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This digital document is an article from The Register-Guard (Eugene, OR), published by The Register Guard on January 16, 2009. The length of the article is 552 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Wolves in danger - again.(Editorials)(Predator loses protections in the Northern Rockies)(Editorial)
Author: Gale Reference Team
Publication: The Register-Guard (Eugene, OR) (Newspaper)
Date: January 16, 2009
Publisher: The Register Guard
Page: A8

Article Type: Editorial

Distributed by Gale, a part of Cengage Learning ... Read more

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73pp. 4to - over 9 3/4" - 12" tall. ... Read more

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Why do wolves howl? Where did people’s fear of wolves come from? How successful are wolf recovery programs? In Gray Wolf, you will find the answers to these questions and more as you learn how this animal has gone from being one of the most feared predator

... Read more

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Since 1995, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released Canadian gray wolves into Yellowstone National Park as part of its wolf recovery program, reintroduction has been widely challenged in public forums and sensationalized in the media. This conflict has pitted western ranchers and property rights activists against environmental groups, highlighting starkly contrasting political perspectives. In this informed account, Martin A. Nie examines not only the future of wolf recovery but also the issues that will define debates around the politics of wildlife management, animal rights issues, and other flash points. The result is a revelatory look at the way the democratic process works when the subject is an environmental hot-button issue.

Examining the wolf recovery program from a policy-making perspective, Nie looks at programs in Alaska, the Lake Superior region, the Northern Rockies, the Southwest, and New England and upstate New York. He analyzes the social, political, and cultural backdrop in the areas in which wolves have been reintroduced and explores such contentious issues as the role of science in public policy; the struggle between wilderness protection, resource management, and private property; and the use of stakeholders in environmental conflicts.

For Nie, the debate over wolf recovery is above all a value-based political conflict that should take place in a more inclusive, participatory, and representative democratic arena. Wolves, Nie writes, are an important indicator species both biologically and politically, and in Beyond Wolves, he tells an important story of wolves and people, place and politics, that resonates far beyond the fate of America's most misunderstood inhabitants.

Martin A. Nie is assistant professor of natural resource policy in the School of Forestry at the University of Montana. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Essential political perspective on wolves, if incomplete
This is an essential discussion of the politics of wolves and wolf recovery.Nie discusses the management of wild populations in Alaska and the upper Midwest as well as wolf reintroduction programs in Idaho and Yellowstone.He is primarily interested in wolf management policy. Though he is a professor, Nie avoids scholarly theory and jargon.He writes well and the book reads easily.

Nie has a background in both resource management and political science, so he's well positioned to talk about the human side of wolves.As a result of being more attuned to the social sciences, he provides a more insightful account of the human side of the wolf-human relationship than your typical biologist - or even your atypical biologist.This is really the best book available on the political social side of wolf management.However, it's not quite as reader-friendly as Steinhardt's book.

Nie considers a series of relevant issues: the symbolic issues of wolves and ranchers, the political economy of wolf regions, the politics of wildlife management organizations, and the successes and failures of stakeholder-based management such as the Fortymile caribou herd in Alaska and the Yukon.He emphasizes the conflicts in values between wolf supporters and opponents, and is sympathetic to solutions that bring interested parties into dialogue with one another.

The result is a very measured and moderate book.I can imagine fanatic anti-wolf people hating this book, but if you are a wolf lover who can't accept the idea of shooting wolves under any circumstances, you'll probably dislike his approach as well.

I would have liked to see him broaden his subject a bit.The book concentrates on the US, though Canada (and to a much lesser extent) Mexico are also discussed.It would be interesting to learn more about wolf management issues in Europe and Asia.For that, the best source is Mech and Boitani.

