Shadow Mountain: A Memoir of Wolves, a Woman, and the Wild [Paperback]

Renee Askins (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 6, 2004

After forming an intense bond with Natasha, a wolf cub she raised as part of her undergraduate research, Renée Askins was inspired to found the Wolf Fund. As head of this grassroots organization, she made it her goal to restore wolves to Yellowstone National Park, where they had been eradicated by man over seventy years before. Here, Askins recounts her courageous fifteen-year campaign, wrangling along the way with Western ranchers and their political allies in Washington, enduring death threats, and surviving the anguish of illegal wolf slayings to ensure that her dream of restoring Yellowstone’s ecological balance would one day be realized. Told in powerful, first-person narrative, Shadow Mountain is the awe-inspiring story of her mission and her impassioned meditation on our connection to the wild.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

In the 1990s, Yellowstone National Park still had every plant and animal species that was present when European settlers first reached North America except for one--the wolf. And that one was a keystone species, a predator whose absence had a significant effect on the workings of the ecosystem. As an undergraduate student, Askins worked at Indiana's Wolf Park on a study of captive wolves and fell in love with an orphaned wolf pup. The plight of this little wolf inspired her to form the Wolf Fund, an organization whose only goal was to return the wolf to Yellowstone. The story of how this goal was finally reached, despite the enmity of ranchers, death threats, illegal killing of the newly released wolves, and the political machinations of western (and some eastern) politicians, is interwoven with meditations on the meaning of wilderness and our connection with nature. Working in the story of her life, the author provides a personal touch that draws the reader in. This celebration of wolves will be popular in all collections. Nancy Bent
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

“The wolves of North America have their Jane Goodall, and her name is Renée Askins…. An eloquent plea for nature unrestrained.” —Outside Magazine

“Delightful…fun to read. The seamless way Askins weaves the natural world into her narrative brings to mind Terry Tempest Williams’s memoir Refuge.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Demonstrates the kind of deep natural wisdom and sense of awe at the wild that has distinguished writers like Edwin Muir, Annie Dillard, and Aldo Leopold….Wonderfully poignant.”—BookPage

“Renée Askins is a modern-day hero, a woman of tremendous courage and creativity. . . . Never have we needed these words more. This book is a quiet revolution.” –Terry Tempest Williams, author of Refuge and Leap

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Anchor (January 6, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385482264
• ISBN-13: 978-0385482264
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #206,960 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Memoir of Working For Wolves, August 6, 2002

By 

R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Shadow Mountain: A Memoir of Wolves, a Woman, and the Wild (Hardcover)

Wolves were eliminated from Yellowstone National Park by 1926. They were the only creatures banished from the preserve, because humans unrealistically feared them and the cattle damage they might do. As Americans became aware of what ecology was, more were able to accept that the missing wolves ought to be restored to the nature preserve, for they should have been preserved along with all the other creatures. Renée Askins would certainly not claim that she was the one to effect their restoration into Yellowstone, but she certainly deserves much of the credit. Her lovely memoir, _Shadow Mountain: A Memoir of Wolves, a Woman, and the Wild_ (Doubleday) not only tells about her involvement in this huge project, but also is her autobiography, taking in her upbringing, her lovers, and in many pages, her dogs. It is sweet and compelling reading.

In 1980, Askins was a college student working at a wolf research facility in Indiana. She had a wolf pup thrust upon her to raise, and although she had plenty of experience with wild and domestic animals before, this was "the first time I truly began to face and fathom the capacity of another species." When the pup was taken from her, she was heartbroken. She sobbed, and (this is something she does quite a bit throughout the book), she howled. And she was answered by the pack, which "one by one, called out in the long, graceful wail that is the code of their species. Their own had been taken. I had no doubt they knew." (Also throughout the book is this sort of mystical anthropomorphic speculation, which may put some readers off, but which has served the author well.) In 1986, she founded the Wolf Fund. Returning wolves to Yellowstone was its one and only purpose. Much of the book is devoted to how she lobbied and cajoled bureaucrats and donors. It is a complicated story, but wolves were returned to the park, and the Wolf Fund, having achieved its goal, in contrast to other bureaucracies, simply shut itself down.

Askins's delightful writing includes many non-wolf topics. She writes with feeling about a friend and a sister who died of cancer. She describes with amusement the activities of her dogs, and winds up at the Westminster Dog Show in New York, looking for an "apricot, teacup, powder puff Chinese Crested." She faces feral dogs in West Africa (by howling). In these episodes, and all others she includes here, she gracefully ties the themes back to her life with wolves and the lessons she has learned from working with them and for them. She has the good sense to realize that reinstating the wolves was a hopeful symbolic act, and that compared to other protections of endangered species, it was biologically insignificant. She is open about losses; some of the wolves have been deliberately killed, some in response to cattle depredation, although such instances have been few. And she realizes that with electronic monitor collars strapped on them, with a population "managed" rather than entirely wild, the wolves are not truly free. The ironies of managing wilderness permeate this fine volume of heartfelt memoir and reflections on successful environmental action.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Renee's Wolves, July 15, 2003

By 

Christopher Girvan "wolfgirv" (Menzies Creek- Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Shadow Mountain: A Memoir of Wolves, a Woman, and the Wild (Hardcover)

Just before the start of Chapter one in the book Shadow Mountain is the Quote from Gandhi "Whatever you do will be insignificant and it is very important that you do it". Ghandi also once wrote that you can judge people by the way they treat their animals. Renee Askins founded the Wolf Fund in 1986 for the purpose of reintroducing the wolf into Yellowstone National Park. Renee Askins is a fine human being, one who, like Dian Fossey, has devoted herself to one endangered species and from her efforts has found ground breaking and hopefully, long lasting success. Shadow Mountain is a wonderful book filled with emotion and adventure that will make you laugh, make you angry, and make you cry, but most of all is will make you pleased about the way you treat your animals.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Its not about the wolf., August 1, 2002

By 

Prof. Moody (Environmental Science, UVA, Charlottesville, VA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shadow Mountain: A Memoir of Wolves, a Woman, and the Wild (Hardcover)

Askins has crafted a compelling story about examining our human relationship with the natural world. Ostensibly, the book describes the formation of the Wolf Fund, her single issue, streamlined, strategic environmental organization aimed at garnering grass roots support and applying political pressure to achieve the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park. And yet it is about so much more. She writes with candor and wit, wandering back and forth in time, highlighting the trail, effectively illustrating serendipitous twists of fate that ultimately influence her role in the attainment of this greater goal. It's her story, and yet, like any good writing, there is something universal here. Digging at the roots of her own motivation, she uncovers a philosophy for life. Askins herds the reader along with a mixture of dogged determination and poetic passion, feeding us cookies of wisdom along the way, plenty of food for thought. I hope we hear her howl again.