Running with Wolves. National Kids Geographic

member of a herd, but the culprit was much more likely to be disease, weather, injury, or a predator other then a wolf, including domestic dogs.

      I wasn’t completely surprised to learn how make-believe stories fed people’s misconceptions about wolves. But I was astounded and alarmed to learn how false perceptions had affected the wolf population. From the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s, about two million wolves had been killed in the United States, largely because they were seen as a threat to livestock. In fact, in 1915, the U.S. government hired hunters and called for the extermination of wolves.

      It almost happened.

      The government paid hunters for each wolf they killed. By the time I started to research my wolf film, this beautiful animal that once inhabited forests and plains from Maine to California existed only in small pockets of the United States. At the most, no more than a handful of wolves roamed the entire American West. Even though they were protected under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, their numbers were still dangerously low.

      More importantly, attitudes about wolves had changed little, especially among the ranchers and big-game hunters who shared the environment with this animal. It was personally disheartening. These were my neighbors and friends, yet our views of wolves were very different. Many people still considered them to be aggressive killers. But the more research I uncovered, the more I saw wolves as curious, intelligent, and even shy. I knew they were getting a bad rap.

      I couldn’t really blame people for their attitudes, though. Myths die hard, especially in the absence of truth.

      In 1990, we knew surprisingly little about the nature of wolves. We had measurable facts—things that you could attach a number to—like a wolf’s size, how far it roams, how long it lives, things like that.

      We knew wolves live in packs, but we had little idea about how they live. We knew almost nothing about the secret, hidden lives of wolves. I needed to change that. I needed to show people a side of wolves they never saw, never even knew existed. Perhaps that information would help replace myth with truth.

      I felt the only way to discover that truth was to live with wolves.

      So, I decided to assemble a wolf pack to observe and film within the world’s largest wolf enclosure. I had no idea what I was getting into and how difficult the road ahead would be, but I knew that I was doing the right thing. I was certain that if only someone would take the time to listen, the wolf would tell its story. I was willing to listen.

      So was a certain zookeeper in Washington, D.C.

      Jamie and I had kept in touch ever since we met on a trip home from Africa three years earlier. She was as excited as I was when I told her about my plans to live with wolves. We both knew this was a much more ambitious undertaking than the cougar project, and she understood why I had to do it.

      In the early days of the project—before Jamie joined me in Idaho—I depended on her advice and support through letters and conversations. I still remember the joy I felt as I wrote her with some thrilling news.

       “I found it!”

      That was my message in a nutshell.

      In a letter to Jamie, I described how I had found the perfect place to build wolf camp. It was in the Sawtooth Mountains, across the valley from where cougar camp had been.

      I had explored other mountain ranges in central Idaho, but I could never find a place that had everything the wolves would need. Then I discovered Meadow Creek. It’s an area of meadows, forests, creeks, marshes, and ponds, all near the base of the Sawtooth Mountains.

      This place was really off the beaten path. I took a dirt road across two ranches, and when the road ended, I got out and walked. The landscape changed dramatically as I hiked up a slight incline. It’s amazing the difference a little change in elevation makes! Instead of the dry sage of the ranches, I suddenly found myself in a green, grassy meadow.

      It was like a piece of paradise. A mountain brook trickled past me on my left while bright yellow aspen leaves twisted and turned in the breeze on my right. In front of me stood a deep green forest of towering lodgepole pine, Douglas fir, and spruce. And above that rose the majestic Sawtooths. Their summits formed a jagged gray ridge against the deep blue sky.

      Meadow Creek had everything I could want. It was remote enough that people wouldn’t wander by and disturb the wolves. In fact, people would have a hard time finding this place even if they were looking for it. Yet the site could be reached by an equipment truck, which would be needed to haul in materials to build the enclosure.