I’m fascinated by the diverse relationships humans form with other animals, ranging from pure hate to pure love. I also love reading books that dig deeply into topics about which I know little to nothing. When I first learned of Derek Gow’s new book called Hunt for the Shadow Wolf: Hunt for the Shadow Wolf: The Lost History of Wolves in Britain and the Myths and Stories That Surround Them and how he has been described as “a wry, profane truth-teller who is equal parts yeoman farmer, historical ecologist, and pirate,” I thought this is the book for me.
The general topic also hit home because a few months ago, wolves were reintroduced to my home state of Colorado with very mixed reactions.1 Derek is also well-known for reintroducing beavers to Britain, and his work is of incredible importance to understanding the myriad relationships humans form with different animals and their ecological consequences.
I wrote Hunt for the Shadow Wolf as I felt very strongly that the wicked attitudes towards the wolf brewed in medieval Britain for reasons that had everything to do with gain for powerful institutions like the Church were based not on any reality of threat but rather on greed and ignorance. The false fear these created led directly to centuries of desperate destruction and hate, which extinguished unique creatures in far-off lands, such as the Thylacine and Warrah, simply because they were called wolves and then obliterated on this slimmest of justifications. Peoples of different sorts who opposed Western European colonists were termed “savage wolves” as well and treated in the same way whilst the wolves themselves were pursued, poisoned, trapped, and flayed with such fanatical zeal until they remained only in the wildest rims of their once-vast range.
From my earliest years, I have always been fascinated by other creatures. The knowledge that wolves once roamed Scotland was imparted to me by my grandmother. Although her account was light on detail, the gist of it went like this. One day, in the time of long, long ago, a woman and her children were walking towards the small town of Biggar, where we lived then, and were attacked by a wolf. Gran said it was the last of its kind. Perhaps the children were killed, perhaps they were not; in any case, the doughty response of their mother was to whip out a pancake griddle and bash her assailant over its hairy head.
I hope to be able to explain to the widest possible audience of those who read the book and are intrigued and through any interest that follows just what we did to our wolves. We demonized them to save money and then treated them very cruelly thereafter. Once we had brought them all to an end, our dominion over the use of Britain’s land mass for whatever purpose we chose was complete, and with this has come near complete ecological collapse.
Many older cultures understand, as we are now only beginning to comprehend, that the wolf and other large predators are nature’s guardians who protect the land from the ravages of both wild and domestic ungulates with all the other ills these inflict. One day, if we wish to heal the Earth, we will be required to bring them back.
The major topics that are considered are the social and cultural pressures that drove the extinction of the wolf in Britain. Although the evidence is grainy, it’s very likely that some sectors of society, such as the hunting aristocracy, tried on several occasions to protect, retain, or introduce wolves to locations when they became rare for the pleasure afforded by their pursuit. Conversely, those who killed them to protect their livestock moved from being a professional guild in the late 1300s to the point of free-for-all killing as and when they were encountered. This duty came with obligations for many tenants or retainers whom laws obliged to turn out on pain of penalties when a wolf was reported from their masters. As the wolf became rare overall, then the time of legends began where great heroes killed wolves in flamboyant locations in direct revenge attacks for their predation of children, women, or whatever other victims with a base in innocence could be imagined.
I would like to think that it differs from other books written about the wolf in that it injects strong elements of passion, understanding, sympathy, and, where possible, humor into the telling of their tale.2
Although our European relationship with the wolf, since we were taught to hate them, has always been difficult, times are changing. Their reintroductions back into Yellowstone and now Colorado as a result of majority support from society and their expansion back into developed Western Europe, where legal battles are and have been fought on their behalf, is a truly amazing phenomenon. It’s very unlikely that movements of this sort, which now actively support their presence and understand with wholesome delight the ecological importance of both their impacts on landscape function and the creatures they share their realms with, would have been widely conceivable less than half a century ago. Although the voices of grim evil have not yet been silenced as the 21st century unfolds, the indications are that we are well underway to develop an entirely new relationship with the wolf.
References
In conversation with Derek Gow, farmer, nature conservationist and the author of Bringing Back the Beaver and Birds, Beasts and Bedlam. Derek has played a significant role in the reintroduction of the Eurasian beaver, the water vole, and the white stork in England. He is currently working on a reintroduction project for the wildcat.
1) Colorado Wolves Receive Mixed Hellos and Muddy Media; Wolves and Cows: The Mindset of Coexistence and Sentience.
2) I have also been fortunate to obtain material translated from Welsh and Scots Gaelic, which has not been used to support any work written in English about the wolf before. In continental Europe, contemporary field information about the species' abilities, for example, to move vast distances completely undetected through landscapes that are much more densely populated and controlled than those of historic Britain, illustrates very neatly just how many late records of wolves occurring casually in southern England and Wales which have always been discounted may actually have had a basis in truth. In result, the forgoing coupled with the acquisition of many other tiny unrelated snippets that refer to the wolf from non-natural history accounts provide I believe the most comprehensive account of their British existence that has ever been compiled.
A Maverick Ecologist's Plan to Return Wolves to Britain
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08.03.2024
I’m fascinated by the diverse relationships humans form with other animals, ranging from pure hate to pure love. I also love reading books that dig deeply into topics about which I know little to nothing. When I first learned of Derek Gow’s new book called Hunt for the Shadow Wolf: Hunt for the Shadow Wolf: The Lost History of Wolves in Britain and the Myths and Stories That Surround Them and how he has been described as “a wry, profane truth-teller who is equal parts yeoman farmer, historical ecologist, and pirate,” I thought this is the book for me.
The general topic also hit home because a few months ago, wolves were reintroduced to my home state of Colorado with very mixed reactions.1 Derek is also well-known for reintroducing beavers to Britain, and his work is of incredible importance to understanding the myriad relationships humans form with different animals and their ecological consequences.
I wrote Hunt for the Shadow Wolf as I felt very strongly that the wicked attitudes towards the wolf brewed in medieval Britain for reasons that had everything to do with gain for powerful institutions like the Church were based not on any reality of threat but rather on greed and ignorance. The false fear these created led directly to centuries of desperate destruction and hate, which extinguished unique creatures in far-off lands, such as the Thylacine and Warrah, simply because they were called wolves and then obliterated on this slimmest of justifications. Peoples of different sorts who opposed Western European colonists were termed “savage wolves” as well and treated in the same way whilst the wolves........
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