Return of the Wolf: Conflict and Coexistence

Wolves were once common throughout North America and Eurasia. But by the early twentieth century, bounties and organized hunts had drastically reduced their numbers. Today, the wolf is returning to its ancestral territories, and the “coywolf”—a smaller, bolder wolf-coyote hybrid—is becoming more common. In Return of the Wolf, author Paula Wild gathers first-hand accounts of encounters with wolves and consults with wildlife experts for suggestions on how minimize conflict, respond to aggressive wolves and coexist with the apex predator.

Wild explores the latest theories on how wolves became dogs, the evolving strategies to prevent livestock predation, and why Eurasian wolves seem more aggressive toward humans than their North American cousins. She also addresses the many misconceptions about wolves: for example, that they howl when hungry, kill for pleasure and always live in packs. What is true is that a wolf possesses a howl as unique as a human fingerprint and can trot eight kilometres per hour for most of the day or night in search of prey while using earth’s magnetic field to find its way. Some scientists consider wolves’ complex social structures and family bonds closer to humans’ than those of primates.

In a skillful blend of natural history, Indigenous stories and interviews with scientists and conservationists, Wild examines our evolving relationship with wolves and how society’s attitudes affect the populations, behaviour and conservation of wolves today. As a highly social, intelligent animal, the wolf is proving adept at navigating the challenges of an ever-changing landscape. But their fate remains uncertain. Wolves are adapting to humans; can humans adapt to wolves?

Want to know where we stand with wolves and where they stand with us? Read Return of the Wolf.  You will get an up to date, well researched account of wolf ecology that doesn’t lose the heart of wolves as you learn about them.

Return of the Wolf is a timely, important and much needed book. Wild explores diverse perspectives of the often troubled relationships between wolves and humans from around the world and provides insights into ways we can prevent conflict and share the landscape with this amazing predator.

Wolves are possibly the most amazingly wonderful animals. They are certainly the most irrationally hated. Paula Wild helps set the record straight by helping us know the real wolf. This is important because wolves belong, because humans and wolves can coexist, and because we must learn to wage peace with them.

Paula Wild takes us on an in-depth and fascinating journey through the dualities of hatred and devotion, fear and fascination that for so long have shaped our haunted relationship with wolves. If we fear what we do not understand, then this well researched and insightful book will take us closer to understanding and, hopefully, to compassion for a species maligned for far too long.

“The wolves that appear in Wild’s impressive new book are complex, intelligent and fascinating animals … This book will be a pleasure for anyone who loves the outdoors or wildlife, and a useful corrective to the myths that surround the wolf.”

"Replete with unforgettable imagery and brilliantly rendered from beginning to end, this astonishing book goes a long way to inform, update, and reshape our perceptions of wolves and awaken us to our role in determining their fate." 

“[Wild] has amassed a comprehensive, accessible compendium of useful information about wolves, their history and behaviour, places where they’re intersecting with humans successfully and places where there is conflict…

A book like this, that provides real, well-researched, carefully compiled information with a great list of other resources is a tool with which to encounter the mist of emotionalism, hate, fear, love and mysticism that clings to the subject of wolves.” ~ Luanne Armstrong, The Tyee, January 17, 2019

“Paula Wild’s Return of the Wolf: Conflict and Coexistence is … a very timely guide to understanding wolves, and how we might adapt our human behaviour to co-exist with wolves. The book aims to encompass the Grey wolf’s distribution in America and Eurasia, but the focus is predominantly North American.” ~ Loys Maingon, The Ormsby Review, February 7, 2019

“Impressively informative, exceptionally well written, organized and presented, Return of the Wolf: Conflict and Coexistence is enhanced for academia with the inclusion of a four page Appendix (Wolf Safety Checklist), a six page listing of Selected Sources, and a seven page Index, making it an ideal and unreservedly recommended addition to personal, professional, community, college, and university library Contemporary Wildlife collections in general, and Wolf Ecology supplemental studies reading lists in particular.” ~Midwest Book Review, March 19, 2019

“As good as the author’s writing and her research are, the carefully chosen photographs, both in colour and black-and-white might even trump them, giving readers a chance to get up close and personal with these intriguing carnivores.” ~ Cherie Theissen, British Columbia Magazine