| Title | : | Wolves at Our Door: The Extraordinary Story of the Couple Who Lived with Wolves |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0743400496 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780743400497 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 320 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 2002 |
For centuries, wolves have haunted the human imagination. It has been accepted as conventional wisdom that they are savage predators, creatures of nightmare. Determined to overcome such misconceptions, Jim and Jamie Dutcher spent six years in a tented camp on the edge of Idaho's wilderness, living with and filming a pack of wolves. Now, in this lyrical memoir, the Dutchers share their experience of life among these intelligent and elusive animals.
By socializing with the pack from the time they were pups, the Dutchers were able to gain the wolves' trust and observe their behavior in a way that few people ever have. What they witnessed was a complex nature oriented toward family life and strong social bonds.
Wolves at Our Door is much more than a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the Dutchers' Emmy Award-winning Discovery Channel documentary. It is the story of two people brought together by their devotion to wildlife and held together by their belief in each other. It is about their struggle to keep the project alive amid marauding mountain lions, forest fires, subzero temperatures—and the never-ending storm of controversy that surrounds the wolf.
Wolves at Our Door: The Extraordinary Story of the Couple Who Lived with Wolves Reviews
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Il testo è nascosto per spoiler
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Absolutely stunning! I read this book while at a guest lodge at 9200-feet in Dubois, Wyoming. The Dutcher's had stayed at Brooks Lake Lodge (the cozy, snowed in abode I was fortunate enough to experience) and shared a copy of their book with the staff.
In my stay, I met a real-life Native American Medicine Woman who helped me 'find' my spirit guide, the wolf. Thereafter, I picked up this book and could not put it down. The detail and the similarities between pack culture and human culture amazed me.
I laughed, I cried, I questioned...an entertaining and extraordinarily thought-provoking read. I have a better understanding of wolves and their role in our ecosystem after finishing this book, as well as a deeper respect for their plight. Highly recommend! -
A really interesting look at wolves done so respectfully by the Dutchers. A good solid read throughout but the ending just put it over the top for me emotionally. I am looking forward to watching the documentary now that I "know" the wolves. I can't wait to see them in action.
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these people must be crazy.
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Book 17 of 2021
I very nearly put this down about 50 pages in. After reading several "real" wolf books, these people with money who wanted to play with wolves (and name them lol) held little interest to me.
Then Jim Dutcher drops a secret: nature shows typically feature captive animals, not wild ones. Wait, that can't be. But as they discuss why real wild animals are so difficult to film and why good TV is virtually impossible to make...woah. That sparked a big debate at work the next day. I ruined someone's day with this news as we confirmed that most, if not all, the shows we've enjoyed are "fake."
So the book was still a little soft at times. I felt like the authors were trying to tug at my heartstrings. It's a stark contrast to something that Rick McIntyre might write...where he merely reports what he observes. The Dutchers put a lot more of themselves into the story. Sometimes it was interesting, sometimes it was not. After all, I was not learning about wolves so much as I was learning about how a captive wolf reacted to the Dutchers, or more accurate, how the Dutchers perceived that interaction.
Still there was some interesting stuff the Dutchers may have captured even better than the other wolf experts. The treatment of omegas, the roles of wolves in the hierarchy, maybe some of the smaller behaviors like morning greetings that take place without fail.
Jim does well with his epilogue, addressing some of the complaints I thought about registering (thus my lol about the names). I don't agree with all they did, namely using captive animals as tools, but truly how else can it be done in a captivating way? As he says in his epilogue, one guy wanted to hunt wolves and now he does not. Show or book, it's the same thing: the wolves become vastly more than predators. They become intelligent, unique, at times sympathetic animals.
I don't like how the book ended. Frankly it made me quite sad that, as tools, the wolves had no idea what was going on at the end. Still, I think the Dutchers gave the wolves an okay life. The wolves knew nothing more that captivity, unless by instinct. They were fed, maintained. Nature can be a whole lot more cruel than that. In the end this was an interesting read in that I had no idea all my nature shows used captive animals. Funny the lessons we learn in the most unexpected places. -
Il racconto di un esperienza straordinaria che vi incollerà alle pagine dall'inizio alla fine
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I really enjoyed this book and will definitely be watching the documentaries.
