| Title | : | The Wisdom of Wolves: Lessons From the Sawtooth Pack |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1426218869 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781426218866 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 224 |
| Publication | : | First published March 6, 2018 |
For six years Jim and Jamie Dutcher lived intimately with a pack of wolves, gaining their trust as no one has before. In this book the Dutchers reflect on the virtues they observed in wolf society and behavior. Each chapter exemplifies a principle, such as kindness, teamwork, playfulness, respect, curiosity, and compassion. Their heartfelt stories combine into a thought-provoking meditation on the values shared between the human and the animal world. Occasional photographs bring the wolves and their behaviors into absorbing focus.
The Wisdom of Wolves: Lessons From the Sawtooth Pack Reviews
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I have coffee table sized books and a documentary or two about The Sawtooth wolves that I have had for 20 years, well most of the stuff anyway. I remember I wanted to try to contact this couple when I was younger and beg to live with them and the wolves. Hindsight right? I also wanted to be a poacher hunter when I was a kid but I digress!
I was happy to know they put out this book, even though it’s the stuff I already know or read. Mostly I skip over a few things about those bastards I hate - Wolf killers, poachers, hunters period and all other forms of dicks. FYI: If you don’t know me and don’t understand me and my fight for wildlife, don’t be posting shit on my review. Drop me as a friend and piss off. I’m for all animals, Native Americans, the elderly and basically all the sweetness in the world. I can be a dick myself to assholes so just move on. In real life, everyone knows me as a loving, caring person. Just don’t cross me and the people and things I care about. RANT OFFICIALLY OVER! Enjoy the beautiful pics, the next being one of my favs of all time that most people know. Some don’t realize it’s Jim and wolf 😉🐺🐾
Mel 🖤🐶🐺🐾 -
Your reaction of this book will depend on what you are looking for. First, obviously you have to have an interest in wolves, which I do, and second if you are looking for a book about wolves in the wild, this one will not appeal. For me, it was exactly what I was looking for, a controlled environment that allowed the Dutchers a first hand look at wolf behavior. Each chapter is preceded by a photo, by books end all the wolves in their orbit were shown. Beautiful animals.
Not only did I get to see each wolf's picture but I also learned about their different personalities, their role in the pack. How they played, where they gave birth, how they mourned when a pack member died or was killed. These animals have many of the same emotions and traits thatwe have, empathy, sensitivity, playfulness, loyalty, grief, curiousity. The cooperation between wolves and Ravens, how they use each other to search out food. I felt like I really got to know these wolves personally and missed them already at books end.
The background of the Dutchers, the reintroduction of wolves at Yellowstone, wolves at Denali are also a part of this book. The fear people have, wanting to kill them when they step out of protected territory, and many are killed that way. There are so horrible statistics given terrible ways these wolves and their pups are killed. Heartbreaking, but as usual many are afraid of something they don't understand.
Anyway this was exactly the book I personally was looking for.
ARC from Edelweiss. -
This is not the book about wolves I wanted it be. It's the latest offering written by a couple who lived with a pack of wolves in mountains our hearts also call home here in Central Idaho in the early '90s. But this wolf pack they lived with was not a wild pack, and therein lies the rub for me.
Do I think it's important to foster factual knowledge of and reverence for wild wolves by nearly any means necessary? Yes, I do. But it hurt my heart to know these wolves never knew true freedom in their already short lives, and maybe that's the biggest truth this book once again solidified for me: There are so few places and ways where wolves can live their lives free from the literal and figurative trappings, needs, and misguided fancies of men.
That humans have so aptly decimated entire species of apex predators out of fear, ignorance, greed, and sheer cruelty—and continue to hunt them as if they were an actual threat when every single hunter/farmer/trapper/rogue poacher should know better by now—is an ongoing tragedy. It's a tangible tragedy here in Idaho, where the Department of Fish & Game still issues endless tags to "hunt" wolves, even as wolf populations are still in steady decline. (They literally issue more tags for wolves than there are wolves in existence. It's disgusting, irresponsible, and at some point we'll learn that ecosystems and humans can't survive without apex predators, but by that point it'll likely be too late for all of us.)
