The Rise of Wolf 8: Witnessing the Triumph of Yellowstone's Underdog

The Rise of Wolf 8: Witnessing the Triumph of Yellowstone's Underdog
By Rick McIntyre
Greystone Books, 2019. 304 pages. Nonfiction

In the 1920s, park rangers in Yellowstone killed the last of the wild wolves that roamed the park, and in the following decades the ecosystem changed without this important apex predator.  After they were reintroduced to the park in the mid-1990s, Rick McIntyre, an employee of the park, spent years carefully observing and documenting their behavior.  In this book he tells the story of Wolf 8: born smaller than the other pups in his litter, he was bullied by his brothers in his youth.  But in early adulthood, he meets an alpha female whose mate was shot and builds a bond with her that allows him to become her new adopted mate.  He must navigate raising his adoptive pups, hunting skillfully, defending his new pack, and fathering his own pups.  This is his story, and the stories of his offspring and their neighboring packs.

I became interested in Rick McIntyre after reading the fantastic American Wolf by Nate Blakeslee.  McIntyre has devoted most of his life to studying the behavior of wolves in Yellowstone, and has now written several books that describe much of his findings.  This book in particular details much of the early behavior of the wolves after they were reintroduced to Yellowstone in the 1990s, not just Wolf 8 but his descendants and their interactions and tensions with neighboring packs.  McIntyre's writing sometimes gets a bit bogged down in detailed descriptions of sequential behavior of the wolves, but his overall observations, conclusions, and epiphanies about their behavior are truly fascinating to read.  Recommended for anyone interested in National Parks, wildlife, and wolves in particular.

American Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the West
By Nate Blakeslee
Crown Publishers, 2017. 300 pgs. Nonfiction


Wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone in 1995 and since then, park rangers and conservationists have been watching and tracking individual wolves and wolf packs throughout the Rockies.  Using this data so meticulously collected, Blakeslee has written the dramatic story of O-Six, a large, clever alpha female who reigned the Lamar Valley.  But the story of this beloved wolf cannot be told without also introducing wolf watcher Laurie Lyman and park wildlife expert Rick McIntyre who together helped to build O-Six's the celebrity and use her life to argue the case for keeping wolves on the endangered species list and safe from hunters determined to keep their numbers low.

Down From the Mountain: The Life and Death of a Grizzly Bear
By Bryce Andrews
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019. 256 pages. Nonfiction

The grizzly is one of North America’s few remaining large predators. Their range is diminished, but they’re spreading across the West again. Descending into valleys where once they were king, bears find the landscape they’d known for eons utterly changed by the new most dominant animal: humans.

 

 

BHG