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3.5 stars
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The true story of the wildlife filmmaker (Jim) and employee of the National Zoo (Jamie) who met and married during a six-year project studying a pack of captive wolves who had been hand-raised in a fenced environment in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains, but more or less left to their own natural inclinations. Dutcher is aware of how controversial his project is (both from ranchers who see wolves as the devil and from environmentalists who think he is selfishly playing God by hand-raising wolves and interfering with them), and takes enormous pains to justify everything about it, from the fencing to the amount of relative luxury they lived in while filming (beds with sheets! Wine! The horror!). The pups are hand raised so the humans involved could safely film the wolves and give medical attention when needed; but the Dutchers go to great lengths to keep the environmental impact to a minimum – and succeed, if a government report on their impact is any indication.
There’s a lot of fascinating information here, especially about the technical aspects and logistical obstacles in filming a wildlife documentary (to capture the wolves’ true feral nature, which comes off as less than majestic when close up, he films them in slow motion). There is also a great deal to learn about wolf behavior, such as how the pack hierarchy can change over time, or that physical power does not necessarily correspond to status level, or how the omega can get away with playful behavior that a mid-level wolf would be punished for (reminding me of how a medieval king would take abuse from a jester that would mean death coming from an advisor). About his colleagues with whom he falls out, Dutcher is not entirely reliable, finding fault with their position in general and painting himself (and his wife) as the lone hero against the entire irrational world. A reader does have to take an author’s word for a lot – you can’t proceed with any criticism if you can’t agree on what the author asserts – but things can’t be that black and white. Finally, the Dutcher anthropomorphize to a great extent. They note repeatedly that they are not scientists, but artists, and can only repeat what they feel and are not limited to observable repeatable phenomena; however, Jamie’s flights of fancy on how wolves respect ravens, and regret killing them by accident, are a bit much. Overall, this is a highly interesting, and unfortunately rather sad, account of a wolf pack that didn’t belong to people or the wild. Was this project a good thing, in the end? Yes, if you allow that it de-demonized wolves for many people. But maybe the subjects themselves would rather not have come to the end they did. -
Even though this book has a heart-wrenching ending, I enjoyed it immensely and would recommend it to any animal lover. It is beautifully written with warmth and passion. If you didn't like wolves before reading this book, you sure will afterwards.
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Wolves are dangerous animals, and yet “man’s best friend” is actually a domesticated wolf. Wolves were almost exterminated in western United States, and in states where they had become extremely rare, there were many who wanted to give wolves a second chance at survival. Jim and Jamie Dutcher’s “Wolves at Our Door” describes an attempt to reintroduce wolves and provides an insight into what wolves are really like.
Inspired by the Endangered Species Act of 1967, the Dutchers, in 1990, decided to set up the “Sawtooth Wolf Pack” on the edge of Idaho’s’ Sawtooth Wilderness. The U.S. Forest Service issued the Dutchers a permit to set up a camp and a wolf enclosure in Meadow Creek near the Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho, and the “Sawtooth Pack” was officially started.
The Dutchers received a young female wolf cub they named “Chemukh.” They raised the cub themselves feeding it by bottle “for at least fourteen weeks” to insure it would be comfortable with them. When Chemukh was weaned, the Dutchers started letting her join with the few remaining wild wolves in the area, but Chemukh always came home. Two years later, Chemukh came home pregnant and gave birth to her first litter of four pups, the first wolves to be born in the Sawtooth Mountains in at least fifty years.
A wolf pack is a very complex social unit, an extended family of parents, siblings, aunts, and uncles. Wolf packs have at least one alpha male and alpha female and usually an omega wolf, but these positions can shift among the wolves depending on the fitness and energy of the individual wolves. In a wolf pack there are no equals. The pack is bonded by the wolf’s strong cooperative nature, which is, perhaps, its greatest survival skill. Life in a wolf pack is an incredible balance of competition and cooperation. The Dutchers were always afraid that one of the wolves might climb the fence and run away. They were surprised that not a single wolf showed the slightest interest in getting away.