These wolves were bottle-fed and domesticated beyond recognition as a wild pack, and on top of that this book is one of the more poorly edited I've ever read, so while there will always be value in what wolves have to teach us, I definitely think there are much better (written and sourced) books about wolves.
[Two stars for introducing me to some truly sobering statistics about local wolves (and all the cowardly, inhumane ways humans seek to eradicate them), and for reminding me how many miles we have to go before we sleep.] -
This book was fantastic! Jim and Jamie Dutcher did some amazing research while living amongst their Sawtooth pack for six years, documenting their behaviours, pack mentality, emotions, and family bonds. They are such loving family oriented animals and I loved reading about them in this book. I'm glad I read this and I hope more will read it too. I listened to this on audible books, but I have also seen Jim Dutchers photography books and website that coincide with his work with the wolves and they are beautiful. This book is highly recommended.
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I had a difficult time deciding how to review this book. Parts of it were really good but I had a difficult time with the premise and that kept me from loving this book. In this review I will explain what I liked about the book and what problems I had and anyone who read the review can decide for themselves which side of the fence they fall on. Do the pros outweigh the cons? I’m still not sure. (Hence the middle of the road, 3-star rating)
This book provides a lot of insight into wolves— how they live their lives and relate to one another— and how much we humans have in common with them. There are lots of specific examples of how wolves exhibit curiousity, empathy, compassion and intelligence. These examples are not just from the Sawtooth Pack but also from other packs living in the wild in Yellowstone, Denali and elsewhere. The Dutchers share stories of other wolf packs that they learn from other researchers in these regions. I also learned lots of little interesting facts about wolves that I didn’t know before. For example, I did not know that wolves only live an average 10 years. There was some information regarding anti-wolf movements and behaviors. I wish they had spent a little more time on that, as I was appalled by how many wolves are killed by people and the general hatred they have towards wolves. However, I understand that wasn’t the purpose of the book. But rather it was to show people how similar humans and wolves are, how rich the life of a wolf is, and how much we can learn from them. I just wish they had found a different way to gather that information; if they had, I probably would have enjoyed this book much more.
In an effort to gain enough trust to get close enough to film the wolves, the Dutchers created a wolf pack which they could live near. They started by hand-raising a little of 3 pups, after which time they added another litter of 3 pups (which they also hand-raised). This was followed by another litter of 3 pups. With each addition of pups, they hand-raised them just long enough to gain their trust and then released them into a large fenced in area (about 25 acres) in the Sawtooth Mountains. And so their Pack was created. A fourth litter of 3 pups was born to the Sawtooth Pack. They did not treat the wolves as pets and, after the hand-raising period, only interacted with them when instigated by the wolves themselves. They did, however, provide food for them (road kill animals). One of my big issues is that it is never quite clear where these litters of pup came from. There is brief mention of a rescue center at the beginning of the book in reference to two adult wolves that they had hoped to include in the Pack, but they quickly learned that the adults would not be good for what they wanted because they could never fully earn their complete trust. That was when the Dutchers realized they needed to start with pups that they hand-raised. But where did these pups come from? They got 3 litters of pups over the course of a year or two. Were these pups orphaned or taken from their parents? It bothered me immensely that they might have been taken from their parents, especially since the Dutchers, time and again, wrote about how close wolf families are and how wolf packs are often several generations living together. They told us that wolves mourn the loss of pack members. If this is the case, how could they justify removing pups from their parents in order to study them? Another thing that bothered me was that they took the litter of pups born to the Sawtooth Pack and hand-raised them in order to gain their trust, as well. They removed these pups from two healthy and attentive parents for several weeks before returning them to their pack. In this book, they repeatedly wrote that pups learn from the other pack members. I’m not an animal biologist or researcher, but couldn’t these new pups learn to trust the Dutchers simply by watching their parents and fellow pack mates interacting with and trusting them? It didn’t seem like it would have been necessary to remove those pups and hand-raise them.
