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Wolves of the World: Perspectives of Behavior, Ecology and Conservation
Since the early 1940s, North America has been the focus of studies of free-ranging wolves. Much of Canada and most of Alaska support numerous viable and sometimes thriving wolf populations. This comprehensive text considers the behavior and ecology of wild wolves in North America, Europe, Eurasia, Israel, and Iran. It also discusses wolf behavior in captivity and methods of conservation.
- GenresWolves
474 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1982
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January 3, 2015
This is a somewhat long review but since no-one else either here or on Amazon (yet) seems to have reviewed it, I felt some amount of detail might be useful to potential readers.
This is collection of papers by different wolf specialists/scientists/researchers and most of the time appears to have been written for professionals – I got this impression partly because the book does not start from a place that would benefit a beginner in learning about wolves, and also because of the level of detail provided, the vast number of references, and extensive discussion on methodologies and interpretations of results that isn't usually common in popular science books.
Section 1 has some extremely detailed studies of specific wild wolf packs in specific areas of North America. Each chapter details one specific study (and makes reference to other similar ones). These studies mostly discuss wolf populations, pack ranges, mortality, wolf movements and food habits, predation and activity patterns, relationships to the populations of other animals, patterns of home-site attendance and disease. Everything is accounted for in these chapters – from the exact type, trademark and dosage of sedative used when tagging and putting radio collars on the wolves, to very detailed descriptions of the observations made. The introduction and summary sections came in very handy for me as a non-professional reader. I often found myself skimming through certain parts.
Section 2 focuses less on specific studies; instead it deals with wolves in different countries and each chapter makes use of various relevant studies. Even when specific studies are described, the details appear somewhat less tiresome than in the first section - maybe this has something to do with the more general topics being somewhat more interesting to me personally. Wolf populations and human attitudes and behaviour towards the wolves in different areas is summarised - the areas include the former USSR, Italy, Iran, Israel, etc. I found myself skimming less in this section.
As a casual reader without much previous knowledge of wolves, I found Section 3 to be by far the most interesting. The chapters in this section discuss social organization in wolves and compare studies on the behaviour of wolves in the wild to those on captive packs. There was a lot of information on the social dynamics of different groups, monogamy, cooperative rearing of simultaneous litters, distributed feeding, cooperation, probability learning in captive wolves, etc. All these are again discussed in a scientific framework, detailing the studies and methodologies used – none of these were tiresome in this section, perhaps because I had a particular interest in the topics.
Section 4 is on conservation and, for me, sometimes had a monotony similar to Section 1 – loads of details on specific areas in North America, the available land, the available prey, the history of wolf populations there, why the populations decreased, if it's possible to re-introduce wolves there, attitudes of the local residents towards predators, etc.
In the introduction to the book, the editors mention that the book concludes with “two perspectives on wolves, and wolf study, from observers outside the typical biologist/psychologist frame of mind […] our observations as scientists are biased by our cultural, sociological and scientific backgrounds. A recognition and understanding of other viewpoints can only serve to open our eyes wider” etc. This is not a bad idea on its own, but the chapters presented read like parodies.
The first of these seemed like a satire of the sociologist/philosopher trying to question and deconstruct every concept in the book, trying to connect everything to some or other sociological theory (name dropping all the while – including as many big names in sociology/anthropology theory as possible) to the point of ridiculousness. The chapter is full of indirect questions to the effect of “but what is a pack really? but what does a howling ceremony really mean? but what does it really mean to be an alpha male? but can we really know anything for sure? but does statistical, scientifically collected data really mean anything?” The detailed discussions of the previous chapters that include clear explanations of how each term is used in each paper are obviously not enough for the author – neither, apparently, are the scientifically collected data which the author acknowledges and subsequently implicitly rejects (considering them not erroneous, but irrelevant to his ideas and as somehow narrow-minded/unenlightened).
The last chapter was in the classic patronising style of a western scientist discussing the insightful ideas of the native people he has lived with. It discusses how the simplicity and connection to nature of the Nunamiut Eskimos allows them an insight into the lives of wolves that can be beneficial to western scientists – I'm not disputing this, it's just the patronising way it was put that I take issue with. The Nunamiut people impressed the author “with their ability as observers and the basic good sense of their interpretations.” The author finds several differences between modern biologists and the Nunamiut - some examples:
The tone of the article was: Look at how clever they are! And how observant/logical too! We can learn so much from them and their way of life and beliefs!
These 2 chapters ruin the book for me – I think it is possible to look at things from different perspectives and question certain concepts without employing the use of such tactics. The editors' decision to include these chapters reflects poorly on them, and loses the book 2 stars in my rating. (The crazy amount of detail and occasional monotony I mentioned above, does not lose the book any stars, it's just that for my purposes of reading the book, it was a bit too much.)
Despite this, there is no denying the usefulness of the rest of the book. The book was published in 1982 and perhaps a more recent similar book as a follow up on wolf populations, etc., would be an interesting read.
