Sangay Glass's Blog - Posts Tagged "wildlife"

We love wolves when they’re printed on T-shirts or howling at the moon in pixel-perfect documentaries. But real conservation is messy. It’s blood in the snow and lawsuits in the courts. It’s science colliding with politics, tradition, and fear.

Wolves aren’t just apex predators. They’re flashpoints. Talk about bringing them back, and you’ll hear cheers, threats, and sighs of exhaustion, all from people who love the land.

In the U.S., wolf conservation isn’t about saving a species. It’s about deciding who gets to define balance: ranchers trying to protect their livelihood, activists chasing rewilding dreams, scientists crunching data, and Indigenous communities whose voices often get pushed aside despite sometimes having ancestral knowledge of ecosystem balance.

We Weren’t Meant to Be Wolves lives in that discomfort. The wolves in the novel aren’t just animals, they’re symbols of everything we want to control, fix, or pretend we understand. And Jess Taylor, like many in the real world, is caught between love, guilt, and the need to do something.

Because that’s the truth no one wants to admit about conservation. Sometimes you do the right thing, and it still feels wrong.

Set in the remote Adirondacks, where wolves have returned after a century-long absence, We Weren’t Meant to Be Wolves is a chilling and darkly humorous story rooted in real-world conservation, identity, and the blurry lines between what we love and what we fear.

We Weren’t Meant to Be Wolves coming July 25th Follow me for updates and giveaways.

Jess Taylor grew up wild running traplines with her dad, setting snares, handling “nuisance” animals, and selling parts and pelts, sometimes under the table, sometimes outright illegally. But somewhere along the line, something shifted.

She was done with killing.

So she took a different path. Jess became a wildlife biologist, chasing the holy grail she once believed impossible: coexistence in the wilderness she still called home.

Let’s talk about the uncomfortable truth behind predator control, cultural inheritance, and what it means to grow up in a world where killing animals is a way of life—and then choose to protect them instead. Jess’s story isn’t just fiction. It echoes countless real-world stories of trappers turned trackers, hunters turned healers. Can both be true? Can both be right?

Set in the remote Adirondacks, where wolves have returned after a century-long absence, We Weren’t Meant to Be Wolves is a chilling and darkly humorous story rooted in real-world conservation, identity, and the blurry lines between what we love and what we fear.

Yes, I regurgitated food for a wolf pup.

It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t pretty. It was instinct.

If you’re grossed out, congratulations. You’re human. But if you’re a wolf pup? It’s just another post-hunt ritual.

Here’s why this wild, ancient behavior exists, and why doing it felt more like biology than parenting.

Why do Wolves Regurgitate for Pups?

~Survival~
Around 3 to 4 weeks old, pups are weaned off milk—but they’re not ready to hunt. So adults step in. They bring back partially digested food and offer it up the natural way: by throwing it up. This gives the pups soft, warm meat they can digest easily.

~Trust~
The pup has to lick and nuzzle an adult’s mouth to trigger the regurgitation reflex. It’s tactile, intimate, and complexly involuntary. Though some humans and animals, like birds do it voluntarily to feed their young.

~Everyone Participates~
It’s not just the mom or dad. Aunts, uncles, even unrelated packmates will feed the pups. Cooperative care like this is rare in the animal world, but wolves wrote the book on it.

~It Teaches~
This is how pups learn what meat tastes like. One day it’s beaver. Next, it’s deer. By the time they’re old enough to trail a scent or join a chase, they already know what they’re chasing, and how it should feel in their bellies.

~It’s Literally Gut Instinct~
Shared food helps pups develop the right gut bacteria to digest meat. It’s nature’s gross little probiotic handshake.

So yes, I did it.
I felt the pressure rise, bent forward, and fed the pup with what I had. Not because I was told to because I had to.

And in that moment, feral, raw, maternal, I realized something: I wasn’t just studying wolves anymore. I was becoming more and more like one.

Set in the remote Adirondacks, where wolves have returned after a century-long absence, We Weren’t Meant to Be Wolves is a chilling and darkly humorous story rooted in real-world conservation, identity, and the blurry lines between what we love and what we fear.

Here’s how media spin works:

Colorado reintroduces wolves, a huge win for restoration and ecological balance. The goal? Let them do what they’ve done for thousands of years: regulate prey, restore landscapes, bring back the balance.

But what makes headlines? Not “Wolves Released, Ecosystems Begin to Heal.”

Instead:
“Wolves Killed After Release.”
“Cattle Losses Blamed on Wolves.”
“Program Under Fire.”

They skip the part where it’s one or two wolves.
They skip the fact that some die because that’s how wild works.
They skip the dozens still thriving, hunting elk, avoiding humans.

Because fear sells. Because outrage clicks. Because “balance” doesn’t make front page.

Wolves aren’t political. But people sure are.

~Jess Taylor~Check out my story July 25th in paperback and Kindle

Set in the remote Adirondacks, where wolves have returned after a century-long absence, We Weren’t Meant to Be Wolves is a chilling and darkly humorous story rooted in real-world conservation, identity, and the blurry lines between what we love and what we fear.

Don’t let someone else’s headline rewrite what’s actually happening on the ground.

This goes for everything you see in the media today. Always take a second look.

Some things aren’t meant to be explained, just carried.
Like secrets folded into bone. Like songs only the wild can hear.

I’ve walked far. Farther than most would, chasing something I couldn’t name. But I’ve learned I wasn’t chasing anything at all. I was delivering.

The pup is a promise. Not to me, but through me.

My role isn’t to claim it or keep it. My role is to whisper its promise into the right ears. To speak the language of scent and stillness until the message is understood.

It's with hope that I breathe out the word: coexistence.

Because life will continue, changed but deterred.

There’s power in what survives. Even more in what chooses to keep going.

So I walk. And when the wind shifts, I listen. Waiting for the next whisper.

Set in the remote Adirondacks, where wolves have returned after a century-long absence, The Wolfer's Daughter is a chilling and darkly humorous story rooted in real-world conservation, identity, and the blurry lines between what we love and what we fear.

The Wolfer's Daughter: A Story of Resurrection and Reckoning in the Adirondacks

Still running. The Wolfer's Daughter: A Story of Resurrection and Reckoning in the Adirondacks