Page 86 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #02

REVIEWS O BOOKS

O TV
O RADIO
O DIGITAL
O MOVIES

The grey wolf
Nick Garbutt/naturepl.com in Yellowstone
reintroduction
National Park,
US, is a modern
conservation
success story.

YELLOWSTONE’S
WONDER WOLF

How the death of a canine shook the world.
BOOK
The Wolf OF THE
By Nate Blakeslee MONTH
One World £20 Beyond Spring Birdmania
By Matthew Oates By Bernd Brunner
Fair Acre Press £10.99 Greystone Books £24.99
On a snow-clad December day in 2012 a
O
hunter in Wyoming, US, shot the most
h Following ecologist Matthew This handsome book is as much
f famous wolf in the world. O-Six was the star Oates on his ‘wanderings about humans as it is about
o
of the Yellowstone National Park wolf through nature’, from the stirring birds. A fascinating window on
r
recovery project. Thousands of park visitors of spring to the fullness of the subject rather than a
h
had watched her catching elk. So celebrated summer, is like going for a walk comprehensive history, it
w r with a favourite uncle. He takes features a large and very varied
was she that The New Yorker gave her an
This
w
obituary. This wonderful book is about the human lives she us to his most cherished places bunch of characters linked by
obituary
touched and the controversies that led to her death. (Cumbria, and the Cotswolds, their avian obsessions. They
We meet committed rangers like Rick McIntyre who has amongst many others) and shows include Richard Meinertzhagen,
notched up 85,000 wolf sightings; and Doug Smith, who us the seasonal treasures that notorious for perpetrating the
leads the Yellowstone wolf studies. And we also meet the he’s found there, including his greatest ornithological frauds of
ranchers and hunters who see the reintroduced wolves as a beloved purple emperor all time, conservationist George
deadly threat to their livelihoods and to their elk herds. butterflies. Although written with Archibald, who imitated the
Best of all, writer Nate Blakeslee takes the trouble to a naturalist’s knowledge, Beyond endangered whooping crane’s
g
befriend the man who fired that fatal shot so that he can Spring is suffused with poetic mating dance to persuade a
tell his own side of the story. This is a must-read for charm. It’s a book to get you female to lay, and a whole
anyone interested in the passions that wolves arouse. through the darker months. flock of pigeon breeders.
Stephen Mills Wildlife writer Pete Dommett Nature writer Jonathan Elphick Ornithologist
86 BBC Wildlife February 2018