There are plenty of wonderful things to say about wolves, about the way they communicate and care for each other. Unfortunately, the competition for the alpha female is not one of those things. The females are much more aggressive, whereas the males are comparatively laid back, sorting out their position through threats and bluff. To say that the alpha male choose his mate is really an oversimplification. The strongest female fights off her competition, making herself, in effect, the alpha male’s only possible choice.
Usually, in a wolf pack, the alpha pair is the only two to mate. There rest of the pack devote themselves completely to the few puppies that are born to the alpha pair. The birth of new pups is like an explosion in the pack. The permissiveness that adult wolves demonstrate toward the pups is astonishing and never more apparent than at feeding time.
This fascinating look at wolves was brought to fruition when the Dutchers released their documentary “Wolf: Return of a Legend,” aired on ABC’s World of Discovery and resulting in worldwide sympathy for our wild neighbors. Both the book and the documentary provide a deep insight what wolves are really like. -
This book provided an interesting example of wolf conservation and what working with wolves can look like. I can't explain how incredible it must have been to be involved with this project and to live with a pack.
Jim Dutcher has such a great voice and presents his thoughts in such a enthralling way.
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"I would not be a wolf advocate if I did not believe that there was room in the West for both wolves and ranchers" (33).
"What word would a wolf choose to describe protecting the omega from aggression, or when (as has been observed in Alaska) it brings food to an injured pack mate? When a worried mother brings her sick child to the doctor, no one would suggest that it is because she knows the child carries her genes, or that she wants the child to care for her when she is older. The claim that we human beings hold a monopoly on elevated feelings is impossible to support" (201).
"They possess something beyond their more obvious attributes of beauty, strength, and intelligence. These animals, who have been maligned for centuries, despised as the embodiment of all that is cowardly, savage and cruel, clearly care about one another and show signs of what I would call nothing less than empathy and compassion" (201)."
"However, they would not touch a dead raven. It was as if killing the bird had been a terrible accident - the raven had gone a bit to far across the line and the wolf had snapped a little too accurately" (252).
"Perhaps it was closure we were seeking, or perhaps we were hoping that the memory of better times would soothe the pain of the present. Neither Jamie nor I could really explain why, one autumn day, we found ourselves driving on the old jeep trail toward the site that had once been our home" (298). -
An interesting, well-told story. For me, being able to do a deep dive into an interesting moment in Idaho’s wildlife history was worth the read. Certainly this isn’t a scientific read. I’m sure I would be hard-pressed not to behave the same way as the Dutchers if I were in their shoes. I’d be interested to hear another take on this story from an outside perspective or how Ketchum, Stanley, and the state’s wildlife and conservation groups felt about all of this. Some of the issues other reviewers point out are well-grounded. But! The familiar places, descriptions of scenery I know well, and a good animal story made it an engaging, easy read. (Mostly, I think it made me wish I was snowed in inside a yurt in the back-country.)
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I prefer chronological bios so that I can better wrap my head around all the facts, but I did love all the information in this book. My only complaint would be that there isn’t as much info as I wanted! Living with wolves has been my dream since White Fang and all the amazing Jack London works.
My husband and I promptly watched both films Dutcher made. The info was also greatly lacking. Too many years crammed into 50 or so minutes.
The ending (which the documentary didn’t include) is very sad, yet not unexpected end.
Understandable all said, for a 90’s documentary/book. -
This book talks about wolves in a much different way than any of the other nonfiction books I’ve read on the subject. Reading about the Sawtooth pack through the eyes of Jamie and Jim made me feel emotionally attached to each of the wolves. It also showed me just how ridiculously difficult it is to care for a pack of wolves. A good solid read helping gain a better understanding on the subject.
