To date there are seven books about the reintroduction of the wolves to Yellowstone. There is one about the return of the Mexican wolves to the southwest.

 
• Hank Fischer, Wolf Wars: The Remarkable Inside Story of the Restoration of Wolves to Yellowstone. Falcon Press. Helena, MT, 1995.This is the well-written story of the politics and political events behind the reintroduction, by Hank Fischer, Montana field representative of Defenders of Wildlife. Few persons played as pivital role in the long period leading up the the release as Fischer.
• James C. Halfpenny and Diann Thompson, Discovering Yellowstone Wolves: Watcher's Guide. 1995. This is handy guide to the individual wolves plus information on how to track them by a pair of well-known naturalists. The 1995 information is now out of date, but an insert is planned for the near future.
• Gary Ferguson, The Yellowstone Wolves: The First Year. Falcon Press. Helena, MT, 1996. Ferguson, the author of eight books, and who lives in Red Lodge, Montana, produced a great read about the Yellowstone wolves' first year, ending in about February 1996. I read the book in one sitting.
• Jay Robert Elhard, Wolf Tourist: One Summer in the West, Utah State University Press, Logan, UT, 1996. Elhard, from Ohio, visited the Yellowstone reintroduction area in 1993 and met a large number of folks supporting wolf recovery as well as some of the leading opponents. His is the only book to report the views of anti-wolfers like T.R. Mader, and "wise use" attorney Karen Budd-Falen. He interviews the man who killed a natural wolf just south of Yellowstone Park in 1992 -- Jerry Kysar.
• The Yellowstone Wolf: A Guide and Sourcebook, ed. Paul Schullery, High Plains Publishing, Worland, WY, 1996. This edited volume is not a great read, but an important source of documents related to the extermination and restoration of the wolf in Yellowstone -- many of articles, bills, rules, and reports very hard to find. This would be a good text for a class on the reintroduction. Now I don't have to feel bad that I lost my copy of the Federal Register that contained the final rules for the wolf reintroduction.
• The Wolves of Yellowstone: The Inside Story. Michael K. Phillips, et al. Voyageur Press, Stillwater, MN, 1996. This book covers the same ground as both Ferguson's and McNamee's books. The biologists involved in the reintroduction to Yellowstone tell the story. It is not as literary as Ferguson or McNamee, but it is full of great color photos of many of the events described in books mentioned and in my wolf reports. I was surprised and pleased to find that photographs had been taken of so many of the critical events. Order from Amazon.com. Also read an interview with Mike Phillips.
• Thomas McNamee, The Return of the Wolf to Yellowstone; Henry Holt, 1997. McNamee is the author of seven books including The Grizzly Bear, a best-selling book about the grizzlies, especially the Yellowstone grizzlies. He was also the President of an organization dear to my heart, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. This masterful work covers the same ground a Ferguson's book, but coming later, it gives more recent information. The fate of the Idaho wolves gets some coverage in this book too. Both Ferguson and McNamee recount in detail the story of Chad McKittrick who shot wolf no. 10. I do not envy the place in history that is being written for him. McNamee reflects a great deal on the cultural, as well as the ecological meaning, of the return of the wolf to both the Western U.S. and to Italy.
• Rick Bass, The New Wolves: The Return of the Mexican Wolf to the American Southwest; the Lyons Press. 1998.The author of the famous book, the Ninemile Wolves, writes of the Mexican wolf reintroduction to the southwest. Here is a review in Grist Magazine.

 

 
 

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Ralph Maughan /rmaughan2@cableone.net