Tag Archives: Wolves

Adopted by Dogs

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“Where you goin’?” our dog, Cassie, seems to be asking as she watches through the screen.

Cassie keeps an eye on me from the porch.

Cassie keeps an eye on us from the porch.

Turns out canines have been tracking our whereabouts for tens of thousands of years.  DNA studies indicate that dogs, Canis familiaris, branched off from wolves at least 30,000 years ago.

Aidan of the Wolf Center Pack

My fuzzy photo of a wolf in Ely, Minnesota

We humans thought we domesticated dogs, or at least that’s what I was taught in school.  But research in the last few years indicates that dogs domesticated us, or, at the very least, it was a mutual process.  Our ancestors didn’t simply choose the boldest and cuddliest wolves to train; the wolves chose us for their own purposes as well.  Brian Hare, author of The Genius of Dogs, asserts that we did not adopt wolves and turn them into dogs; it is more likely that “wolves adopted us.”

It must have been the most patient and tolerant wolves that were willing to approach our campfires.  Hare says, it was “survival of the friendliest.”  (Isn’t that a refreshing alternative to “survival of the meanest” scenarios played out in media, business, and politics?  Maybe we can learn from our dogs in this regard.)  Those are the canines that evolved into our furry friends today.

I don’t know about you, but I never use my dog as a reserve food supply or to hunt or to keep warm at night, all of which our ancestors did.  We’re companions.  The two vestigial functions of dogs that I share with my ancestors is as an alarm system and occasional cleaning and sanitation service.  Those pesky food spills on the kitchen floor disappear in seconds!

Dogs benefit from their association with humans by having secure homes, reliable food supplies, and someone to pick off their burrs and ticks.  Canis familiaris has also managed to avoid being hunted to extinction as we’ve done to Canis lupus.  In fact, dogs flourish in so many forms and places, their overall success as a species seems guaranteed.  In spite of too many cases of animal abuse which need to be addressed, our pets are getting quite a lot for what they gave up in the wild.

White German Shepherd relaxing in a warm house on a cold day

Our white German Shepherd relaxes in our warm house on a cold day.

Part of the family

Part of the family

However we arrived at this extraordinary friendship between people and dogs, I’m hoping our evolution on both sides is moving us toward a more perfect union of harmony and interdependence.  If we can’t make peace for the sake of our fellow humans, maybe we can do it for our four-legged friends.  After all, we have thumbs.  They’re counting on us.

 

See the American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals for information about protecting animals.  For more on dogs’ wild relatives, see the International Wolf Center site.

 

Land Ethic

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How did a hard-boiled forester, hunter, professor, and fisherman become one of our most eloquent spokesmen for loving and caring for the land? Aldo Leopold (1887-1948) was a pioneer conservationist who is well known for his book of essays, A Sand County Almanac.  He credits a wolf in Arizona and a shack in Wisconsin for his personal transformation and the evolution of his ideas.

As a young forester in Arizona, Leopold killed a wolf.  In a section of his book called “Thinking Like a Mountain,” he remembered, “We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes.  I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes–something known only to her and to the mountain.  I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise.  But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.”  Part of his transformation in the Southwest was that he ceased to merely act on his environment and began to act with it, listening to wolf and mountain, tree and stream.

“We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us.  When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.”  To enter the community Leopold made his own, at least on weekends when he could get away from his work at the University of Wisconsin, I drove to the Aldo Leopold Center near Baraboo, Wisconsin (www.aldoleopold.org).  At the Center, a gorgeous pine and stone building with two kinds of geothermal systems, I talked with an intern named Anna and she gave me directions to the secluded Shack and loaned me a bicycle to get there.  Following a paved road and then a grassy path, I arrived at the place that inspired so many of the essays in A Sand County Almanac.

When Aldo, his wife Estella, and their five children bought their property in 1935, it was a sandy, over-farmed field near the Wisconsin River, with only an old chicken coop left on it.  The family shoveled out the dirt and manure and made that coop livable for their many visits from Madison.  (One son built an outhouse they called the Parthenon.)  For Aldo, it was an experiment in renewing the land.  He and his family planted thousands of trees and wildflowers, making it a lush, green place.  A place to listen to the land.

“A land ethic,” Leopold wrote, “reflects a conviction of individual responsibility for the health of the land.  Health is the capacity of the land for self-renewal.  Conservation is our effort to understand and preserve this capacity.”  He did that with his own hands, and died trying to extinguish a brush fire on his neighbor’s land.  His daughter, Nina, still lives near the Shack and has kept the green fire burning.

In 2012, look for the documentary on PBS, “Green Fire: Aldo Leopold and the Land Ethic in the 21st Century.”

I biked to the shack where Leopold wrote Sand County Almanac

For the Love of Wolves

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We came from Illinois, Wisconsin, and Missouri, and as far away as Arizona, all for the love of wolves.  Our group of eight women and two men wanted to see wolves, to howl with them, to get to know all about them and, maybe, help find ways to protect them.  That’s why we flew and drove hundreds of miles to the far-north outpost of Ely, Minnesota June 11-13, 2010.  It was a “learning vacation” at the International Wolf Center with a side trip to the Vince Shute Bear Sanctuary.

When Jess, our IWC representative, asked why we were there, many of us admitted–outright–our love of canis lupus.  The couple from Arizona started to explain what it meant to them to be there and the husband stopped speaking mid-sentence as tears sprang to his eyes.  Oh, yes, we were smitten before even seeing the objects of our affection.

