American Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the West

Doug Smith leads the collaring effort, tranquilizing wolves from a helicopter before leaping out and equipping them with the transmitter devices. While these collars play a practical role in the Wolf Project’s research (the collars enable scientists to track the park’s packs), their symbolic value is apparent to the park humans too: “[Doug Smith] agreed not to dart O-Six out of deference to the wolf-watching community, who felt she was too special—too wild—to wear the mark of human endeavor” (169). Some animals should never be tamed, and indeed, there is even the implicit suggestion in latter chapters that being collared may have contributed to O-Six’s fate, even if Turnbull claims otherwise.

While Blakeslee illustrates the wolves’ social lives via family scenes, he does not shy away from showing them at their wildest. We get numerous scenes of the wolves hunting; in fact, the book opens with one, as O-Six and her temporary cohorts pull down an elk in front of Rick. Even here, it is O-Six who deals the death blow, and for all Laurie worries about wolves being portrayed as simply “killing machines” (141), there is clearly a reverence among the watchers who see these moments play out.