3 Among the Wolves (11 page)

The plane circled again. Although confident its occupants wouldn't shoot at us, we stayed motionless to avoid attracting attention to the wolves. They lay still as stone, their coats blending with the surroundings. After another low pass, the plane veered to the east and vanished. The four wolves cautiously rose, stepped into the sunlight, and tilted their heads to listen. Satisfied that the danger had passed, they made a beeline back to the den, in single file, with Alpha in the lead.

We quickly returned to our camp and found the entire family hidden inside the den and dugouts. Two hours later, Alpha and Denali emerged from their hiding places but remained nervous for the rest of the day. None of the wolves played games, lay in the sun, or climbed the ridges. Instead they stayed close to cover. A subdued Alpha climbed to a rocky ledge and sat alone for several hours, as if ready to protect his family. Mother remained in the den with her pups and didn't appear until the next morning.

Although our camp was concealed by ridges, we moved our blue-green tent under a large overhanging rock buttress to make sure no aerial hunters would see us. We also placed willow branches over the tent and latrine cover.

“I bet the rest of the family we saw last year was shot by aerial hunters,” Bill said sadly.

It seemed likely. At Eagle Plains we had noticed an airplane equipped with tires large enough to allow landings on the soft tundra. Two hunters equipped with guns had boarded the airplane. Bill asked the pilot what they were hunting. “Wolves,” the pilot replied. Did they shoot wolves from the air? The pilot had nodded defiantly as he ground his cigarette butt into the earth. “As many of the darned pests as we can find.”

“I hate having to stand by, not being able to do anything to stop it,” Bill said, his rage boiling to the surface. “Perhaps they were attacked more than once.” He shook his head in frustration.

I, too, felt angry and frustrated about what our wolf friends had already gone through, and what they might have to experience again. It seemed so unfair. What pleasure could anyone get from callously slaughtering innocent animals?

I watched Alpha stand guard. “At least the survivors have learned their lesson well, and they know to run at the first sound of a plane.”

We could only imagine the aerial chase it must have taken to kill half the family. Since the mountains and high ridges made it impossible to fly low over the den, we suspected that the wolves were attacked on the open tundra while on a hunt, and some hadn't been able to reach safety in time.

Charlie seemed to have picked up on our despondency. Depressed and unresponsive, he lay on my sleeping bag with his head on his paws. Did he sense the danger his wolf friends had faced? That night he showed no interest in dinner, and ate only when I sat with him and fed him from my hand. Not until the next afternoon did he return to his normal self.

Aerial hunting for wolves has been a controversial subject in the Yukon Territory and Alaska, as well as in the rest of the United States, for many years. Wolves caught on open ground have little chance against a small aircraft that can easily outmaneuver them. As a result, entire packs are often wiped out. In helicopters or in planes with wide tundra tires, hunters can land, gather the pelts, and return home to show off their “trophies.”

This hunting method has caused such public outrage that it has been frequently banned, but under pressure from hunters, officials have worked to undermine and eventually rescind such bans. Even when outlawed, aerial hunting has continued; in wide-open, sparsely populated areas such as the Yukon, lawbreakers are difficult to locate.

Historically, gray wolves ranged over the prairies, forests, and tundra of North America, Europe, and Asia. But as their prey species were eliminated by human hunters, and as human populations grew worldwide, the wolves' range became more confined and they were forced to exploit domestic sheep and cattle. This in turn made the wolves more despised by humans.

The last wolf in Europe was killed around 1950, but wolves everywhere have suffered persecution and elimination. Extermination practices have ranged from shooting to trapping and poisoning. Many other species, such as bear, lynx, and eagles, have also fallen to such poisoning. In some of America's lower forty-eight states wolves have been forced into extinction, while in other states the animals have survived only because they have been concealed by wilderness.

In 1907 an official order was issued to the U.S. Army authorizing the killing of all predator species in Yellowstone National Park's 2.2 million acres, including wolves, mountain lions, and coyotes. The army and the National Park Service proceeded to exterminate wolves in a relentless campaign that used barbaric methods such as strychnine poisoning and burning. They even used crying pups as bait to attract adult wolves, who were then shot as they attempted to rescue the pups. Elsewhere, Glacier National Park's native wolf population was exterminated by the late 1920s. In Alaska wolves are still being killed by aerial hunters.

The wolves of Canada's Yukon Territories have suffered a similar fate. In Canada, wolves are often killed in government-sanctioned programs, the reasoning being that reducing the wolf population will allow moose and caribou populations to increase, which will benefit hunters. But because of the vast areas of wilderness in many Canadian provinces, the wolf continues to survive. The wolf population nationwide may be in excess of 50,000, and in spite of many people's desire to exterminate all the wolves in the Yukon, government statistics estimate that 4,500 remained as of the year 2000.

Many remote areas, such as Siberia and the mountains of many Asian countries, contain thousands of wolves, thanks to the regions' inaccessibility to aerial hunters. In Mongolia, wolves exist in healthy numbers of around 11,000. Herdsmen there still use guard dogs to protect their livestock from wolf predators.

Pockets of wolves survive in low numbers in other countries. Several hundred live in Greece and Turkey, and perhaps as many as a thousand live in the mountains of Iran and India. It is thought that a sturdy population exists in northern China, but no survey has ever been conducted.

In our travels among native cultures, people have told us of their ancestors' reverence of the wolf as one of the most sacred animals. Wolves are honored in native legends and folklore for their bravery, their will to survive, and their hunting prowess. Some native cultures acknowledge a high degree of parallelism between wolves and humans.