Additionally, the Sawtooth Pack was a captive pack. They didn’t have the same constant worry over predators that wild packs have. (With the exception of one incident, predators never bothered them in their enclosure.) They didn’t have to hunt for their food or worry about the scarcity of it. These things made me wonder just how much value was gained by this project (other than some wonderful pictures and video footage), because everything they observed among their pack, they reinforced by sharing stories and observations of wild packs exhibiting the same tendencies. I don’t doubt that the Dutchers loved and cared about the wolves in the Sawtooth Pack and that these wolves had a high quality of life. But, if other researchers could observe these things from wild packs, why then was there a need to create and observe a captive pack?
These are some of the thoughts, questions and concerns I had while reading this book. I loved the stories about the wolves and how they interacted with one another, but I loved the similar stories about the wild packs just as much. I loved learning about the social structure of packs and reading about just how much like humans they are (or perhaps we are like them?). There is much to learn from this book but I think I would have enjoyed it more had some of my concerns about the origin of the wolves been answered or if this had actually been a wild pack. -
There are good wolf books out there. This, however, is not one of them.
Quick, here's a fun exercise: Think of some cliches you could write about the wisdom of social pack creatures such as wolves. Now turn that list into a book that's roughly 200 pages longer than it needs to be. Voila! You've written this book—except you've probably done a better job, because it's hard—nearly impossible, really, given how terribly this is written and edited—to believe you could do worse.
[1 star because Goodreads does not yet offer a no-star option. This definitely got the hundred-page-rule treatment.] -
“Only by seeing wolves as they are, as neither demon or deity but as creatures worthy of our admiration will we find tolerance within our own human character.”
If you are familiar and a fan of wolves, there are no revelations here. But there are affirmations and beautiful stories about the true nature of wolves that I wish doubters would read. -
I enjoyed some of the book but it was written in chunks and was extremely repetitive in sections. I listened to it on Audible and I did not enjoy the male voice. The wolves were romanticized and the authors believed they knew what the wolves were thinking.
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Insightful and interesting look at wolves as they are- family oriented, playful, smart, compassionate and even empathetic. Words you don't normally hear associated with wolves, but you should.
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This book tells the story of filming a documentary about wolves in an artificial environment -- an enclosure built in the area of Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho. The goal was to create conditions which would allow to film the wolves in close proximity and at the same time will model their natural habitat as closely as possible so that during the years of the project couple the authors practically "lived with the wolves".
The premise is interesting but although the book is short it is a bit repetitive at times.
I thought it very strange that the authors have never mentioned what was the wolves reaction at the authors taking away their pups at a very young age to hand-raise them. I understand that they needed to do this to develop the trustful connection with the wolves in order to film them closely. But as much as the authors stress that wolves are family oriented and completely devoted to their pups, this lack of mentioning the pack's reaction to the pups disappearing for a couple of months after their birth seemed like a gaping hole in the story.
We are told in details how the pack grieved when one of the members was killed by a mountain lion, and their reaction to the affair of beloved pups vanishing into the thin air is apparently not worth mentioning.
Also, when the authors mentioned the "wonderful book" "Never Cry Wolf", they did not feel the need to point out that it is steeped in controversy: although it is written as a memoir of a scientist who painstakingly documented the actual behavior of arctic wolves, it has proved to be more a well-told fiction than a memoir based on actual events. -
This was...uneven for me.
First of all, I did not enjoy the narrator for Jim Dutcher's parts. Since that was at least half the book, it made it difficult to really get sucked in, though I like the narration for Jamie's parts a lot, and her bits just resonated more with me in general.
But besides the narration, I struggled with how this story is told. It does not go in chronological order, but instead moves back and forth in time, depending on who is doing the telling. At times it's repetitious, and at other times you get the sense that a lot has been left out. Even the story of how Jim and Jamie ended up together was awkward--it seemed like one minute Jamie was engaged to someone else and the next minute they were married to each other and I completely missed how that came to be.