We also had a general love of nature (biophilia, as E.O. Wilson calls it) that drew us to one of the most wild and refreshing places in the United States, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area.  As Kim, a retired teacher said, “I just love the Earth.”  During our weekend we saw eagles, deer, loons, woodpeckers, and fourteen wild black bear cubs and their mothers wandering through the bear sanctuary.  The forests and lakes provided the sweetest air you can find anywhere.

Staying at Wintergreen Dogsledding Lodge, we also saw sled dogs having the summer off.  Paul Schurke, arctic adventurer and keeper of the Lodge, made sure that we got to visit with the new pups, only two weeks old.  Whenever I stopped by the kennels, the dogs sent up a howl in reply to my greetings.

As for howling with wild wolves, we tried.  Jess took us to a remote location and led us off with her impressively tonal howl.  We joined in with our best vocalizations but got no response.  We did manage to locate a female wolf the next day, however, by radio telemetry.  We didn’t see her but we knew where she was on the map and we knew by the frequency of her radio collar that she was a member of the Madden Lake Pack.

The five wolves that indulged us with their presence were the ambassador wolves kept at the International Wolf Center.  Though they have more than an acre to roam, they stayed near the viewing windows for much of the time.  One named Grizzer approached the window only a few inches from the woman from Arizona.  They had a wonderful moment of connection.  I chose to observe Aidan, a two-year-old male, and did some deep listening exercises on my side of the glass to see if we could communicate.  I felt connected to him in a meditative way and thanked him for his presence and all we can learn from him and his species.  When we visited the pack after hours, we heard them howling full tilt, triggered by some unseen presence or distant noise.  That was an experience to remember, even if the wolves we heard were in captivity.

There is a book by Julia Cameron called The Artist’s Way in which Cameron suggests having an “artist’s date” on a regular basis to activate your creativity.  This is a date with yourself to go somewhere inspiring, such as a museum or simply a colorful fabric store, as a way to keep your artistic self alive.  Being in northern Minnesota was like having a “planet date,” a reminder of why I love the Earth so much and want to tend to nature, in both the sense of caretaking and as in “attend,” paying attention to the wildness around me.

Sometimes a long-married couple needs a romantic outing to renew their relationship.  “Oh, yes, that’s why I’m crazy about you.”  I recommend a wilderness date with something in nature that interests you.  Maybe it will be wolves, even Aidan, my special fellow, or simply a flower in your yard.  It is too easy to get distracted and forget the bounty of woods, beach, field, mountain, and sky.  But, I guarantee, once you are out there, you’ll fall in love all over again.

I’m pretty sure that all of us at the Wolf Center did.

Muir Musings in Marquette County

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At John Muir Park 2009

Barb at Ennis Lake, John Muir Park

Sun is breaking through the morning mist as I arrive at John Muir Park on October 27.  I walk down the hill to what the Muirs called Fountain Lake, now known as Ennis Lake, and see streams of holy light raking the fog-shrouded waters.

Though no structure remains, I know the Muirs’ farmhouse, built in 1850, was somewhere nearby.  I picture young John getting up on a day like today with the inside of the house about the same temperature as the outside: 34 degrees.  The one stove in the house was only for cooking, according to John’s father, Daniel.

The Scottish family made a farm here in central Wisconsin, their first home in America, when John was 11.  He and his brother attended school in Scotland, but in Wisconsin they were too busy doing farm chores and building a house.  Later, when the land wore out, the family moved to nearby Hickory Hills and John dug a well by hand through 90 feet of soil and stone.  He was almost worked to death, but the land and trees always revived him, as he wrote, remembering, “Young hearts, young leaves, flowers, animals, the winds and the streams and the sparkly lake, all wildly, gladly rejoicing together!”

As the mists lift, so do flocks of small birds, moving from shore grass to lofty treetops all gold and red with autumn leaves.  A marsh hawk flies by and I hear Sand Hill Cranes calling from the Fox River across Highway F.  I’ve come to commune with nature–and the spirit of John Muir.  As offerings, I have two of his favorite foods: bread and apple slices.

Moving away from the lake, I follow a mowed path.  A section of the Ice Age Trail goes around Ennis Lake, kept up by volunteers in order to highlight the history of the glaciers in Wisconsin.  I go over a hill and down to two spreading oak trees, still hanging onto their leaves.  As the sun brightens the sky, the tan leaves glow as if fresh-baked and buttered.  The trees are so big, surely they were around when young Johnnie Muir was here.  I offer chunks of spelt bread and Fuji apple.  I throw in an almond for good measure.

Driving home, north along Tenth Road, I finally see some Sand Hill Cranes.  There are dozens of them milling about in an open field bordered by corn.  Usually the cranes pair off in separate fields, but at this time of year they gather to prepare for their migrations to Texas or points further south.  They call to each other, a deep chortle like rusty hinges on a creaky door.

With almost no traffic I am free to linger along the side of the road, watching.  Three cranes glide by my car window, sailing along just to stretch their wings.  In the field, two elegant, gray cranes face each other and bow.  One flaps its wings, then the other.  Then there is bobbing all around followed by a minute’s rest.  Then more bobbing and flapping.  It is quite a dance.

I drive home to the cabin, munching the remains of the apple I shared with John Muir and the oak trees.  During his lifetime, Muir helped create national parks such as Yosemite, but he was unable to preserve this patch of land that had been so dear to him as a boy.  He tried, but it wasn’t until 1957 that it became John Muir Memorial Park, where anyone can visit and make their own connections with the natural beauty that helped form a passionate conservationist.