The New Wolves

Lobos, or Mexican wolves, once roamed freely throughout Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas until they were hunted to extinction when big cattle interest came to the Southwest. Now, a Mexican wolf reintroduction -- similar to the Yellowstone efforts for its cousin the gray wolf -- is underway in the Blue Mountains of Arizona. But cattle have overgrazed the fragile land, damaging the ecosystem that barely sustains their vast numbers. Can this environment sustain wolves?With the literary talent and naturalist's sensibility he brought to his highly praised 1992 account of a family of wolves in Montana, The Ninemile Wolves, Rick Bass examines the circumstances of the Mexican wolves' arrival: the exhausted soil of the land, the behavior and requirements of wolves, and the concerns of ranchers and environmentalists. "The New Wolves" brings to life a place -- its people and its wildlife, its past and its future. Bass articulates the land's need for wolves to maintain balance, while masterfully depicting the modern conflict between nature and our need to control it.Part meditation, part probing journalism, "The New Wolves" is an important new chapter in the drama of wolves and the American West.