Persecuted by Anglo gold miners in the mid-nineteenth century and forced to abandon much of their homelands, like other Indian tribes today, the Nez Perce now link their health and future with the recovery of wild animal species. Just like Great Plains tribes are trying to bring back the buffalo, the Nez Perce are involved with wolf recovery.
Today we visited the Wolf Recovery and Education Center at Winchester, Idaho. After a poignant and powerful introduction by Levi Holt, whose Indian name is Black Beaver, we were able to walk quietly into the woods and wait for the wolves. In the silence of the forest they glided through the pines and came right up to the special boundary fence, which protects them--and us. Wolves are special creatures because they are intelligent carnivores and we have eliminated them throughout most of the United States, but here in the mountains of Idaho the Nez Perce tribe protects them. Wolves are a powerful symbol. As biologist Daniel Botkin writes, "Where we are, there are no wolves; where the wolf lives, there is wilderness."
Lewis and Clark wrote about wolves and called them the "companions" of the buffalo. Half a century ago Aldo Leopold wrote about wolves in his seminal essay "Thinking like a Mountain." He wrote in the 1930's about conservation and how "We all strive for safety, prosperity, comfort and long life. A measure of success in this is well enough . . . but too much safety seems to yield only danger in the long run. Perhaps this is behind Thoreau's dictum: In wildness is the preservation of the world. Perhaps this is the hidden meaning in the howl of the wolf, long known among mountains, but seldom perceived among men." Today we saw the wolves. We heard them howl. And we came away more humble, more aware of our place in the natural world.