I liked Jamie's musings on wolves especially, and I enjoyed/despaired at the stories they both tell of the Sawtooth pack. But I wish the stories had been told in order instead of jumping from when they're all adults to back when some of them were pups, and then back to adults again, and then back to pups. It felt really unfocused, I guess.
I would recommend this is if you want to know more about this specific wolf pack, but if you're looking for a really fantastic book about wolves, just skip this one and go straight for
American Wolf by Nate Blakeslee. -
This was a very emotional book. You could feel Jim and Jamie's love for these wolves and the lessons they focused on here were very worthwhile.
The photos that begin each chapter are quite lovely as well.
I did feel like this jumped a lot chronologically and there was a lot of re relating of the same events in virtually the same words through a few chapters, but that was minor- only a sentence or two.
Now I really want to find the photo book!
Check out my YouTube channel for bookish videos and monthly wrap ups! -
This book doesn't try to anthropomorphise these wolves which is actually something I was concerned about in the beginning.
Jim and Jaime are observers of the Sawtooth pack, and these are their stories (law & order bum bummm)
Both Jim and Jaime are so passionate and emotionally attached to these animals and it's beautiful. I was shocked to discover just how similar the emotional rage of wolves is compared to our own. I'm really bad at writing long and in depth reviews, but if you're a lover of wolves and are in a mood to learn something, definitely check this book out 😎 -
There had been a debate raging in the US starting in the 1970s about reintroducing wolves into Yellowstone and other national parks. Historically, wolves have been one of the most vilified animals on the planet, a dangerous even evil predator. How often, for example, are mass murderers called ‘lone wolves’? It was a universally accepted ‘fact’ that wolves needed to be completely eliminated. And, in the US they almost were. But after they were gone, elk herds expanded out of control. The debate was finally settled in the 1990s in favour of reintroduction although the decision was and continues to be vehemently opposed by ranchers and hunters.
Before the start of the program, Jim Dutcher was given permission to do a documentary about wolves in Yellowstone. To truly understand the animal, he felt he had to live in proximity with them. Wolf cubs were brought in from Canada and raised by Jim and his team until they were old enough to live on their own. To ensure the safety of the wolves, a fence was erected and Jim and his team provided food for them to keep the pack from wandering. Jim and Jamie Dutcher lived with the Sawtooth pack for six year, watching and recording their behaviour.
Over the years, they gained the trust of the pack and what they observed looked nothing like the vicious animal of legend. Instead what they saw were distinct individuals but who formed a familial bond, who displayed ‘kindness, teamwork, playfulness, respect, curiosity, and compassion’. In The Wisdom of Wolves: Lessons from the Sawtooth Pack, Jim and Jamie discuss these virtues.
I have no doubt that some would say that, in The Wisdom of Wolves, the Dutchers have anthropomorphized the wolves, attributing to them human characteristics and behaviour that aren’t really there or that, by keeping them in a safe place they changed the normal behaviour. But, throughout the book, the Dutchers give examples of similar behaviour from packs other observers have documented in the wild and from a distance.
The Dutchers provide a fascinating view of the behaviours of wolves that makes it clear that, not only are they similar to humans in many surprising ways but that we could learn a great deal from them. By the end, I felt I knew and cared very deeply for the fate of the pack. They also show how important wolves are to the ecosystem. For anyone who believes that nature is a system of interconnected species and that the loss of even one group has a domino effect on the rest or, for that matter, just wants to know more about this beautiful animal, I can’t recommend The Wisdom of Wolves highly enough.
Thanks to Edelweiss and National Geographic for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review -
Simply incredible.
Find this review and an interview with the authors at
Forever Lost in Literature!
