Of Wolves and Men

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He traveled extensively in remote regions of the world, and his work has been widely translated and anthologized. If you only see the wolf as an obstacle to the American Dream, to Manifest Destiny, then it’s going to be perfectly natural to destroy it—and since it is a foe to be beaten, not even a worthy enemy, it deserves no honor in death. In Alaska, where perhaps the biggest wolves are found, a wolf that weighs more than 120 pounds is uncommon. Thanks to the book I understood a little more about my own dog, but the author warns against extrapolating wolf behaviour onto their domesticated brethren.

What happens when a wolf wanders into a flock of sheep and kills twenty or thirty of them in apparent compulsion is perhaps not so much slaughter as a failure on the part of the sheep to communicate anything at all—resistance, mutual respect, appropriateness—to the wolf.Above, he sees a hawk circling, and farther south, lower on the horizon, a flock of sharp-tailed sparrows going east. In recent years the wolf has been studied enough by biologists to produce this picture, but his numbers have dwindled and his range has shrunk, and as is the case with so many things, deep appreciation and a sense of loss have arrived simultaneously. Even prior to widespread human persecution, wolves disappeared from certain portions of their ranges for years at a time. The social bond between them is so obvious that in 1576, in an age when people believed the worst of wolves, a sportsman wrote in a book on hunting: “If the pups chance to meet their sire or dam anytime after they leave the pack they will fawn upon them and seem in their kind greatly to rejoice. He is of the subspecies occidentalis, and the trees he is moving among are spruce and subalpine fir on the eastern slope of the Rockies in northern Canada.

Being a concrete representation of an object or sensory experience (myLearning), imagery permits the reader to visualize what the narrator is experiencing. With irresistible charm and elegance, Of Wolves and Men celebrates scientific fieldwork, dispels folklore that has enabled the Western mind to demonize wolves, explains myths, and honors indigenous traditions, allowing us to further understand how this incredible animal has come to live so strongly in the human heart. Their eyes hint remorse, as marriages are scorned (she never lets me do anything fun), youth is remembered (why didn’t I go to California that summer? For many Native Americans the wolf is also a spiritual symbol, a respected animal that can make both the individual and the community stronger.

In the next few paragraphs, Lopez follows this ecological dynamic into the realm of play, and relates stories of how ravens and wolves have been observed to tease one another and engage in games of tag, for fun (67–68). However, as Lopez ends Chapter 7, a theme that continues through the statistics and descriptions of poisoning and destruction, he is sympathetic with those he has interviewed for this book, those who have no apologies for trapping and destroying the wolves. It was not, astonishingly, until the early 1940s that anyone took a serious, scientific look at wolves, and in some parts of Eurasia (where they are still regarded as beasts of blood and darkness) specific information on their numbers, locations, and habits is lacking even now. He has traveled extensively in remote regions of the world, and his work has been widely translated and anthologized.

All of these strengths could be used in my own writing to improve the justification of what I am writing about and make my work have a smooth flow. Then, “meat drunk,” they may lay out in the sun until digestion is completed (in two or three hours), and then start again.

With irresistible charm and elegance, Of Wolves and Men celebrates careful scientific fieldwork, dispels folklore that has enabled the Western mind to demonize wolves, explains myths, and honors indigenous traditions, allowing us to understand how this remarkable animal has become so prominent for so long in the human heart. The Chukchi Eskimo of northeastern Siberia routinely told any wolf they killed that they were Russians, not Eskimos. When they come together they make high squeaking noises and encircle each other, rubbing and pushing, poking their noses into each other's neck fur, backing away to stretch, chasing each other for a few steps, then standing quietly together, one putting a head over the other's back.