Medicine of the Wolf Page #3

it was a different story.

And I'm still doing the same thing.

I'm still a hunter.

I'm... I'm still tricking

animals, sneaking up on them.

Jim had met Will Steger in the 80's,

and the two embarked on a well-known

expedition to the north pole.

Jim had heard about the white

wolf not being afraid of man,

and became fascinated with an idea

of a similar mission to the arctic.

And the unique opportunity to document,

and live with wolves in the wild.

Less than 500 Miles from the north pole

lies Canada's most distant frontier,

Ellesmere island.

Only someone with a passion for wolves

would dream of tracking them

into this desolate land.

One such person is

photographer Jim Brandenburg.

Wolves have always

been a favorite animal of mine,

and I suppose one of the reasons

they're my favorite animal

is because they're so intelligent.

That intelligence makes it, uh...

nearly impossible to film them

in a more conventional place,

say in the forested areas.

And for some reason these arctic wolves

have... have got a quality about them

where they tolerated us very well,

and it became clear

that it would make a wonderful story.

In 1986, Jim's white wolf premiered

at the Sundance film festival and

won numerous prestigious awards.

White wolf also became

a best-selling book,

and was the cover story

for the national geographic magazine.

When I was involved in that,

I felt this is the

highlight of my career,

I will never equal it,

except one thing maybe.

If a bunch of aliens had

popped down on my property

and said, "Jim, come with us

on our spaceship,

we're gonna go off to another planet."

I'm... I'm kidding.

It sounds funny,

this is my... this is a

true conception I thought,

when I was in the middle of

the white wolf experience,

I thought, I will never equal this,

and I was right.

I've never equaled it since.

Our tent, in research,

was within a five-minute walk

of the den.

Lived right with them, as a family.

We had problems with the white wolves

coming stealing

our stuff out of the tent.

So, it's very different than here,

the wolves up there were

kind of blase about humans.

To see a wolf here, back

in those days, was rare.

I know people in Ely that

spent a lifetime here

and never saw a wild wolf.

At times, it pays to speak wolf.

The Alpha male, the leader of the pack,

the father of the pups, the boss

injured his paw for about three weeks.

He was injured, couldn't really hunt.

The rest of the pack took care of him.

Saw it, I mean it was clear.

They had babysitters,

scruffy, we called him.

The pack would go off hunting.

Scruffy around the pack

would be very submissive,

and wolves are like humans. And

they beat up one another other,

you see a weak one, that, uh, was the...

the... in every class of 30 kids,

there's always one kid

that everybody picks on.

Not everybody, but, they get picked on.

Wolf pack's the same way.

This scruffy animal we called scruffy,

the rest of the wolves

beat him up all the time.

Constantly were picking

on him, and chewing on him,

well when the rest

of the pack went off hunting,

scruffy was the designated babysitter.

Scruffy did that to the pups.

Scruffy was the big boss and it was very

subtle complex behavior with wolves.

I saw stuff that mimicked

a lot of human behavior.

Aunts and uncles, and children,

and brothers, and sisters

taking care of the pack.

Not just casually,

but very tight family unit.

The very last day, as we packed up,

the den was about seven Miles

away from the landing strip,

a little... it was a very small

remote landing strip, and...

we got in the airplane,

packed the stuff up,

the lump in my throat was as

big as the airplane itself.

I looked out the window, and there was

the family of wolves sitting there,

like they were saying goodbye.

Next to the landing

strip as we taxied off

and took off.

And I think of that as a story

that someone would make up,

but on my mother's grave

it's a true story.

I haven't been back since.

In the words of author Barry Lopez,

"and to approach them slowly in terms

of the Western imagination

is really to deny the animal."

"It behooves us to visit with the people

whom we share a planet,

and an interest in wolves,

but who themselves come

from a different time space,

and who, so far as we know,

are very much closer to the wolf

than we will ever be."

James Taylor called one day,

the singer, wanted me to help

him with an album cover.

He wanted a wolf on the album

cover, and that surprised me.

His album, "never die young."

I didn't think he knew

much about wolves,

but he knew a lot about wolves.

Came up here and saw wolves.

I asked him if he'd do a benefit

concert for wolves, and he said yes.

We did two of them.

One in Minneapolis,

one in Madison, Wisconsin.

Raised some nice money,

some of that money went to

the defenders of wildlife,

defenders of wildlife leveraged

that up into a... a program

to give the ratchers over

on Yellowstone an excuse

to allow the reintroduction

of wolves into Yellowstone

by paying for the cows that the wolves

killed off the park properties.

So in a tiny, small way,

James Taylor and I

had a fairly significant role

in opening up that dam to let the

wolf be reintroduced to Yellowstone.

We didn't know if the wolf would

survive in Yellowstone, particularly.

They thrived.

When the wolf returned to Yellowstone,

after an absence of over 65 years,

scientists discovered

an ecological phenomenon

called the trophic cascade.

"Trophic" refers to the

different levels of the food chain,

plant being one, insects the next,

all the way up the ladder.

And the wolf had a cascading effect.

The elk and deer grew stronger,

the aspens and willows flourished,

even the grass grew taller.

And the most fascinating, was

that the rivers were covered,

along with its many inhabitants.

Despite being small in numbers,

this top predator would not

only transform the ecosystem,

but also, its physical geography.

A magical story of ecology and a

missing piece being put back in.

Sometimes I say once you break

something in the environment

you can't fix it.

That's magical.

I'm very proud of that.

And every time you listen

to a James Taylor song,

think of that and thank him.

Good shot.

That's the end of her.

Then, in 2011, something shifted.

Despite a sea-change of attitude

about this iconic species,

president Obama signed off

on de-listing the wolf.

The same year,

state legislatures in the west

pushed through a wolf

hunting and trapping bill

that would put the collared wolves

in Yellowstone in jeopardy.

Soon, gunshots were

reported around the globe,

and millions mourn the death

of the most famous wolf in the world.

Researchers knew her

as the Alpha female 832f,

but to many, she was known as 06.

And this is where wolves are revealing

in, in our... in humans,

what might be a great failing.

And, and... the concern

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes