"Never Cry Wolf" by Farley Mowat is touching, instructive and laugh out loud funny. The book is based on Mowat's study of wolves and caribou for two summers and a winter in Canada's subarctic regions in the late 1940s. Employed as a biologist with the federal government of Canada he was asked to confirm that the wolves were a threat to man and were decimating the caribou herds. What he found instead is that wolves do not pose a threat to other species and are neither a danger or a real competitor with man. Wolves serve a vital role in maintaining the long term well-being of a species as they eat only the sick, aged and weak. Mowat says a pack of wolves is far less destructive than a single man with a gun.
Mowat enthralling accounts show that wolves are a courageous family of skillful providers and devoted protectors of their young. The people who monitor and work with the recently introduced wolf packs in Yellowstone confirmed Mowat findings and have a similar reverence and awe.
My first reading of "Never Cry Wolf" in the early 80s changed the way I view wolves. They don't kill for fun, kill more than they can use and are a necessary and natural part of a healthy ecosystem.
Mowat fears that the ongoing onslaught of bounty hunters and government exterminators will erase the wolf communities from the Arctic. He warns in his 1993 book preface, "We have doomed the wolf not for what it is, but for what we deliberately and mistakenly perceive it to be - the mythologized epitome of a savage, ruthless killer - which is, in reality, no more than the reflected image of ourself."
A bad experience
I have a bad experience with the bought of this product because after a month I don't received the merchandise. In the future I will not buy any product to this company osipmail.
Farley Mowat
The book is well written and quite entertaining. I read it twenty-five years ago, bought this copy for my grand-daughter, age 13. However, when I mentioned my enjoyment of the book to my sister-in-law and brother-in-law, who lived in the area where the story takes place, they had a very healthy dislike for Farley Mowat. They didn't like the way he treated the Inuit and leached off everyone he was in contact with. People in Nunavent don't hold him in high regard. They also question his accuracy about how wolves live. In spite of this, I thoroughly enjoyed the book.
Never Cry Wolf
I found this book to be very interesting, was well written and kept me captivated. I love stories about animals and I find the wolf an interesting subject. The company I bought it from provided prompt service.
A Good Wolf Story.....
In Never Cry Wolf, Farley Mowat has written a fascinating book that sympathetically explores the lives of Canadian Grey Wolves in the Arctic.
The author is a rebel against bureaucracy and against the old way of looking at wolves as predators who endangered caribou and other animals in their territories. As a newly minted biologist, he is tasked by the Canadian wild life ministry to document wolf decimation of the caribou in the arctic. Mowat is dropped off in the middle of nowhere with provisions and a several month mandate to undertake his mission and produce a field report.
But he immediately rebels against the pre-conceived conclusion as well as the typical way of doing things upon finding his first wolf. Following it back to its den, Mowat begins a long observation of the wolf family's relationships and habits. He literally camps for entire days very near his quarry and begins to mimic their habits (as well as diet at one point). He quickly concludes that the wolves are not ceaseless caribou predators and instead subsist on field mice he observes them tracking and brining back to the den every day. In fact, the wolves appear only to take caribou sporadically, and the weak and sick at that. But what Mowat learns about wolf life makes the heart of the book.
In Mowat's skillful telling, the wolves' deep family patterns and affections are revealed. His observations personify the canis lupus family to the point where they act and behave more like a successful and loving nuclear family in your own neighborhood than the wild predators they are thought to be.
This is a very sympathetic book and makes a great case for conservation and the preservation of wild animal habitat. It is beautifully written in places and fascinating for the insights the author delivers on his subject.
It was disappointing upon researching this book further to learn that many accuse Mowat of basically making large parts of the book up (including those who worked with him who have made some pretty tough accusations relating to basic facts surrounding his story). In fact, the author in interviews has not squarely denied using some license to drive to his sympathetic portrayals of wolves. This doesn't make the book any less well written or touching, but it does hurt the credibility of the conclusions the author seeks to make.
