Retracing a pioneer wolf

 kw: book reviews, nonfiction, natural history, wolves, hiking, conservation, agriculture

This meeting never took place, as much as it was ardently desired by Adam Weymouth. In his book Lone Wolf: Walking the Line Between Civilization and Wildness, Adam relates getting a moment's glimpse through binoculars of a wolf briefly emerging from the forest and then vanishing again. A thousand-mile trek along the trail of a wolf, culminating in a few seconds at most.

In this mini-memoir of a thousand-mile walk parallel to the path of a wolf named Slavc ten years earlier, he notes a few times that he was sure a wolf or wolves observed him, but he never saw them; just this one time, weeks after journey's end, accompanying a wildlife photographer who tells of a dozen pre-dawn stakeouts needed just to see a wolf once, and perhaps to catch a quick photo.

A note on the wolf's name. In the Slovene language, the letter V is pronounced as an F, like in German, and a final C is pronounced "ts". Further, S is softened to "sh" and the vowel A is somewhere between an A sound and a U sound. Therefore, phonetically, Slavc is pronounced "shlufts", almost like the name of Tufts (a University). The wolf is named for Slavnik ("shlufnik") Mountain, near the place he was born just north of the Slovenia-Croatia border.

Slavc's journey was well documented because he was captured and collared at about the age of one year, a few months before he left his pack to travel north and northeast across Slovenia into Austria, looping through Austria into northeast Italy, and finally settling into his own territory northwest of Verona in or near Lessinia Regional Park. He had met and paired with a female wolf who was soon given the name Juliet—you may recall that Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet was placed in Verona.

The wolf spent about four months on this journey. Adam's retracing was perhaps a little shorter in duration, but not all at once. As he explains in an introductory note, having two young children at the time, he went for a few weeks at a time over the space of a couple of years, after the COVID-19 pandemic had run its course. The book is written as though it were the memoir of a single long hike, so as to focus on the story of the landscapes through which Slavc had traveled and the people Adam met along the way.

This is also a story of love and hate. The people living in the hinterlands of Slovenia, Austria and Italy are mostly herders or ranchers, and they hate wolves. EU laws protecting the wolves are flouted at various levels. Others love the wolves, but it must be admitted that these are mostly city dwellers, who don't have to cope with burying the half-eaten corpse of a horse or cow…or a pasture littered with several from an overnight feeding frenzy by a wolf pack. Some folks, probably not many, neither love nor hate wolves, but accept them as a historic part of the landscape. Yet trouble can come when such a phlegmatic farm family takes measures to protect their livestock by getting dogs or building fences. The rabid anti-wolf brigades criticize them as "giving in" to the pro-wolf faction, and may even vandalize their efforts. Between the wolves and the fanatics, and the shifting climate, it is getting less and less possible to make a living in some areas, and farms are being abandoned. Yet there are those who love the pastoral life, as hard as it may be. At least a few that Adam met are younger, energetic enough to persevere, and bring hope that the countryside will not be abandoned.

Slavc was the first wolf in decades to establish a territory in northeastern Italy. Wolf families are increasing throughout Alpine Europe. Various numbers were given, but I think it sufficient to note that the total number of wolves inhabiting the three countries through which Adam walked is less than 2,000. That's about the size of the small mining institute where I went to graduate school. In all of Europe, there are a bit more than 20,000, while in North America, somewhere between 200,000 and 250,000. I am not sure what conclusion to draw from that.

One summer I walked more than a thousand miles, not on long journeys but in loops through field areas, studying the geology. I love mountain country and I love hiking, but I am not all that fond of tent living. I appreciate Adam's experiences, and his comparisons of the various landscapes he passed through and the many people he connected with. Clearly, he is more sociable than I am. This is a wonderful book.