The province killed 463 wolves in the habitat of 10 herds, spending an average $4,300 for each dead wolf. While the controversial cull may provide temporary relief for caribou, experts say there’s no easy fix for declining herds being squeezed out by industrial development.

Read an excerpt from the story in The Narwhal:

Wolves have long been a source of fascination for biologist Kevin Van Tighem, who grew up in southern Alberta in the 1960s and 1970s. He read widely about the exotic creature he had never seen, an animal often hated and feared: depicted in a popular fairy tale as a big-toothed, big-eyed monster whose trickery would soon be rewarded with a pleasant meal.

Van Tighem’s first personal encounter with a wolf — unexpectedly hearing one howl near his home in Banff — helped launch him on a lifelong journey to understand our complicated relationship with the shaggy canid whose ancestors branched off millions of years ago in the tree of evolution, eventually to gift humans with our most loyal companions: dogs.

There was a particular poignancy to that first surprising howl, recalls Van Tighem, author of the prize-winning book The Homeward Wolf.  

Wolves had been exterminated from southern Alberta — hunted, trapped and poisoned by strychnine, along with foxes and skunks and the inevitable by-catch of other furry and winged critters, including ravens. 

Now, they were back. 

Read the full story in The Narwhal

Illustration by Carol Linnitt