Kevin Berger explores the complex history and controversial outcomes of gray wolf reintroduction in the Northern Rockies. Diane Boyd, a wolf researcher, argues that natural recolonization would have been more beneficial for the species than the government-led reintroduction. Others do not agree.
Last September Boyd published her first book, a memoir, A Woman Among Wolves. She captivatingly details her life in the wild, offering as close to a wolf’s-eye view of the Northern Rockies as we’re likely to see. Later in the book, as she takes stock of the state of wolves today, she delivers a stinging claim: “Wolf recovery is all about people and very little about wolves.”
Letting wolves be wolves was Boyd’s view of how they should be managed from the days and nights she tracked the lone wolf in Montana 46 years ago. She hasn’t changed her mind. I regaled her with all the criticism of natural recovery that I had collected from talking to others. She wasn’t fazed. Wolves navigate gauntlets of people with their own wiles every day, Boyd said. They didn’t need to be reintroduced.