Wildness in a Modern Age – The Reintroduction of Wolves to the Landscape

Written by Brenda Peterson

Narrated by Justine Willis Toms

There are some successful programs to reintroduce wild wolves into their natural habitat in the U.S. This keystone species recovery activity is a long game and there remains much opposition to this movement, at least some of which stems from our mythological view of wolves as standing for all that is vicious, dangerous, and savage. Peterson outlines the uphill battle that this endangered species is undergoing. She shares many stories, including her experience of the capturing, transferring, and release of a wolf pack into the wild.

She reminds us that Jacques Cousteau once said that people protect what they love, and she encourages us to become intimate with the wild: “If you don’t have intimacy with the wild, if you don’t get out into the woods, if you don’t get out into the oceans, if you don’t have a sense that there is this natural, beautiful, wondrous world out there that you can be intimate with, then you are losing what it is to be human. Acquaint yourself with others who don’t mirror us, who we don’t domesticate, who don’t serve us. Loving that, I think, is a much higher form of love.” (hosted by Justine Willis Toms)

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Dimensions Foundation
• Release date: Mar 24, 2017
• ISBN: 9781987116533

Brenda Peterson

Brenda Peterson is the critically acclaimed author of more than twenty-three books, including five novels—one of which, Duck and Cover (Harper Collins), was a New York Times “Notable Book of the Year” and hailed as a “wicked, black comedy.” Her recent memoir, I Want to Be Left Behind, was selected as a “Top Ten Best Non-Fiction” book by the Christian Science Monitor and an Indie Next “Great Read,” by Independent Booksellers. Her latest nonfiction book, Wolf Nation: The Life, Death, and Return of Wild American Wolves, was chosen as a “Best Conservation Book of the Year” by Forbes magazine. Her children’s books include Wild Orca, Catastrophe by the Sea, and the art book, Crane Maiden. Her commentaries have appeared on NPR and in The New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, Tikkun, Chicago Tribune, Seattle Times, and Oprah magazine.