Page 50 - EarthHeroes

some of the mistakes of the past. Wolves were included in the list of endangered species that the US Fish and Wildlife Service was now legally required to bring back into America. Yellowstone was chosen as one of the places for this. It took over 10 years to get approval for the project, because so many hunters and ranchers objected, but it was finally given the go-ahead in 1994, when Doug joined the team.
Doug’s love for wolves began when he was a boy. His
father ran a kids’ camp and Doug spent all his weekends
and summer holidays there. He was the baby of his family – his sister, the next youngest, was six years older – so from an early age he played in the woods alone, exploring streams and lakes and watching birds. Aged 10, he read a magazine article about wolves, which sparked his life-long fascination with the animal. He set out to learn everything he could about them and discovered that they were the villain of countless children’s stories. He puzzled over how humans could wipe out an entire animal species and dreamed of visiting the wild ‘North’ where the remaining wolves roamed free. When he was 12, his brother bought him a book about wolves and, aged 15, Doug wrote to the author and other wolf biologists asking for a holiday job helping with their work. But sadly no one offered him the opportunity. Still determined, he tried again at 18 and this time he got a volunteer position helping to raise wolf pups in Indiana. Doug went to university to study biology, spending his summers working with wolves on Isle Royale, an island national park in Lake Superior. When he finished his studies in 1994, he joined the Yellowstone Wolf Project, becoming project leader in 1997.
It was here, in 1995 – almost 60 years after the last native wolf had been killed
– that 14 wolves captured in Canada were released, followed by 17 more the next year. It was Doug’s job to lead the teams studying them. Their research allowed them to understand how wolves lived in packs, what they ate and to identify any health problems. This information helped the scientists to protect them, with the aim of increasing their numbers so that wolves would no longer be endangered in America. For their research, Doug’s team fitted each wolf with a radio transmitter inside a collar so that it could be tracked as it moved around the park. At the same time they checked the wolf’s health and took blood samples. To capture the wolf, the team approached it by helicopter and Doug fired a tranquiliser dart to send it to sleep, before being dropped off next to the animal. He always cherished those moments sitting alone with the sleeping wolf. Surrounded by the quiet beauty of nature, he would look into each wolf’s eyes and imagine what its life was like.
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