Only people can save wolves
If you are reading this review chances are you are a "Wolf Lover" and like myself have an great and overwhelming interest in the wolf and its place on this planet. Sadly though, loving wolves and enjoying photographs, films and books of them will not save them from the persecution they endure by this planets most cruel predator-mankind. Author Martin A Nie points out that the Wolf stands as a symbol for Wilderness, and in the 19th Century that was a symbol of all things that mankind hated about the wild, a fear of the unknown, yet now in the 21st Century the Wolf stands for everything that we love about the wild, Freedom. So what has changed in the Wolf? That's right, nothing, the wolf is still the same animal, it is only our attitude that is different. BEYOND WOLVES looks at the Socio-politics of this change in human ideals and thoughts. Every single person who claims to support the Wolf should read this book to understand that it is a political problem that is retarding Wolf Recovery efforts throughout the world, and that these problems must be understood and acknowledged by everyone, Land holders, Farmers, Urban dwellers and Environmentalists. A personal observation about the continuing conflict between farmers (who use dogs for protection and herding) and wolf-lovers (who love dogs as well) is illustrated by wolf photographer Jim Brandenburg in his excellent book BROTHER WOLF when he writes, "Thousands of years ago we brought a powerfull intelligent predator into our caves, and today it sleeps at our feet.While we were learning to love the wolf that became the dog, we somehow learned to hate the wolf that stayed the Wolf"(J Brandenburg-Brother Wolf pg150)This is our dilema, and as an intelligent species we must attempt to make peace with the rest of the planet and its other inhabitants, because a war against nature, is ultimatly a war against ourselves. BEYOND WOLVES is divided into Four parts (one) Wolf Recovery and Managment as Value-Based Political Conflict (two) The wolf as Symbol,Surragate and Policy problem. (three) Wolves and the Politics of Place. (four) The Use of Stakeholders and Public Participation in Wolf Policymaking and Management. These parts and their sub-chapters may seem like a difficult thing to read but Author Martin A Nie is the Assistant Professor of Natural Policy in the School of Forestry at the University of Montana, and his fine fact based text is totally interesting (and backed up with copious notes) so that anyone with any interest in wolves will find it a facinating, and most of all a very important book if our friend, Canis Lupus, is to survive with us on this planet. ... Read more

Product Description
Yellowstone Wolves provides a unique perspective on what is one of the most visible and contentious wildlife management experiments taking place in the American West today. It is a review of the discovery, persecution, and possible survival of the native wolves of the northern Rocky Mountains of the United States; it is a detailed chronicle of the debate over the legality and propriety of introducing wolves from Canada into Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho during the mid-1990s; and it is an account of the spread of the released Canadian wolves from Yellowstone and central Idaho into surrounding areas and the tensions created by these movements. Most of all, Yellowstone Wolves is a passionate and fact-filled illustration of the raging interplay that can develop among the many diverse interests that vest in experiments of this type. Insights gained from Yellowstone Wolves will be of value for dealing with innumerable other issues, environmental and beyond, where multiple perspectives converge, conflict, and demand and deserve sober, intelligent, and candid resolution.

Cat Urbigkit, an advocate for the conservation of what were presumed to be remaining populations of wolves native to the Yellowstone area, a newspaper reporter who covered the debate over wolf reintroduction to Yellowstone and central Idaho during and after the mid-1990s, and one of the litigants who sued the US Fish and Wildlife Service to prevent the introduction of Canadian wolves into the region, is uniquely qualified to provide an intensely personal perspective on, and detailed record about, the debate over the Canadian wolf release and the circumstances that subsequently developed.

The Foreword by Ronald M. Nowak provides authoritative context for understanding the broader significance of endangered species management and the record, and trends, of the United States in managing the nation s biological diversity and adhering to the mandates of the Endangered Species Act. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Required Reading
Cat Urbigkit has written a very thorough and comprehensive book about the so-called "reintroduction" of Canadian wolves to Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.This book was not written from an anti-wolf viewpoint, as wolf-loving diehards would have us believe.Ms. Urbigkit did a fine job discussing the politics of the wolf program without the usual hysteria one encounters when reading anything having to do with wolves.It is truly sad and shameful what the Federal government, along with extreme pressure from so-called environmental groups, did to a truly native subspecies.I believe this book should be required reading for anyone who has any interest in wildlife, and especially for anyone who is considering giving financial or other support to environmental groups like Defenders of Wildlife, Earthjustice, etc.These groups are causing more harm than good in the quest for preservation/conservation of wildlife.