For six years, Jim and Jamie Dutcher lived on the perimeter of Idaho's Sawtooth Wilderness with a pack of wolves known as the Sawtooth pack in order to observe the movements, behavior, and social lives of wolves. The couple gained the trust of the wolves and used their studies to share the beauty and significance of wolves amidst the prevalence of much rising anti-wolf sentiment and negative imagery often associated with wolves. In their book, The Wisdom of Wolves, Jim and Jamie share the many important lessons and values they learned from wolves while observing them in their daily lives.
I have a very special relationship the work of Jim and Jamie Dutcher and the Sawtooth pack, as I grew up with a mother and grandmother who both love wolves and supported their work. When I saw this book, I knew I had to read it, and I am so grateful that I had a chance to read and review a copy! I had such a wonderful time reading this book and it turned out to be one that I could not put down. The Dutchers are both incredibly eloquent with their thoughts and convey such striking, sincere emotion when discussing both the wolves themselves and lessons they have learned from the wolves.
Each chapter focuses on a different 'lesson' that we, as humans, can learn from wolves. Within each chapter the Dutchers include anecdotes about wolves from the Sawtooth packs, wolves from other locations, and even from individuals involved in wolf protection and research. I found each chapter so enlightening and meaningful, and I feel as though I learned more about life from this short book than I have in a long time. Many of the stories and bits of wisdom shared were heartwarming, some heartbreaking, but all inspiring. I may or may not have even found myself tearing up at more than a few of their stories.
Throughout the book, the Dutchers introduce their readers to the many distinct individual wolves that make up the Sawtooth pack, such as the alpha male Kamots, the alpha female Chemukh, the omega Lakota, and all the rest. My favorite part of this book was reading about how all of the wolves lived together, worked together, and how truly distinct each one's personality was. This book is also incredibly instructive in the different roles each pack members plays and how they all contribute to the whole.
Overall, there's simply no way that I could give this book anything less than five stars. You can also find out more about the work the Dutchers have done (and continue to do) at their website,
Living With Wolves. -
A Great Book that Makes the Most of a World that No Longer Holds a Place for Wolves
Wolves are beautiful, right? They represent freedom, and look great while howling on a T-shirt, right?
Of course they are, but unfortunately, we live in a world hostile to wolves. We get along with deer, and squirrels, and most of the time bigger herbivores like moose, but wolves and humans do not get along.
They roam only small sections of the United States. When they escape their enclosures, there is conflict.
Jim Dutcher and
Jamie Dutcher do their best to capture wolves’ lives, and have done it by making an artificial enclosure, and then living amongst their semi-wild wolves, as they live a semi-wild life.
This is not pure real life – the Dutchers are present with their wolves since they are pups, and bring their wolves food. These are not purely wild wolves.
But it is perhaps the closest we can come to real observation in this day and age, and for that, we should be grateful.
In short, we learn that wolves have interesting dynamics. There is an alpha male and female – and it is up for debate who really leads the pack of the two – and everyone else plays a part.
Interestingly – when a new alpha male takes over – he helps protect and raise the previous alpha male’s pups.
Wolves are interesting – they have grandparents and cousins, strangers and old friends. They communicate from great distances, and they spend a lot of time in play.
In short, thank you Jim and Jamie Dutcher – thank you for bringing us
The Wisdom of Wolves: Lessons from the Sawtooth Pack! -
The first thing I have to note is that I read this less than 2 weeks after saying goodbye to my dog Hiro, who I’d had for almost 12 years. The loss isn’t as close as it was last week, but it’s still fresh enough. I think this book would have been moving on its own, even without the context of my reading it. The special connection between humans and wolves/dogs has always deeply affected me.
Even with my prior knowledge that dogs evolved alongside humans, our shared social adaptations, the superhuman loyalty and reverence of a dog, I was still shocked at some of the stories from this book.
I had no idea wild wolves shared so many of the behaviors of human/canine companionship normally associated with dogs. Obviously, the authors spent almost 2 decades with wolves and earned their trust, and no mistake, these are dangerous wild animals. But even so, once the trust was there, these researchers were able to have intimate interactions that seemed too impossible and dangerous to happen anywhere outside a fantasy world.
