Praise for The Rise of Wolf 8

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“[McIntyre] spins the best stories about wolves that anyone will ever
tell, ever.”
douglas w. smith, senior wildlife biologist and project leader for the Yellowstone
Gray Wolf Restoration Project

“Rick McIntyre’s book, The Rise of Wolf 8, has no match in literature.

He presents the personal lives of wild wolves in a riveting narrative
without equal for its detail and insight. This work took decades of
devotion and consumed most of his life. We are so fortunate that we
can, through this book, share the ride.”
rolf peterson, Michigan Technological University, author of The Wolves of Isle
Royale: A Broken Balance

“Rick McIntyre knows more about Yellowstone’s wolves than anyone

living or dead. This book is a must-read and a treasure for anyone
who loves the places where wolves howl.”
thomas d. mangelsen, nature photographer and conservationist

“To follow the ever-changing destinies of the Yellowstone wolves is

to witness a real-life drama, complete with acts of bravery, tragedy,
sacrifice, and heroism.”
jim and jamie dutcher, founders of Living with Wolves

“The stories of the different pack members are reminiscent of Ernest

Thompson Seton’s animal characters, but these wolves were and are
from real life, and what they reveal will become a classic study in
animal behavior.”
bernd heinrich, professor emeritus of biology at the University of Vermont and
author of Mind of the Raven
“Rick McIntyre is a fabulous researcher. He dedicated his life to
documenting the histories of generations of wolves in Yellowstone.
I envy the hours he has spent in the field talking to people about
wolves and tracking the wolves’ movements in the most beautiful
country in the world.”
scott frazier, director of Project Indigenous, Crow/Santee

“Yellowstone’s resident wolf guru Rick McIntyre has been many

things to many people: an expert tracker for the park’s biologists, an
indefatigable roadside interpreter for visitors, and an invaluable con-
sultant to countless chronicles of the park’s wolves—including my
own. But he is first and foremost a storyteller whose encyclopedic
knowledge of Yellowstone’s wolf reintroduction project—now in its
25th year—is unparalleled.”
nate blakeslee, author of American Wolf

“This book clearly demonstrates that these apex predators are an

essential ingredient for maintaining the integrity of the diverse eco-
systems in which they live. The Rise of Wolf 8 is a must-read—one
to which I will return many times—for anyone interested in wolves
and the natural world. Wolves (and humans) are lucky to have Rick
McIntyre.”
marc bekoff, PhD, University of Colorado (Boulder), author of Rewilding Our
Hearts: Building Pathways of Compassion and Coexistence and Canine Confidential:
Why Dogs Do What They Do.

“Rick McIntyre knows and understands the wolves in much the

same way that a traditional Native would. He knows their birthdates
and birthplaces, their family and their family history, their personal-
ities, preferences, strengths and weaknesses, their character or lack
thereof. In other words, he knows them as individuals—and not just
as subjects for scientific study. He KNOWS them.”
john potter, wildlife artist, Anishinabe
“This book’s contribution to wolf biology is immense, for scientists
as well as for wolf lovers.”
luigi boitani, honorary professor, Department of Biology and Biotechnology,
University of Rome

“No one I know of has watched wild wolves longer or more closely
than Rick McIntyre.”
ed bangs, former US Fish and Wildlife Service wolf recovery coordinator for the
Northern Rockies
 THE

Rise of
Wolf 8
WITNESSING
THE TR IUMPH OF
,
Y E L L OW S T O N E S
UNDERDOG

Vancouver/Berkeley
Copyright © 2019 by Rick McIntyre
Foreword © 2019 by Robert Redford

19 20 21 22 23  5 4 3 2 1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior written consent of the publisher or a license from The Canadian
Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For a copyright license,
visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

Greystone Books Ltd.

greystonebooks.com

Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada

ISBN 978-1-77164-521-8 (cloth)
ISBN 978-1-77164-522-5 (epub)

Editing by Jane Billinghurst

Copyediting by Heather Wood
Map of Northern Yellowstone National Park by Kira Cassidy
Jacket and text design by Nayeli Jimenez
Jacket photograph of a gray wolf by Jim Cumming

Greystone Books gratefully acknowledges the Musqueam, Squamish, and

Tsleil-Waututh peoples on whose land our office is located.