Since the sections and chapters/articles can be read independently of each other, I hope this review helps some readers focus more on the sections they're most interested in :)
This is collection of papers by different wolf specialists/scientists/researchers and most of the time appears to have been written for professionals – I got this impression partly because the book does not start from a place that would benefit a beginner in learning about wolves, and also because of the level of detail provided, the vast number of references, and extensive discussion on methodologies and interpretations of results that isn't usually common in popular science books.
Section 1 has some extremely detailed studies of specific wild wolf packs in specific areas of North America. Each chapter details one specific study (and makes reference to other similar ones). These studies mostly discuss wolf populations, pack ranges, mortality, wolf movements and food habits, predation and activity patterns, relationships to the populations of other animals, patterns of home-site attendance and disease. Everything is accounted for in these chapters – from the exact type, trademark and dosage of sedative used when tagging and putting radio collars on the wolves, to very detailed descriptions of the observations made. The introduction and summary sections came in very handy for me as a non-professional reader. I often found myself skimming through certain parts.
Section 2 focuses less on specific studies; instead it deals with wolves in different countries and each chapter makes use of various relevant studies. Even when specific studies are described, the details appear somewhat less tiresome than in the first section - maybe this has something to do with the more general topics being somewhat more interesting to me personally. Wolf populations and human attitudes and behaviour towards the wolves in different areas is summarised - the areas include the former USSR, Italy, Iran, Israel, etc. I found myself skimming less in this section.
As a casual reader without much previous knowledge of wolves, I found Section 3 to be by far the most interesting. The chapters in this section discuss social organization in wolves and compare studies on the behaviour of wolves in the wild to those on captive packs. There was a lot of information on the social dynamics of different groups, monogamy, cooperative rearing of simultaneous litters, distributed feeding, cooperation, probability learning in captive wolves, etc. All these are again discussed in a scientific framework, detailing the studies and methodologies used – none of these were tiresome in this section, perhaps because I had a particular interest in the topics.
Section 4 is on conservation and, for me, sometimes had a monotony similar to Section 1 – loads of details on specific areas in North America, the available land, the available prey, the history of wolf populations there, why the populations decreased, if it's possible to re-introduce wolves there, attitudes of the local residents towards predators, etc.
In the introduction to the book, the editors mention that the book concludes with “two perspectives on wolves, and wolf study, from observers outside the typical biologist/psychologist frame of mind […] our observations as scientists are biased by our cultural, sociological and scientific backgrounds. A recognition and understanding of other viewpoints can only serve to open our eyes wider” etc. This is not a bad idea on its own, but the chapters presented read like parodies.
The first of these seemed like a satire of the sociologist/philosopher trying to question and deconstruct every concept in the book, trying to connect everything to some or other sociological theory (name dropping all the while – including as many big names in sociology/anthropology theory as possible) to the point of ridiculousness. The chapter is full of indirect questions to the effect of “but what is a pack really? but what does a howling ceremony really mean? but what does it really mean to be an alpha male? but can we really know anything for sure? but does statistical, scientifically collected data really mean anything?” The detailed discussions of the previous chapters that include clear explanations of how each term is used in each paper are obviously not enough for the author – neither, apparently, are the scientifically collected data which the author acknowledges and subsequently implicitly rejects (considering them not erroneous, but irrelevant to his ideas and as somehow narrow-minded/unenlightened).
The last chapter was in the classic patronising style of a western scientist discussing the insightful ideas of the native people he has lived with. It discusses how the simplicity and connection to nature of the Nunamiut Eskimos allows them an insight into the lives of wolves that can be beneficial to western scientists – I'm not disputing this, it's just the patronising way it was put that I take issue with. The Nunamiut people impressed the author “with their ability as observers and the basic good sense of their interpretations.” The author finds several differences between modern biologists and the Nunamiut - some examples:
“The field biologist and the Nunamiut probably react differently when each discovers a new phenomenon. For us, considerable importance is often attached to being first with a new finding. […] The Nunamiut are less interested in these considerations than in the food for thought provided by new phenomena. They show little concern about whether an idea or fact is accepted by anyone other than themselves, nor do they have the tendency to interpret events in the same terms used by someone else.”
“The Nunamiut way of thinking also suggests that besides oversimplifying complicated things, we also tend to make simple things terribly complicated.”
The tone of the article was: Look at how clever they are! And how observant/logical too! We can learn so much from them and their way of life and beliefs!
These 2 chapters ruin the book for me – I think it is possible to look at things from different perspectives and question certain concepts without employing the use of such tactics. The editors' decision to include these chapters reflects poorly on them, and loses the book 2 stars in my rating. (The crazy amount of detail and occasional monotony I mentioned above, does not lose the book any stars, it's just that for my purposes of reading the book, it was a bit too much.)
Despite this, there is no denying the usefulness of the rest of the book. The book was published in 1982 and perhaps a more recent similar book as a follow up on wolf populations, etc., would be an interesting read.
Since the sections and chapters/articles can be read independently of each other, I hope this review helps some readers focus more on the sections they're most interested in :)
Displaying 1 of 1 review