In many ways the opponents of wolves seem so much like the wolves themselves that it is wildly ironic: though their numbers are small, they seem to retain a core fierceness that cannot be ignored-nor would you want to, for fear is one of the most primal emotions of any place. It's never going to go entirely away-not in a wild, healthy ecosystem.' -from 'The Feds' by Rick Bass After roaming the desert Southwest for thousands of years, the Mexican gray wolf was, almost in the blink of an eye, driven to the brink of extinction. El Lobo collects writings that explore how this subspecies of wolf was brought so close to the edge of annihilation. The first section, 'To the Brink,' includes essays that describe wolf biology, the campaign to exterminate wolves from the Southwest, and the wolf's role in Native American cultures and in Mexican folklore. The second section, 'And Back,' illustrates a turnaround in attitudes and policy and includes Aldo Leopold's famous essay 'Thinking Like a Mountain,' Rick Bass's astute analysis of the political divide, and Sharman Apt Russell's carefully woven plea in which she shares her experience with Pueblo Indian children meeting a wolf in their school auditorium. These essays, from both sides of the contested issue, resonate with passion, conviction, and the desire to save a world that is mightily at risk.
Tom Lynch is assistant professor of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. He has published widely on subjects ranging from ecocriticism to Australian nature writing.
Introduction: Rewilding the West | Tom Lynch To the Brink Wolf and Mountain Hunt Together | Grenville Goodwin shee'e | Amadeo M. Rea Great Beast God of the East | James C. Burbank Will Big Trotter Reclaim His Place? | Steve Pavlik The Long and Dismal Howl | The Long and Dismal Howl Wolf. Canis lupus | A. Starker Leopold Timber Wolf. (Canis lupus) | Ben Tinker Wolf Boy | Estela Portillo Trambley Wolf Cunning | G.W. "Dub" Evans Thinking Like a Mountain | Aldo Leopold And Back The Mexican Wolf (Canis lupus bailey) | Roy T. McBride Mexican Wolf Recovery Plan (excerpts) | Norma Ames Reintroducing the Missing Parts | Dale D. Goble A Tale of Two Wolves | David E. Brown The Physics of Beauty | Sharman Apt Russell The Feds | Rick Bass El Lobo's Homecoming | Joan Moody Road Trip with Mexican Wolves | Jane Susan MacCarter Caught Twixt Beasts and Bureaucrats | J. Zane Walley Strip Mall Lobos | Alexander Parsons The Wasting of Catron County | J. Zane Walley Living with Wolves | Johnny D. Boggs Signs of the Wild | Dashka Slater Caught between the Pack and the Hard Case | Laura Schnegerger Welcoming Home an Old Friend | Peter Friederici Mexican Wolf Fate Teeters between Science and Politics | Michael J. Robinson The Mexican Wolf | Tom Dollar Mexican Wolf Guardian Reports | Jon Trapp Coda Will the Wolf Survive? | David Hidalgo and Louie PErez (Los Lobos) Acknowledgments Contributors About the Editor
"While this book will certainly be of great interest to scholars of the American West and to those who study wolves, it should appeal equally to the general reader interested in wolves and other wildlife, land-use issues, and current issues of the Southwest."--Karla Armbruster, Webster University "By the end of the book, a reader who started not knowing much about wolves in general or wolf reintroduction programs is educated scientifically, historically, and emotionally." --Western American Literature