This book was written after the author finished working for the National
Park Service. Nothing in the writing is intended or should be interpreted
as expressing or representing the official policy or positions of the US
government or any government departments or agencies.

Greystone Books thanks the Canada Council for the Arts, the British
Columbia Arts Council, the Province of British Columbia through the
Book Publishing Tax Credit, and the Government of Canada for our
publishing activities.
 4
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The Little
Wolf and the Big
Grizzly Bear

O
n May 18, 1995, the same day the helicopter brought
the Rose Creek wolves back to their acclimation pen, I
saw one of the three Crystal Creek black yearlings on a
fresh elk carcass. Then I spotted the other five pack members
on another new carcass. The small gray yearling went to one
of his brothers as the black walked off with a piece of meat
in his mouth, and the two had a playful wrestling match. 8
snatched the meat away from his brother and ran off with
it. He stopped, put it down, and played with it as the black
watched. The wolves were so full that day it did not matter
who ended up with that piece of meat. There was still plenty
left on the carcasses, more than enough for all of them.
One of the law-enforcement rangers who had patrolled
the Crystal Creek pen site the previous winter told me the

28
 T h e Li t t l e W o l f a nd t h e B ig G r i z z ly B e a r   |   29 

three black yearlings had mercilessly picked on their smaller

sibling throughout their captivity. She said they would
chase 8, tackle and pin him, then nip at him for a long time.
Since there was not much else for the yearlings to do during
their confinement, harassing their gray brother was one of
the three blacks’ favorite pastimes. Usually the bullied wolf
would bed down away from his brothers, but they would
creep up and pounce on him as he slept. 8 would either run
off without fighting back or stand up to them for a moment,
then run away.
Since he was the smallest wolf in the pen, the rangers
patrolling the area called him “the little guy.” The ranger also
told me the gray was normally the last to eat when new meat
was brought into the pen, a sign of his lowly status. As she
told me those stories about 8’s hard times in the pen when
he was a pup, I recalled the famous quote from philosopher
Friedrich Nietzsche, “That which does not kill us, makes us
stronger.” Would getting picked on and beaten up enable
him to cope better with adversity and challenges now that he
was growing up?
Knowing the hard times 8 had had in the pen for the ten
weeks of the pack’s captivity, I was glad to see that his life
was becoming more normal. His three brothers had plenty of
things to do now that they were free roaming and less time
to pick on him.
Later that day, when one of the black yearlings was at one
of the new carcasses, a grizzly mother and her two yearling
cubs approached. A cub charged the wolf four times. Each
time, the black ran off just a few steps, correctly guessing the
cub was only bluffing. After a while, the wolf walked toward
30 | T h e Ris e o f W o l f 8

the carcass, ending up in the middle of the bear family. The

other cub charged a few feet at the wolf, then went back to
the carcass and fed. That time the black did not even bother
running off. I was letting a group of Wyoming schoolkids
watch this interaction through my scope, and one boy yelled
out to his friend, “This is the most exciting thing I’ve ever
seen in my life.” They were from a town known to be anti-
wolf, and I was glad to see that watching these wolves was
changing the way they saw the world.

For the next few weeks, the six Crystal Creek wolves
were visible most mornings and evenings. Instead of doing
roving interpretation in far-off places like Old Faithful, I
could now drive the few miles from Tower to Lamar, find
the wolves, show them to visitors, and tell the story of the
reintroduction. News of the wolves’ visibility spread through
word of mouth and newspaper stories, and more and more
people came to the valley to look for them. Soon it was normal
to have crowds of two hundred by the side of the road. When
the Crystal wolves came into view, people reacted like fans
following a popular rock band. Some of them cried when they
saw wolves through my scope, and one woman ran to me, as
the nearest government official, and hugged me because she
was so happy that wolves had been brought back to the park.
I had been very involved with wildlife photography for
my fifteen summers in Denali and through my first few
years in Yellowstone. I had tried to take telephoto pictures
of the wolves after their reintroduction to the park, but
found photography got in the way of studying wolf behav-
ior and helping people see the wolves. I was also growing