The Last Wolf

The best nature writer working in Britain today' - Los Angeles Times Book Review In The Last Wolf, Jim Crumley explores the place of the wolf in Scotland - past, present and future - and challenges many of the myths that have been regarded for centuries as biological fact. Bringing to bear a lifetime's immersion in his native landscape and more than twenty years as a professional nature writer, Crumley questions much of the written evidence on the plight of the wolf in light of contemporary knowledge and considers the wolf in today's world, an examination that ranges from Highland Scotland to Devon and from Yellowstone in North America to Norway and Italy, as he pursues a more considered portrait of the animal than the history books have previously offered. Within the narrative, Crumley also examines the extraordinary phenomenon of wolf reintroductions physically transforming the landscapes in which they live that even the very colours of the land change under the influence of teeming grasses, flowers, trees, butterflies, birds, and mammals that flourish in their company, Crumley makes the case for their reintroduction into Scotland with all the passion and poetic fervour that has become the hallmark of his writing over the years. This is an elegant, erudite and imaginative account that readdresses the place of the wolf in modern Scotland An elegant and imaginative account that readdresses the place of the wolf in modern Scotland from “the best nature writer working in Britain today” ( Los Angeles Times Book Review ). In The Last Wolf , Jim Crumley explores the place of the wolf in Scotland—past, present and future—and challenges many of the myths that have been regarded for centuries as biological fact. Bringing to bear a lifetime’s immersion in his native landscape and more than twenty years as a professional nature writer, Crumley questions much of the written evidence on the plight of the wolf in light of contemporary knowledge and considers the wolf in today’s world, an examination that ranges from Highland Scotland to Devon and from Yellowstone in North America to Norway and Italy, as he pursues a more considered portrait of the animal than the history books have previously offered. Within the narrative, Crumley also examines the extraordinary phenomenon of wolf reintroductions physically transforming the landscapes in which they live; that even the very colors of the land change under the influence of teeming grasses, flowers, trees, butterflies, birds, and mammals that flourish in their company. Crumley makes the case for their reintroduction into Scotland with all the passion and poetic fervor that has become the hallmark of his writing over the years. “Jim Crumley’s task is to persuade the human beings of the Highlands that all of our lives would be richer in the presence of wolves. It is, as he acknowledges, a difficult task. If everybody in Scotland was to read The Last Wolf it would become immeasurably easier.” —Roger Hutchinson, author of The Butcher, the Baker, the Candle-Stick Maker In 1743, according to legend, the last wolf in Scotland was killed by a huntsman near Inverness. At the time the extinction of wolves in Scotland was celebrated. But since then deer have multiplied in the Highlands, destroying the vegetation on which an array of wildlife depends and creating a barren, treeless landscape. Gradually it has become clear that the entire eco-system has been thrown out of balance by the elimination of a top predator. Now there are calls for a limited reintroduction of wolves into Scotland as a way of healing the damaged land. The wolf has been the victim of black propaganda since ancient times. By tellers of folk tales and historians alike it has been described as a slayer of babies, a robber of graves, a devourer of battlefield dead. In this passionate polemic, Jim Crumley argues that these stories are pure fiction, a distortion of reality which prevents people from thinking rationally about the huge benefits the presence of wolves could bring to Scotland. Now is the time for myths to be dispelled, and for the wolf to return to its old home in the highlands.