First published in 1963 and made into a film 20 years later, Never Cry Wolf describes the author’s experience of observing Canis lupus in subarctic Canada after being posted there to investigate a decline in the caribou population. The assumption is that the wolf is to blame – but Mowat finds out that, in fact, it is human activity (mostly Eskimo hunters) that is causing the caribou’s decline. Our false image of the demonised wolf, he writes, is therefore “not more than the reflected image of ourselves. We have made it the scapewolf for our own sins”. Despite critics who have challenged the veracity of Mowat’s account, this book stands the test of time as a story of civilization’s damaging effect on wildlife and nature, and our easy misunderstanding of that.
further reading…
First published in 1963 and made into a film 20 years later, Never Cry Wolf describes the author’s experience of observing Canis lupus in subarctic Canada after being posted there to investigate a decline in the caribou population. The assumption is that the wolf is to blame – but Mowat finds out that, in fact, it is human activity (mostly Eskimo hunters) that is causing the caribou’s decline. Our false image of the demonised wolf, he writes, is therefore “not more than the reflected image of ourselves. We have made it the scapewolf for our own sins”. Despite critics who have challenged the veracity of Mowat’s account, this book stands the test of time as a story of civilization’s damaging effect on wildlife and nature, and our easy misunderstanding of that.