The Wisdom of Wolves by Jim Dutcher & Jamie Dutcher
Author:Jim Dutcher & Jamie Dutcher
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: National Geographic Society
Published: 2018-03-06T05:00:00+00:00
SEEING JUST HOW MUCH the Sawtooth Pack played, we wondered about their wild cousins. Were wolves in the wild, who were more burdened by survival issues such as being hunted and avoiding rival packs, still likely to play? Our friend Gordon Haber provided an answer. After spending a lifetime observing wolves in Alaska, he observed in his book, Among Wolves, “If a half hour passes without at least some play, it is an unusual half hour in the daily routine of a wolf family…It isn’t coincidental that wolves are at the same time probably the most playful, as well as the most socially cooperative, of nonhuman animals.” Jamie and I both feel that Haber was ahead of his time in how he understood the social order of a wolf pack. Where other biologists saw a family group of hunters, Gordon saw a shared culture and the passing of information over generations. He saw a true society in which play is the glue that holds it together.
Jamie and I were thrilled to have the opportunity to join Gordon on an expedition to film wolves in Alaska in 1995. The first surprise was the Alaskan weather. We arrived in a place called Delta Junction about a hundred miles southeast of Fairbanks on an unseasonably warm March day. We decided to go for a 30-minute run, wearing our light jackets, and before we made it back to our lodging, the temperature had dropped from about 40° above zero Fahrenheit to 40° below!
We were scheduled to fly in a small airplane over the Yukon River and look for wolves from the air, but when our pilot saw the gear we had brought, we had to delay and get properly equipped. Jamie and I had brought all the layers of clothing that got us through winter in the Sawtooths, so why should we worry about being cold in Alaska?
Our pilot had a treat for us filmmakers. When we got to the plane, we saw it had no door. That way I would be able to film wolves without having to peer through scratched Plexiglas windows. I’d have a great view, but the temperature inside the plane would be as frigid as the summit of Denali in a blizzard. That realization sent us to the nearest store in search of as many hand and toe warmers as we could find, plus a stop at the pilot’s home to borrow more gear—the same gear that pipeline workers use to survive prolonged exposure to the fierce cold of the tundra. By the time we boarded the plane, we were buried inside huge parkas, fur-lined pants, and enormous “bunny boots” that made us look like we had Mickey Mouse feet. We were prepared; the only problem was we could barely move.
This was a decade before sophisticated aerial mounts were widely used, and the miniature camera drones that everyone seems to have nowadays were years from being invented. I was tethered to the aircraft with a safety belt, holding a
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