The New Wolves

The New Wolves is Rick Bass's passionate and eloquent account of the current reintroduction of the Mexican wolf to the American Southwest. Lobos, or Mexican wolves, once roamed freely throughout Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, until they were hunted to extinction when big cattle interests came to the Southwest, changing the land forever. Now, a Mexican wolf reintroduction--similar to the Yellowstone efforts for its cousin the gray wolf--is fully under way in the Blue Mountains of Arizona. Eleven wolves--all captive-bred, descendants from the last wild Mexican wolves captured over twenty years ago--were released among the mesas. Now they roam in separate packs; they hunt, play, mate, and, it is hoped, will give birth to the first wild-born pups in decades. But it will not be, and has not been, easy; nothing so tenuous and delicate as the existence of a wild wolf in today's world could ever be. With the literary talent and naturalist's sensibility he brought to his highly praised account of a family of wolves in Montana, The Ninemile Wolves, Rick Bass examines the circumstances of the Mexican wolves' arrival: the exhausted, the overgrazed soil of the land, the behavior and requirements of wolves, and the concerns of ranchers, biologists, and environmentalists. He chronicles these new wolves' first few months of freedom: their triumphant desire to survive as well as the unfortunate and sometimes deadly confrontations with the unexpected. The New Wolves brings to life a place--its people and its wildlife, its past and its future. Bass articulates the land's need for wolves to maintain balance, while masterfully depicting the modern conflict between nature and our need to control it. Part mediation, part probing journalism, The New Wolves is an important new chapter in the drama of wolves and the American West -- Book jacket.