Sublime

After Rick finished A Society of Wolves, he traveled to western Colorado and spent two days in the land that had been home to one of the last wolves known to have lived in the state. Gazing out over the juniper and sage, he was moved to perform a ceremony of sorts in memory of the wolf, who was known as Rags the Digger. He played a song written by

Defenders of Wildlife,

The last wolves believed to have been born in Yellowstone—a pair of pups discovered near Soda Butte Creek, about fifteen miles east of where Rick was now standing—were shot in 1926. They were killed not by poachers, but by park rangers. Almost from the time the park was created, in 1872, early superintendents had pursued a rigorous predator-control

One CANIS LUPUS LINNAEUS

The one constant was 21 and 42. Rick never tired of watching the alpha pair, especially 21, who was unlike any wolf he had ever seen. Even before 21 left his natal pack, Rick had known he was unusual. One morning in the spring of 1997, two years after Doug Smith and Carter Niemeyer rescued 21 following the death of his father, Rick watched the hand

John Muir famously wrote, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe,”