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If you are interested in the reintroduction and lives of the Yellowstone wolves, this is a must read. A side project done at the same time as the Yellowstone wolves where a couple lived closely with a pack of wolves introduced into the wilds of Idaho and made many ground-breaking discoveries about the social structure of the pack and their behaviour.
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This was such an insightful book, and I feel like it did a good balance of being objective and acknowledging the biases that the authors brought into the process. I really didn't like the romance aspect, though I understand why it was included. It was just a little heavy-handed for me, but I guess that's what LUV does to you. But I like that they showed the light and the dark of this project.
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I thought this book was just okay. The author did get on my nerves a little because at times it seemed like he would just talk about his resume and all the documentaries he’s made and the success of them. I get it.. I get it. As for the parts about the wolves, it was interesting. I didn’t expect the book to sadly end the way it did.
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An interesting story for anyone interested in the behaviour of wolves or the making of documentary films on wild creatures. Nothing to extraordinary in the writing but an enjoyable and quick read that will teach you some things about wolves that will likely be a surprise.
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This book is about a couple that lived with wolves. Living with wolves gives a lot of insight about human companionship. I truly love this book it spoke of the sawtooth pack and how they raise wolves in captivity and actually made a film about. I would recommend this book.
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By far one of my favorite books and very insightful into the lives of wolves.
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After watching the documentary, I loved reading about the Sawtooth pack. RIP!
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Review: Wolves At Our Door by Jim and Jamie Dutcher
This book like others helps shed light on the old fears and myths of wolves. The book was interesting and told about a six year (1910-1996) research project on wolves in the wilderness on a twenty-five acre observation camp in the Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho. I 19ve read a few books on researching wolves and I have to say this book wasn 19t entirely as I thought it would be because they were filming a documentary on the wolf 19s behaviors, eating habits and the how each wolf had their own status in the pack. However, it was done within the twenty-five acre enclosure. Jim and Jamie Dutcher did live within the enclosure too but their sleeping area was built eight feet above the ground and I believe only one wolf through the six years made it up to the sleeping quarters and not with aggressive behavior.
There was a good amount of information on different ranks a wolf holds in a pack. The Alpha is the highest rank which would be the male leader and sometimes the same pack would have a female Alpha and if so, it most likely would be the leader 19s mate. There is always a Beta in the pack which is a male wolf second in command to take the leaders place if something happens. He would use his status sometimes when the leader was not around but he also knew to be alert of the fact the leader may be near. Then at the lower ranking scale is the Omega, the lone wolf. This wolf knows his limit in the pack and takes very few chances of doing anything that would make him stick out in the pack. Most of the time he is last in eating, stays at the rear of the pack on hikes and he knows he can 19t just jump in with any playtime the wolves have unless a higher rank wolf goes to him first. Even when something goes wrong in the group and it 19s not his fault, he is still the one they attack. He is also bullied about everyday and never stands and fights, he cowers and lies on his back throughout the harassing.
Meanwhile, back to the research and how the project was progressing. Like I said I don 19t believe this project was humans living in the wilderness with wolves because they were all still in a secluded fenced in twenty-five acre compound. They started out with three baby wolves that they weaned by a bottle to make that human contact and trust. Whenever Jim or Jamie was on the camp grounds the wolves would run up to them, greet them and follow them everywhere. While the sat around the camp the wolves would venture over to them with some hesitation but curiosity seemed to get the best of them. They even lay down beside them but with little human contact. As the pack grew to eight they played with Jim and Jamie by stealing their cameras, small equipment whenever they set them down only for a moment. They did show some aggressive behavior by either growling or snapping at them baring their sharp teeth but only as a warning. They never hurt any person the six years they were together. The wolves at the camp never got the feel of hunting for their own food. Jim and Jamie either went hunting deer or they were offered road-kill deer for the wolves. For me that would not be living out in the wilderness with these wolves. I do believe there was to much human contact throughout this project.
