By 1926, U.S. government agents had trapped, poisoned, or shot every wolf in and around Yellowstone National Park. In January of 1995, after a generation of struggle between the wolf's friends and foes, the wolf was returned to Yellowstone. The wolf's return has brought far-reaching changes to the cultures of the modern West and the meaning of conservation. Thomas McNamee, former president of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, chronicles the drama of the environmental story of the decade.
I was born in 1947 in Memphis, Tennessee, and grew up there and in New York City. I studied writing at Yale under the tutelage of Robert Penn Warren. I graduated in 1969.
I am the author of The Grizzly Bear (Knopf, 1984), Nature First: Keeping Our Wild Places and Wild Creatures Wild (Roberts Rinehart, 1987), A Story of Deep Delight (Viking, 1990), and The Return of the Wolf to Yellowstone (Henry Holt, 1997). My latest book, Alice Waters and Chez Panisse: The Romantic, Impractical, Often Eccentric, Ultimately Brilliant Making of a Food Revolution will be published in March 2007 by The Penguin Press.
My essays, poems, and natural history writing have been published in Audubon, The New Yorker, Life, Natural History, High Country News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Saveur, and a number of literary journals. I wrote the documentary film Alexander Calder, which was broadcast on the PBS 'American Masters' series in June 1998 and received both a George W. Peabody Award and an Emmy. Many of my book reviews have appeared The New York Times Book Review.
I have served as a member of the board of directors and as president of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and as a trustee of Rare Conservation. I now serve on the board of the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture, which operates the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market in San Francisco.
I live in San Francisco.