An intriguing look at how conservation battles with politics
Wolves are a creature that has divided people, one person's precious creature is another's violent, carnivorous nuisance. "Yellowstone Wolves: A Chronicle of the Animal, the People, and the Politics" is a look at the Yellowstone Wolf in particular and its long running story of going into near extinction and back again. Once numerous hundreds of years ago, it was hunted to near extinction, and was kept alive only in captivity. Now they are being reintroduced with much success - but there are those who don't think this is an entirely good thing. "Yellowstone Wolves" is an intriguing look at how conservation battles with politics.

Intelligent and balanced
It would be nice if the one- star reviewer bothered to read the book.

Cat Urbigkit brings a unique perspective, as she is both a sheepherder and a naturalist- observer, one who can appreciate big carnivores but doesn't want them killing her sheep or her livelihood.

Her history is also unique. Before she was a shepherd she and her husband joined an unlikely coalition of stockmen and environmentalists who sued to protest the introduction of the Canadian wolf subspecies, arguing that there was a small and harmless population of the nearly extinct native subspecies already existing in the Yellowstone ecosystem. I admit that this was the most difficult argument for me to accept going in, but her careful documentation has made me a believer. Probably they nearly disappeared when the horrific poison 1080 was in use, and were gradually building their numbers. These wolves were smaller and probably would have been more fearful of humans, which emeritus large- mammal biologist Valerius Geist argues is probably a good thing-- more below.

She next documents the long drawn out legal battles, culminating in the "re" introduction of the big Canadian subspecies, and going on to document how they finally arrived in her sagebrush plains, in one case approaching her 12 year old son as he herded sheep.

There is a LOT more here, documented without editorial comment-- of the wedge the issue has driven between the government and stockmen (even worse down here in NM due to a program where the wolves are constantly handled, moved around and habituated); on the environmentalist side, the decision to sacrifice a unique subspecies without studying it to see if it was recoverable without intervention; on the utter uselessness of the compensation program, which demands an impossible standard of proof; even dark humor. When a hunter shoots a pre- intro wolf (?) he thinks is a coyote, he is held in legal limbo for more than a month. As the Jackson Hole Guide editorialized. "How is it that the Fish and Wildlife service-- our federal wildlife experts--can expect Kysar to have known he had shot a wolf when they have already spent six weeks in their laboratories trying to figure it out, and still don't know what it is they're dealing with?"

There are other issues in play than endangered species or embattled ranchers. As Cat reports, elk were eating the park, and there was no other politically acceptable way to reduce their numbers. As we are increasingly coming to know, big predators seem to control the whole ecosystem-- see William Stolzenburg's new book Where the Wild Things Were.

And there is one more issue, only hinted at in Cat's book: the increasing probability that wolves that become too habituated will also become dangerous. Dr. Valerius Geist, now retired, is the dean of North American big mammal studies, and author oftoo many books to cite, though I am particularly partial to the magisterial Deer of the World. He was one of the scientists called on to testify in the notorious Kenton Carnegie case in northern Ontario, where a young intern was killed and partially eaten by dump- habituated wolves (there was a ludicrous attempt to blame the killing on black bears, but anyone who has looked at the entire testimony of both on- the- spot observers and the scientists would be convinced, as was the jury, that wolves were responsible).

