My Journey Through Forty Years of Wolf Recovery
Starred review from July 15, 2024
Wildlife biologist Boyd debuts with a swashbuckling memoir recounting episodes from a career spent studying and protecting wolves. She recalls falling in love with the animals after working with them at a wildlife sanctuary while attending college in Minnesota in the 1970s. For several decades after graduation, Boyd worked with the University of Montana’s Wolf Ecology Project to restore the wolf population in Glacier National Park, which involved trapping the predators, outfitting them with radio collars, and tracking the packs by searching for collar signals while flying over the park. There are moments of levity, as when she describes trying to subdue three rambunctious pups who wriggled free of their restraints in the backseat of her truck. However, it’s the tales of adventure and derring-do that will keep readers turning pages, such as when she details scrambling up a tree to free a black bear cub, whose leg was clamped in a trap that had gotten stuck in the branches, before the cub’s mother returned. Elsewhere, Boyd describes a pulse-pounding race against time to save a wolf hobbled by a hunter’s trap, a rescue mission that involved a daring attempt to land a ski-plane in the middle of a hunting camp and, when that failed, a swift pursuit of the injured creature by snowmobile. Nature lovers will be riveted. Photos.