And within the pack itself, the stories of grief, play, joy, altruism, and complex social and emotional interactions were amazing. Even with my prior knowledge of the emotional intelligence of dogs, I had no idea just how emotionally and socially complex these creatures are.
In the end, this book made me question whether humans deserve their self-proclaimed spot as the pinnacle of social and emotional intelligence. If we could cooperate and care for each other the way these wild animals do, instinctively and with affection and a sense of community, we might be able to pull out of this tailspin. -
I love learning about animals, regardless of the species. But how can you not love dogs' great-grandparents? The book is not written by biologists, behaviorists or scientists, but filmmakers documenting daily life at a wolf camp. You get to know the residents since they were pups, so it's not hard to love them. I can just say that I wish I had been there (yes, I'd even be willing to forgo indoor plumbing for the love of wolves) but, reading this, I feel like I was. Also, I kind of want to go hunting... for wolf hunters.
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This book was absolutely amazing. It was simply written, but that added to the charm of it. I had so much fun learning about the sawtooth pack, and am excited to read the other books and see the documentaries by the Dutchers. I've always been a wolf-lover, but this really opened my eyes to just how similar we are. Every member of the pack was essential to how it functioned, and I found myself mourning the death of beings I had never met. A wonderful read that will stay with me for a long time.
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I really enjoyed this book. It is clear a lot of care went into writing it. Personally, I really enjoyed the photographs before every chapter so readers can put a face to each of the wolf characters. I never realize just how much we have in common with these majestic creatures.
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Quotable:
We, as Earth’s dominate species, need to learn as much as we possibly can, in as many ways as possible, to comprehend our intricate interconnections with other animals and with nature as a whole, as unmatched and increasing threats engulf our world. The more we know about wolves, the more we know about ourselves, and the more we can pass on to our children. This is the definition of wisdom.
In such a hostile environment, what could have befallen a leader such as Kamots? He was always the one to investigate danger, and he would never have hesitated to put himself between a threat and his pack. It’s what great leaders do.
Over a hundred years ago Rudyard Kipling acknowledged this fundamental truth (wolves need each other just like humans need each other) in “The Law of the Jungle” from his classic collection of fables, The Jungle Book. <\i> He was writing about the wolves of India, but of course he was writing about us too:
Now this is the law of the jungle, as old and as true as the sky;
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk, the Law runneth forward and back;
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the pack.
When we marginalize the older generations, we lose the experience – their ledger of mistakes, successes, and lessons learned. We lose the map of the past that could help us navigate our future. If we don’t look to our elders, we ignore our history and shared experience, and we end up repeating the same mistakes over and over again. If we truly cherish the young and let our elders be our teachers, we can break the cycle of ignorance and grow together.
Wolves Purposefully avoid singing together in unison. Each wolf varies its pitch to achieve a perfect dissonance, perhaps to make the group sound more numerous. Whatever their reasons, the effect is beautiful. -
This book is largely an autobiographical account from the authors of their time spent filming a human habituated wolf pack for a documentary. They share a little about their own background, more about how that project came to be, and mostly about how it went on a daily basis with a focus on thier observations of how the wolves behaved and how that behavior has useful lessons to teach humans. This is not a scientific work and does not pretend to be.
I was a little disappointed at how disjointed the book seems: there's only occasional science cited, large portions of the text are about the humans' lives/experiences (I don't particularly care how you met your spouse), and commentary on conservation issues only pops up once or twice a chapter. Due to the way the book is organized - by lesson - the timeline seems to bounce around; one minute talking about the very beginning of the project and the next talking about the very end. Also, some of the stories that are supposed to convey the lesson seem more than a little abstract, and I get the impression that they're in this book because the author wanted to share them.