Geist is both a serious biologist and a serious backwoodsman, a rare combination in his youth and one that is getting rarer today. He used to believe that wolves were as harmless as their modern image suggests, until some scary encounters with habituated wolves in his own Vancouver backwoods, papers on habituated California coyotes' behavior before attacking children, and the Carnegie case made him study the history and literature of other countries' experiences with wolves. What he found suggested our "harmless" wolves are a historical phenomenon based on a unique phenomenon: our common use of guns. Wolves killed people in the Soviet Union until after WW II, kill people today in India, and are considered dangerous by Canada's northern "First Nations".

Wolves are magnificent, efficient, sometimes deadly predators, not "spiritual healers". To keep wolves near humans benign (to the humans at least), they should best be hunted. Could a similar phenomenon be behind the rise in cougar attacks in (over?) civilized places like Boulder and California?

In several papers and articles Geist seeks to mediate between our desire for a robust, healthy wilderness, the reasonable expectation of our ranchers to make a living, and safety. He proposes large wilderness areas surrounded by mixed land where big predators are allowed but hunted, in turn ringed by farms and suburbs where they cannot be tolerated. It seems that we already are well on the way to this in the US (perhaps more than in his Canada) with parks surrounded by National forests. It will still need both some tweaking and a lot more efforts to understand, coming from predator advocates and stockmen alike. Let's try to get this one right and maybe we can start to talk about "re- wilding". Cat Urbigkit's book is an excellent place to start-- for both sides.

Book not even close
Please readers of this book, do not believe half of what Cat writes, she is a sworn wolf hater and sticks with the Ranchers on all issues. She is very bias in her local articles and I am sure her book will be more of the same... ... Read more

Product Description
Gray wolves once ranged from Mexico to Canada and from coast to coast.Habitat destruction and government extermination programs reduced gray wolves to a few hundred by the middle of the twentieth century.Since that time recovery projects have brought gray wolves back from the brink of extinction. (20040801) ... Read more

Product Description
A gripping story of wonder, frustrations, humor, and everyday hard work of field biologists as they track the recovery of wild wolves.

It was 1978, and there had been no resident timber wolves in Wisconsin for twenty years. Still, packs were active in neighboring Minnesota, and there was the occasional rumor from Wisconsin's northwestern counties of wolf sign or sightings. Had wolves returned on their own to Wisconsin? Richard Thiel, then a college student with a passion for wolves, was determined to find out.

Thus begins Keepers of the Wolves, Thiel's tale of his ten years at the center of efforts to track and protect the recovery of wolves in Northern Wisconsin. From his early efforts as a student enthusiast to his departure in 1989 from the post of wolf biologist for the Department of Natural Resources, Thiel conveys the wonder, frustrations, humor, and everyday hard work of field biologists, as well as the politics and public relations pitfalls that so often accompany their profession.

We share in the excitement as Thiel and his colleagues find wolf tracks in the snow, howl in the forest night and are answered back, learn to safely trap wolves to attach radio collars, and track the packs' ranges by air from a cramped Piper Cub. We follow the stories of individual wolves and their packs as pups are born and die, wolves are shot by accident and by intent, ravages of canine parvovirus and hard winters take their toll, and young adults move on to new ranges. Believing he had left his beloved wolves behind, Thiel takes a new job as an environmental educator in central Wisconsin, but soon wolves follow. By 1999, there were an estimated 200 timber wolves in 54 packs in Wisconsin. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Enthralling book about wilderness returning to your backdoor
I grew up in Wisconsin and can relate to Richard P Thiel's accurate and colorful descriptions of northern and central Wisconsin landscape.However, his experiences go far beyond those of most others, helped by being able to track wolves by light aircraft and radio telemetry thus getting a bird's eye view of the scene.A good example of the Scientific Method on the hoof, so to speak. The book does not glamorize the profession of wildlife biology; it tells it like it is, including the governmental bureaucracy, physical hardships, bad weather, and long hours, occasionally punctuated with incredible encounters with the wolves that refused to be excluded from Wisconsin. The book teaches people what to expect when wolves share your living space.And what a great ending ... it brings the reader right up to date and sets the stage for proper management decisions in the future.A great humorous book which will entertain you as well as educate. I couldn't put it down.

