The Ellesmere Wolves
Behavior and Ecology in the High Arctic
L David Mech author Morgan Anderson author H Dean Cluff author
Format:Hardback
Publisher:The University of Chicago Press
Publishing:10th Feb '25
£92.00
This title is due to be published on 10th February, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
In a fascinating story of discovery and science, we meet a remote population of wolves unafraid of humans.
For parts of twenty-four summers, wolf biologist L. David Mech lived with a group of wolves on Ellesmere Island, some six hundred miles from the North Pole. Elsewhere, most wolves flee from even the scent of humans, but these animals, evolving relatively free from human persecution, are unafraid. Having already spent twenty-eight years studying other populations of wolves more remotely by aircraft, snow-tracking, live-trapping, and radio-tracking, Mech was primed to join their activities up close and record their interactions with each other. This book tells the remarkable story of what Mech—and the researchers who followed him—have learned while living among the wolves.
The Ellesmere wolves were so unconcerned with Mech’s presence that they allowed him to camp near their den and to sit on his all-terrain vehicle as he observed them, watching packs as large as seven adults and six pups go about their normal activities. In these extraordinarily close quarters, a pup untying his bootlace or an adult sniffing his gloved hand was just part of daily life. Mech accompanied the wolves on their travels and watched as they hunted muskoxen and arctic hares. By achieving the same kind of intimacy with his wild hosts’ every action that we might experience living with domesticated dogs, Mech gained new insights into common but rarely studied behaviors like pup feeding, food caching, howling, and scent-marking. After Mech’s time at Ellesmere ended, his coauthors and fellow wolf researchers Morgan Anderson and H. Dean Cluff spent parts of four summers studying the wolves via radio collars, further illuminating the creatures’ movements and ecology. This book synthesizes their findings, offering both a compelling scientific overview of the animals’ behavior—from hunting to living in packs to rearing pups—and a tale of adventure and survival in the Arctic.
"Remarkable. . . . Mech is probably the most knowledgeable wolf researcher on the planet. . . . Following nearly forty years of research, living alongside the wolves and watching the pack interactions, pup rearing, and hunting was a whole new experience for a scientist more used to watching wolves from a plane. In intimate prose, often revealing the author's excitement, Mech discusses the wolf research he and his coauthors conducted each summer. Illustrated with photographs, maps, and figures, this close-up look at the daily lives of wolves is a wonderful addition to the wolf canon." * Booklist (starred review) *
“Wolves are creatures of the wilds, or at least that is where they do best. No place is more wild than Ellesmere Island in the far north and no team of scientists is more eminently qualified than Mech, Anderson, and Cluff to tell the story of these amazing creatures in one of the world’s harshest and most unique environments. This book will stand tall in the wolf literature.” -- Douglas W. Smith, coeditor of "Yellowstone Wolves: Science and Discovery in the World’s First National Park"
"Imagine white wolves living on Mars, chasing ten-pound Easter bunny lookalikes that gather by the hundreds. Ellesmere Island provides a scene almost as unbelievable, and even a Mars-like rover driven by a biologist who could follow wolves and observe them largely without notice. Living with wolves in such manner for more than twenty summer seasons, Mech and his colleagues here describe behavior that had rarely been seen before their groundbreaking adventure, advancing our understanding of the adaptability and resilience of these fascinating carnivores living in one of the most remote and unusual landscapes on Earth." -- Rolf O. Peterson, author of "The Wolves of Isle Royale: A Broken Balance"
“As a youth, I devoured wildlife documentaries, including watching Mech encounter the ‘White Wolf’ that wasn’t afraid of humans on the edge of the North Pole (Ellesmere). This book tells the fascinating story behind that documentary and the decades of groundbreaking research that followed. An inspiring and engaging read for any wolf enthusiast!” -- Grant Spickelmier, executive director, International Wolf Center
“The key story of the book is one of incredible adaptability, stamina, resilience, and endurance: the wolf is all this, well beyond the stereotyped simplifications. . . . Remarkable.” -- Luigi Boitani, from the foreword
ISBN: 9780226833729
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 454g
208 pages