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

By 2010, the popularity of Yellowstone’s wolves in nearby Crandall has hit a nadir. Locals like Louie Cary hold forth from their bar stools to decry the wolves’ return and their effect on local business. Cary is a hunt outfitter and tour guide, the kind of operation Crandall used to support easily. He maintains two hunting camps at the park’s edge and charges thousands of dollars to out-of-towners who want to bag an elk, preferably a bull for its desirable horns.

This used to be no problem. The Yellowstone elk numbered around 19,000 before the wolves, but in recent years their number has dwindled to around 6,000. Game officials point to multiple causes for this drop, including development, drought, and the extension of the elk-hunting season in Montana (a popular decision at the time). But it seems likely wolves have affected the numbers too. Beyond that, elk that venture out of the park are harder to hunt. Predation has made them far more cautious, so that Cary and other hunters must head deeper into the woods to find them, whereas previously they could lure them into the open.

Cary is a long-term opponent of the wolves’ reintroduction. In fact, some of his clients spotted the injured Druids Pack wolves in 1997, though Cary maintains none of them were responsible for their shooting.