Never Cry Wolf

"I had made my decision that, from that hour onward, I would go open-minded into the lupine world and learn to see and know the wolves, not for what they were supposed to be, but for what they actually are."

Farley Mowat

Never Cry Wolf

Originally published in 1963, Farley Mowat book Never Cry Wolf changed the way we think about large predators in North America. The wolf has been stigmatized for its role as apex predator, and for a long time was actively hunted in the lower 48 states to near the point of extinction, and for the longest time it was believed that wolves hunting patterns were driving the deer and caribou herds to extinction. Mowat's research showing that apex predators were necessary to keep the herd healthy, and that wolves weren't mindless killers, was crucial to their conservation.

This is a conversation that I feel is important to have again and again, considering all of the stereotypes that surround the wolves, the wolf hunts still being conducted in Alaska and Canada, and the poaching that occurs in the lower 48 states. It is important to educate people, especially when there are movements to reintroduce the wolf to Colorado (read more here).

This is a truly amazing piece of nature writing, chronicling Mowats time in the tundra researching the wolves, and his particular interactions with a small family group. It's well written, its informative, and its hilarious. The amount of humor packed into it blew me away, I especially loved the story about when Mowat ran across the tundra naked to witness a hunt, only to find that his friends mother had run out with the teenagers of the family to save him, thinking that he had gone mad. The prose was beautiful and elegant, and the relationship that the author establishes with the wolves is so wonderful. 

I think the best thing about this book was the subtle but underlying theme that humans embody all of the horrible things that have been said about the wolves, and that we are missing out on something by disrupting the natural stream of things. Our fear of nature and the unknown is so debilitating that it has caused us to loose where we fit in in the grand scheme of things. This feeling is driven home by his concluding sentence, which is just to beautiful not to share:

"for me it was a voice which spoke of the lost world which once was ours before we chose the alien role; a world which I had glimpsed and almost entered...only to be excluded, at the end, by my own self."

This book was fantastic. I think its a very important read, and a beautiful one at that. And if you don't want to read the book there is also a wonderful movie based on it, which I highly recommend.