When Bill and I trekked 1,450 miles across the Mongolian Gobi Desert in 2001, we discovered that while the nomads spoke of wolves with reverence, they also hunted them as a status symbol to prove personal bravery. Mongolians proudly told us that they were the sons of the blue wolf, who descended from heaven and took as his wife a fallow doe. They believed their great leader Genghis Khan was also descended from the blue
wolf. “If you see a wolf in January, you will have good luck for a whole year,” an elderly nomad told us. Another Mongolian told us the wolf tail is sacred, and drinking the warm blood of a wolf promotes good health.

Back at our camp, we talked about the day's events. “Now we know why the wolves look skyward,” I said. We had thought they were keeping an eye open for ravens and their dive-bombing assaults, but noticed that they often looked up even when birds were nowhere in sight. In fact, the pack had developed this habit to protect themselves from aerial hunters and had taught it to their offspring. It was evidence that wolves gather information from unnatural, life-threatening events and pass that knowledge on to ensure their pack's survival, indicating that they have an intelligence capable of adapting to survive.

After three days the family's behavior gradually returned to normal. On the fifth day they resumed their usual hunting routine. But from then on our ears, like those of the wolves, were always alert for the terrible sound of an approaching airplane.

O
NE MID-JUNE EVENING as they surveyed the distant tundra from their vantage point high on the den ridge, Omega and Denali spied six white Dall sheep a half mile away. Quickly joined by Beta and Alpha, they left for the hunt, led by Denali.

From where we waited above the junction, we watched the wolves with binoculars. They trotted toward us in single file on the well-worn trail through thin patches of spruce trees. In a grassy clearing, Beta stopped midstride, his body low to the ground, and crept toward a quarry that moved in the foot-high tundra grass. Suddenly he pounced to snatch a squealing lemming. In moments its struggles ceased. After tossing the tiny gray body into the air in an attempt at play, Beta caught it, crunched, and swallowed. Although we felt sorry for the lemming, we reminded ourselves that wolves observe nature's way. The wolves were always on the lookout for small snacks they might find on their way to a hunt.

The four wolves were in no hurry. The sheep, upwind, remained unaware and continued to graze placidly on grasses and sedges a few hundred yards away. The hunters continued along the trail, occasionally scent-marking a tree or a rock. Once Denali abruptly leaped a few feet to one side to examine some imagined movement, then he hurried back to lead his companions forward along the trail. Finally they arrived at the junction below our lookout spot on the ridge, and thoroughly scent-marked the old snag and the rock.

Meanwhile, two sheep lay down to rest. All four wolves crouched, heads up, ears forward, watching their prey. In a few minutes, Denali and the others fanned out, with bodies slung low, beginning their patient, deliberate approach.

Suddenly aware of the danger only a hundred feet away, the six sheep leaped to attention, legs braced, facing the wolves. One stamped its foot in defiance. Then, as one, they bolted for a ridge to the east. The four wolves raced after the sheep. The hunters and the hunted dashed across the rocks, surefooted and magnificent. As the sheep crested the first low ridge, one stopped to face the pursuers, but in a moment he fled with the others, who suddenly swerved toward us.

The wolves split up. Denali and Omega swung through a shortcut to head off the sheep. The other two ran behind to herd them forward. The sheep dashed along a faint trail, desperate to escape, their white bodies propelled on agile limbs that took no notice of the steep slope.

Just as all six reached the crest, Denali and Omega burst across the ridge, heads thrust forward, legs pumping, only a few yards behind the sheep. Then Denali abruptly stopped. Omega, still at full speed, crashed into his shoulder. Alpha and Beta raced up the slope, stopping when they encountered Denali and Omega standing motionless.

The sheep swept past a hundred feet from us and bounded in long leaps down the back side of the ridge, then up the next. They paused a moment to look back at the wolves, who now trotted with apparent indifference to the hunt. The sheep moved away, no longer fleeing the wolves, who had turned from predators into mere observers. It was as if a signal had passed between the two species that the hunt was off.

The sheep and wolves disappeared over another ridge. A half hour later the four ambled back, stopping now and then to scent-mark. They lay down a hundred feet away on the ridge
where we waited, looking in the direction the sheep had disappeared but showing no desire to resume the chase.

As the unexpected turn of events swirled about us, we could only stare, incredulous, and anticipate the wolves' next move. After some time, when it was clear that the wolves had changed their minds—at least as far as these six sheep were concerned—and no further action would be forthcoming, we took out snacks.

Twelve opportunistic ravens who had flown from tree to tree ahead of the wolves, expecting to share in the hunt leftovers, now perched on the surrounding rocks, voicing their disappointment in cacophonous tones. A furious Charlie chased one impudent bird after it brazenly brushed his head. He lunged at the raven, but with a rasping cry it triumphantly hopped onto a ledge, barely out of reach, and cawed. Charlie shot it a murderous look, then walked to our side and sat down with his back to the bird.

All twenty-four raven eyes were now fixed on our food. Their rasping caws rose to a deafening level. Hoping to quiet them, we tossed a few crackers on the ground. The volume lowered. One individual, chatting nonstop short caws as if in deep conversation with me, hopped to within a foot of my outstretched hand. I traded two crackers for bird gossip.

Charlie, an exhilarated spectator of the hunt, had kept up a barrage of barks while the chase continued, but he calmed as soon as it ended. Although Bill and I were confused by what we had seen, Charlie seemed unperturbed, appearing to understand all. When the wolves returned, he took no further interest in the sheep.

Surprised that what had appeared to be an eminently successful hunt had been abruptly called off, we concluded that there must have been some sort of communication between the sheep and the wolves. Wolves often test their prey and usually attack only if they see a weakness. Given the ready supply of
prey here, these wolves apparently weren't willing to waste their energy on animals that showed so much speed and strength. For their part, the sheep wouldn't have stopped to look back unless they were sure the wolves had given up the chase.