattle we are seeing more biodiversity in plant life and more carbon is being sequestered in the soil. It is within the lessons from the wolf that I have found the solution to tending to grasslands and herds of cattle. We keep them moving, and in turn that brings more life.