However, I also approached this book as it would be similar to William Stolzenburg's Heart of a Lion: A Lone Cat's Walk Across America or Nate Blakeslee's American Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the West, both of which tend toward more scientific rigor, education about the ecological importance or predators, and messages about conservation. The Wisdom of Wolves is a very reflective book that encourages the reader to be self reflective. That's not necessarily the kind of book that I enjoy or that I wanted to read, but it might well be the kind of book that serves to change minds and get people to think about nature and the place humans must reserve for it. -
4.2 Stars
“They are a tribe, a family, a fierce confederacy. They are also an assembly of individual personalities, private desires and goals and inner lives largely unknown. They are a wolf pack howling.”
I had watched the documentary of the Sawtooth pack almost a decade ago. I remember crying at the end as each wolf in the Sawtooth pack died from old age. I had only picked this up because I saw it was available on my library app without any holds, and had remembered this incredible movie I watched when I was younger.
Picking this up I knew I'd cry, and that I did, numerous times. Hearing about how similar these beautiful animals are to humans made my heart ache for them. Wolves are my favourite animal, and to hear about them in such a close, social level really made me realize how incredible they are.
In addition it made me realize why I went to college for Animal Care and why I'd rather work alongside them, because they're so much more understanding, and good natured compared to humans (sorry not sorry to my fellow human beings out there).
It angers me how callous people can be to hunt animals and not realize/care how much it effects others. Animals have emotions, this book tells of how animals suffer with loss of another, and how once an alpha/mate is killed, it shocks through the whole pack and can destroy years of what was built.
This is my only Non-Fiction of the year, and probably of the past decade. It really goes to show I should try picking some up so I can learn more about the world, while many turn a blind eye to it. I love what Jamie and Jim Dutcher did for wolves as a whole, and the story they shared on the Sawtooth pack. I hope their stories go on for generations to come, and teach people that wolves aren't far from us or our fellow canines we live with today. -
It took me awhile to appreciate the work of Jim and Jody Dutcher. I did not understand the value of a setting where humans and wolves lived in close proximity. It seemed that their observations would be contaminated. What was not clear to me was that in living close to the wolves, they came to understand the values, thinking, and emotions of the wolves. They learned that adult male wolves protected all young wolves, not just their own. He observed deliberate and difficult decision-making in the wolf community. They watched the patterns within the community and could predict behaviors of members based on their preferences, role, and community values. Comparison with other packs was achieved in their various projects and in their participation with other researchers.
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This is an absolutely beautiful book. It's the first I've ever read about wolves and I had no idea how remarkable they are. By many they are considered viscous killers but they only kill what they (and their pack) eat or to defend their territory, compared to humans who kill for sport. I'm crushed about how brutal hunters are to these magnificent animals. I have great admiration, and a bit of envy, of the relationship between the authors and the wolves. How amazing it must have been!
I have two complaints about the book...it can be a bit preachy and it's too short. I wanted more details of the individual wolves. -
Look, I LOVE wolves 🐺. So unless this book was somehow anti-wolf, there was no way that I wasn’t going to love it. But this book really focuses on a specific pack of wolves that two researchers have focused on for 30 years. And I loved hearing the stories about these wolves, their lives, how they grew in confidence and faced adversity, formed strong friendships, and went through compassion and collaboration, empathy and even grief. I know all of this sounds wild because I’m talking about wolves 🐺 but seriously this book is great!!!! Bc wolves are great! 🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺
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I followed up my Never Cry Wolf book with this more modern read. It's interesting how the authors mentioned Mowat's book a couple of times. The authors habituated some wild wolves in order to be able to watch and study them up close. Some great photos included and makes me want to watch some of their documentaries. The main problem with the book is the alternating chapters by the two authors which made it somewhat uneven and repetitive. 4 stars
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If you follow the story of the Sawtooth Pack, this is a must read. This novel helps close the epic journey of Jim and Jamie Dutcher and their years with the wolves of the famous Sawtooth pack. Their shared narrative of their experiences, joys, and tears will keep you turning the pages.
![Living with Wolves [With CD-ROM]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347219324i/7287.jpg)
