Feature: Yellowstone NP's wolf biologist on what an old male might be thinking
Every year I sit alone with a wolf. The wolf doesn’t agree to this, as I catch it as part of a research program on wolves in Yellowstone National Park. The wolf is sedated, but we still sit together, alone, looking out at the great park.
I cherish these moments. The quiet beauty all around and the wolf's presence; it almost seems as if the wolf is talking to me. A look into wolf eyes will make you think deeply about life. The incessant, drowning-out noise of humanity gets turned off. I strain to understand what this life might be like. One time, when others were boarding the helicopter to fly out, leaving me alone with a wolf, I said: "If you don't come back it's okay. Leave me here forever with the wolf."