Recommended for Wisconsin environmental issues reading lists
Keepers Of The Wolves: The Early Years Of Wolf Recovery In Wisconsin by Richard Thiel (coordinator of the Wisconsin Department of natural Resources Sandhill Outdoor Skills Center, Babcock, Wisconsin) is the true and fascinating story of the restoration of wild wolves to Wisconsin Forest, from 1978 when they had been gone for twenty years to the present day with an estimated 200 timber wolves in 54 packs. Black-and-white line drawings illustrate a story of political controversies, environmental struggles, and the enduring strength of the wolf itself. A conservationist success story, Keepers Of The Wolves is especially recommended for Wisconsin environmental issues reading lists and wildlife restoration studies reference collections.

The respect for life
Good friends presented us this book as a Christmas gift, knowing that we are very interested in all forms of appearance of the nature, inanimate and alive.
It is of great interest for us since just in this years the wolves also return to the forests of our Eastgerman country.
It is wonderful written, understandable also for the laymen and rich in nice figures.
Most important for us is however, that this book is written by a man who obviously feels responsible for the life on our so endangered earth, who understand that human life is tightly connected with all the other appearances of life and that the good evolution of one kind of life is the necessary precondition for the healthy existence of all another creatures.
Men like Richard Thiel give us the hopethat life has a chance to survive at our planet.

Thiel's wolves a winner again.
'Keepers of the wolves' is Richard P Thiel's follow up to his
wonderful 1993 publication 'The Timber Wolf in Wisconsin.'
Once again the author's informative and personal writing style
makes this very fine book an essential work for any Wolf supporter interested in the more complex aspects of the Wolf recovery effort in the United states today.

Life Lessons to Learn
This book is a labor of love and committment,the author rocks and provides insights into what it takes to assure that today's actions ensure one's goals/ideals, i.e. wolf recovery, survive into the next generation.The illustrations are sweet and the book is very easy to read and enjoyable. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Endangered Species Update, published by University of Michigan, School of Natural Resources on July 1, 2001. The length of the article is 3686 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Road density as a factor in habitat selection by wolves and other carnivores in the great lakes region. (Habitat issues).
Author: Adrian P. Wydeven
Publication: Endangered Species Update (Newsletter)
Date: July 1, 2001
Publisher: University of Michigan, School of Natural Resources
Volume: 18Issue: 4Page: 110(5)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Endangered Species Update, published by University of Michigan, School of Natural Resources on May 1, 2002. The length of the article is 815 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Federal delistings: a case study of the Gray Wolf. (Legislative Update).(Brief Article)
Author: Ashley McMurray
Publication: Endangered Species Update (Newsletter)
Date: May 1, 2002
Publisher: University of Michigan, School of Natural Resources
Volume: 19Issue: 3Page: 51(2)

Article Type: Brief Article

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from UXL Encyclopedia of Science, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 1450 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.This collection of entries covers major areas of science including: biology, genetics, microbiology, astronomy, chemistry, physics, engineering, technology, geology, weather, archaeology, psychology, mathematics, and medicine, and provides readers with a wide range of up-to-date, relevant, and accurate information. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (16)

book review
Smooth transaction.Seller's cool.I'm about half way through the book.It's very good.It not only explains about wolf behavior, but it gives in depth info about many of the wolves, individually.Even though the wolves are identified by number, you feel like to got to know the first wolves that were reintroduced into Yellowstone.I would recommend.

Bush is trying to slaughter the wolves again!!!
they won't be there very long if Bush has his way.he's imposing a new rule to slaughter all the wolves in the park because of a few disgruntled ranchers.

check it out for all the info: http://www.nrdcactionfund.org/campaigns/wildlife/save-endangered-gray-wolves.html

Recommended
This is a well written combination of scientific discussion of the effect of first 10 years of the return of wolves to the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and amazing stories of individual wolves. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the effect of restoring the full compliment of species to an ecosystem. It is easily approchable by the average non-scientist reader.

