Return of the Gray Wolf
Photographs by Joel Sartore
Text by Douglas H. Chadwick
Three years into a controversial project to reestablish the predator in the lower 48 states, Canis lupus is well on its way to recovery. Not everyone is cheering.
For thousands of years the gray wolf was one of the most widely distributed mammals on Earth. By the early 1900s people had trapped, poisoned, and shot it almost to extinction in most parts of the United States. While a federal plan to reintroduce the wolf to some of its former U.S. habitats has proved hugely successful, controversy swirls on the ground and in the courts.
Sartore’s images give readers an intimate view of pack life while Chadwick explains modern man’s dilemma and the wolf’s place in the scheme of life.
NGM 1998/05