Wildlife documentarian Jim Dutcher and his wife Jamie Dutcher describe their six-year project designed to capture the natural interactions of a typical pack of wolves. While they couldn't fully replicate a natural wolf setting, they come as close as can be imagined by fencing off several square miles of varied terrain in the Sawtooth Mountains, and living within a small wired-off enclosure within the larger area. The wolves they raise from puppies so that they can interact with them safely, and observe them without interrupting their natural behavior. Over the course of six years, Dutcher describes the wolf behavior he observes in great detail, and he also highlights the more interesting technical aspects and logistical obstacles in filming a wildlife documentary. We get a more general, and less honest, view of his relationship with his wife Jamie, and his relationship with others involved in the project, others with whom he becomes increasingly contentious. There is almost no insight into the financial end of a project like this.
First, the bad. Dutcher falls into the common trap of inserting himself into the story when unnecessary; or, to be more precise, inserting his opinions into the story. On the one hand, the author should be able to express his ideas; he's the author, after all. But on the other hand, he's disparaging a group of colleagues who share responsibility for the wolves, and he's not making enough of an effort to give their side of things fair play, in my opinion. He does articulate their position on wolf welfare in general terms at times, but only to give him a vague idea to refute in detail. Also, every time he mentions his wife, I can practically hear her breathing as she reads over his shoulder. I don't mind that he's talking about his experiences with her as they pertain to the story at hand, but I do object to flights of romantic fancy when describing in detail the first meeting. Let's be honest here, it comes off as bald-faced pandering.
Dutcher's tendency to defend each action he takes, and his obvious omission of certain things, leads me to speculate on his overall honesty, and to take everything with a grain of salt. It also leads to incomplete storytelling, which has the deleterious side effect of fragmenting the story a bit. This isn't a horrible problem, but it's a real one. The basic disagreement between Jim and WERC, the organization he founds but which eventually throws him out, seems to be on whether the wolves should be managed by people, or whether they should live largely without human contact. Some of Jim's management steps are so humanitarian that the "natural" alternative is just clearly barbaric, and would result in needless suffering. But he muddies his case when he implies that being taken away from the pack results in pack dysfunction, leading ultimately to some of the wolves killing each other as they battle for dominance. It's not fair, in my opinion, to speculate in such a roundabout manner on his ability to make harmony an ongoing element of the pack relations.
On the good side, Jim includes lots of great information about wolf interactions, some of which seem to be recorded for the first time because of the unique situation. He also articulates in detail real arguments about the use of non-wild footage to supplement the footage of a wildlife documentary. There is some great behind-the-scenes information about camera angles and the like that was pretty interesting. He devotes a chapter to each wolf, which was a smart move, I think, because it gave me such a sense of the broad range of personalities and characteristics that each individual could possess.
The writing itself was very good; it was clear and generally concise, and very accessible to the reader.
What I learned:
I read once before that wolves aren't necessarily locked into their social hierarchy at all times. One wolf might assume alpha status during hunting, and another during feeding, for example. But this book refutes that claim, and shows that an alpha wolf is always very much in charge; even though he might allow another wolf to take a prominent role in an activity, there is always an understanding that the alpha is dominant, and the omega is submissive. Most of the fighting occurs among the mid-ranking wolves, who are not secure in their status and thus must assert themselves violently over the omega and each other frequently. Another interesting fact was that Lakota, the omega male in this pack, was one of the biggest, most physically powerful wolves, hinting that fighting prowess might be less important than personality or other undefined factors in determining status.