A terrific book about wolves & wildlife biology
I have read over 40 books about wolves over 35 years and this one stands out as one of the very best.

The book has two main themes -- the life histories of individual wolves brought to Yellowstone and their packs, and what wildlife biologists actually do to accomplish a successful introduction and gather the histories of these wolves. Both these themes are covered very well in exceptionally graceful writing.

Missing intentionally is a blow by blow history of the political controversy surrounding the introduction, and I am glad for that -- the focus remains on the wolves and how they deal with the challenges they face. The political history has been covered in other books and is a fairly depressing story of people shouting at each other.

The authors ability to describe in remarkable detail on the histories of individual wolves and their packs was aided enormously by the radio collars the placed on select individuals and the high visibility of the wolves in Yellowstone. The picture that emerges is of an enormously rich, complex, dynamic and tough world. Surviving is a constant challenge for a wolf, even in this prey-rich environment, and few wolves make it past 4-5 years old, much younger than the lives of wolves in captivity.

Their is so much information about their behavior that the wolves emerge as distinct individuals with dramatically different personalities and styles. Packs develop unique cultures (e.g. hunting bison). The static alpha male - alpha female hierarchy so often described in other books turns out to be far more variable with much greater roles in some packs for the alpha female and non-alpha wolves.

The authors note how frequently the wolves' behavior continues to them, particularly social behavior. There are far more ways to organize and "run" a wolf pack then previously thought, and the complexity of the dynamics described resembles human social interactions to a remarkable degree.

There is a lot that can be learned even by well-read wolf enthusiasts from reading this book. Yet, for those who are just beginning to read about wolves, this book is a superb introduction to these animals that get more fascinating the more we know about them.

Those who enjoyed the insight into the life of a wildlife biologist in this book would no doubt also enjoy Craig Packer's Into Africa, an account of his work with the social histories of African lion prides.

Great Book about the wolves of Yellowstone N.P.
This has to be the best book I have read in years about the Yellowstone National Park's reintroduction of the wolves. Entertaining and very educational. I highly advise anyone that would like to further there education on the history of the Yellowstone Wolves to read this book. It was pure enjoyment. ... Read more

Product Description
This is a novel about commitment - or, rather, the consequences of shirking commitment. Earth Firstl Founder Dave Foreman unfolds the story of burned-out and disillusioned Sierra Club lobbyist Jack Hunter, who leaves Washington D.C., for his family's cabin in southwestern New Mexico's Diablo National Forest. Convinced there is nothing he or anyone else can do to stop humankind's war on nature, he returns to his old trade of horseshoeing, determined not to become involved again in conservation issues. Nevertheless, he finds himself falling for the leader of the Diablo Wilderness Committee. Dr MaryAnne McClellan, a biologist who is as pretty as she is tough. She tries to draw him into the campaign to protect the Diablo Wilderness Area from Forest Service logging plans, and she also wants to involve him when a pack of lobos - Mexican wolves - are reintroduced to this wilderness bordering a small ranching community. Hunter refuses to commit to either MaryAnne or the lovos, however, and he is soon caught up in the bloody consequences of his cynicism, discovering the true cost of not taking a stand for what he loves. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Grab's like a wolf's bite!
As a wildlife biologist for many years dealing with endangered species (including the Spotted Owl and Goshawk, both discussed in the book) along the Arizona/New Mexico border, this book really nails the atmosphere of the "Diablo" (Mogollon) Rim country, where the low desert sky islands transition into the Colorado Plateau. The Diablo Wilderness stands in for the Gila Wilderness, one of the oldest in the nation, Platoro for Silver City, but these fictionalizations do not get in the way of the story, which beautifully, perfectly, and achingly describes the landscape of southwest NM/southeast AZ. The novel's pacing is quick - I had a hard time putting it down at night. Hunter is a compelling character; a manly-man with some serious commitment issues. The issues that Foreman tackles are real, as much today as when the novel was written. The biggest weakness I found in the novel is the characterization of the antiwilderness crowd as stupid/slow/dumb. While the sentiments that they express are certainly similar to those I have heard from real-life ranchers in Catron and Apache counties, some of these fellows have razor sharp minds. Foreman's antagonists are bold and conniving, but never clever or smart.
The title of the novel comes from the climax, which comes on fast and hard. I had goosebumps as the climax began, and by the end I was late to a meeting, reading as I walked down the hallway. This novel doesn't let you go easy.
Some of the actions depicted in the novel still occur today - the use of radio tags to hunt down and kill endangered species, the sabotaging of endangered species advocates' vehicles, etc. But if you go out into the Gila, or into the Apache-Sitgreaves in Arizona, you can (if you're lucky) hear the howl of a lobo echoing across the mountains. I have. Reading this novel puts into perspective the cost at which those wolves finally came home.