After their six year funding was depleted they couldn 19t just moved them to the open wilderness because they had been in human captivity to long (even though they had twenty-five acres to roam), they would not survive. They assumed they found a great home for the wolves with the Native American, Nez Perce Indian Tribe in northern Idaho. However, after the move, being neglected, it didn 19t take long for the pack to start dying off 26There was more information about their care and short life with the tribe with only three who were saved and survived. The ending for some was a tragedy but the story does show how wolves are not aggressive predators as a lot of people believe. However, they need the wilderness, not humans to survive and multiply. They are beautiful animals. Why are they so hated by so many, soon to be gone 26..? -
Mám vztek. Nedošlo mi totiž, že to mé kouskované čtení způsobí, že se do příběhu nedokážu plně a dobře vžít. :(( Když jsem knihu četla poprvé, ke konci jsem byla bez sebe vztekem a zoufalstvím, cítila hroznou bezmoc a nespravedlnost. Šíleně jsem to jedním slovem prožívala. Dnes... jsem byla jen smutná. Očekávaná emocionální záplava se nedostavila. (Že se ale vůbec divím.)
Přesto všechno... kniha je úžasná. Popisuje vlky takové, jak se dočtu jen málokdy. Nejlépe, jak je vůbec v lidských silách. Žádné krvelačné stvůry ani mírní, psu podobní vlčci, ale vlci takoví, jací jsou. Byl to úžasný příběh o vlcích, které lidé vychovali a přesto je nezkrotili. Nechali je žít.
Upoutalo mě, jak rozdílný styl psaní mají Jim a Jamie (dva lidé, z jejíchž pohledu je př��běh psaný). Jim je takový praktičtější, jde spíše o popis a žene děj dále. Jamie na druhou stranu měa větší slovní zásobu a zdála se mi sečtělejší , její pohledy byly vždy barvitější. Jsou to vlastně dva různé pohledy na smečku. Nutno podotknout, že oba dva manželé smečtu "svých" vlků milovali.
Jsem si jistá, že někdy v budoucnosti si tuto kížku ještě jednou přečtu. Doufám, že si ji více užiju.. x)) -
Wolves at Our Door by Jim Dutcher is a fascinating book. It was not quite what I thought it would be due to the description, but it was still an incredible read. Jim and his companions studied the wolves as closely as possible, without ruining their wild nature too much. He wrote down everything that would be of interest to his readers; the hard obstacles they had to overcome, fellowship between companions, new life, death, how the wolves mourned for a death, how they raised their young, how hard it was living up in that forest, and how they had to raise the wolves as pups so the humans could be trusted, among other things. It amazes me how misunderstood these wonderful creatures are, and I feel like Jim knocked a chip off of the ice-burg, in realistic and truthful manner. Although some people may be more interested in books that explain people studying wolves in the wild, this book still deserves to be read.
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Skip the photographic _Sawtooth Wolves_ and head straight for this one. It has the whole narrative of what Jim Dutcher went through to set up the space for a pack of wolves to observe; how each wolf settled into its role; how Jim and Jamie met; the bureaucracy and hostility encountered before and after the project. (I was particularly amused by how the mandated environmental review of the enclosure concluded that the area _inside_ the enclosure had fared much better than the area outside.)
I actually did appreciate all the context, even finding the story of the human romance a touching addition. Most of all, though, here is where you get introduced to each of the wolves, and gain a sense of the bond developed. It was astounding to read how the alpha female allowed a human into her den to see the pups, when she wouldn't even let the other wolves in. -
OMG! I cried! I have idolised Jim and Jamie for many years, and have been lucky enough to meet them in person. This is a beautifully moving account of their time spent living with the Sawtooth Pack, and having heard Jim and Jamie speak, written in their exact words. It is easy to see how their relationship develops through their mutual love for the wolves, and how they appreciate each wolf for their individual attributes. Jim''s unbreakable bond with Kamots is beautiful, and Jamie''s unlikely friendship with Lakota moved me to tears. Although I wish the ending was different, I have thoroughly enjoyed this book in its entirety, and feel as though I have really come to know the Sawtooth pack as well as Jim and Jamie do. I would recommend this to anyone who loves Wolves, and anyone who doesn't, it might just change the way you think.