eco action novel!
Funny, horny, passionate, insightful and a damn good read!

Foreman gives testosterone a good name!

right on
Having moved to the New Mexico outback myself a few years ago with the notion that cowboys and ranchers were noble and strong caretakers of the land, I was shocked to learn about the whole public land multiple use system and what arrogant cretins the abusers of it really are. Dave Foreman has ripped the masks off every wise-use, militia belonging, united nations fearing, and custom-and-culture ranting local rural resident and revealed them for the ignorant, bombastic yahoos they really are. I hope I live long enough to someday hear the howl of a lobo here. This book let me dream that might someday come true.

A Wild Read
This was a wild read. Sex, romance, wilderness, wolves, good guys, bad guys, and a moral to the story. The story is about those who love the west and do battle to protect the land and its wildlife. Many of the characters and events are probably emulations from the author's own life that has been dedicated to the protection of wilderness and wildlife.If you want to gain a sense about why some people are willing to devote their lives to the wild then read this book. When you are done, choose your place to stand and defend.

A howling-good novel!
This is Earth First! founder, Dave Foreman's first novel.Set partly in New Mexico's Diablo National Forest and partly in southeastern Arizona, Foreman's natural descriptions read as if they were drawn from his own field notes. This story is as much about commitment to wild places as it is about survival.

Interestingly, Foreman's novel is similar to Barbara Kingsolver's current bestseller, PRODIGAL SUMMER (2000), in many respects.Both novels involve sensual love affairs that unfold in nature.Whereas Kingsolver's lovers, Deanna Wolfe (a forest ranger) and Eddie Bondo (a hunter) debate coyotes, Foreman's lovers, MaryAnne McClellen (a wildlife ecologist) and Jack Hunter (a burned-out, Sierra Club lobbyist) protect Mexican wolves.Like Deanna, MaryAnne understands: "If life in all its fecund, blooming, buzzing, beautiful diversity is to survive, we humans must find within ourselves the generosity of spirit and the greatness of heart to make room for the full flowering of other species and natural life processes" (p. 176). Kingsolver even lives in Tucson, where parts of Foreman's novel unfold.

Jack Hunter is a complicated character.No longer a lobbyist in Washington, D.C., Hunter has become "a hard-drinking, sullen horseshoer in a backwater nowhere;"yet he remains "a man born to greatness" (p. 206).When confronted with Forest Service logging plans and saving the lobos, "Hunter knew he couldn't run any more," Foreman writes."It was time to stick his spear in the ground and fight for home.He saw the grand cottonwoods and bouncy stream of Stowe Creek Meadow.He saw the tall ancient pines of Mondt Park.He saw the wolves of Davis Prairie.That was what was real.That was what was important.That was what made his life worth living . . . he would fight for it now.No matter what the cost" (p. 200).

Dave Forman has written a howling-good first novel which, like Kingsolver's, I recommend to those who share a love for wild places.

G. Merritt ... Read more