The Rise of Wolf 8 - The Alpha Wolves of Yellowstone by Rick McIntyre Paperback

About the Book

Yellowstone National Park was once home to an abundance of wild wolves--but park rangers killed the last of their kind in the 1920s. Decades later, the rangers brought them back, with the first wolves arriving from Canada in 1995. This is the incredible true story of one of those wolves. Wolf 8 struggles at first--he is smaller than the other pups, and often bullied--but soon he bonds with an alpha female whose mate was shot. An unusually young alpha male, barely a teenager in human years, Wolf 8 rises to the occasion, hunting skillfully, and even defending his family from the wolf who killed his father. But soon he faces a new opponent: his adopted son, who mates with a violent alpha female. Can Wolf 8 protect his valley without harming his protâegâe? Authored by a renowned wolf researcher and gifted storyteller, The Rise of Wolf 8 marks the beginning of an original and bold new trilogy, which will transform our view of wolves forever.

Book Synopsis

"The powerful origin story of one of Yellowstone's greatest and most famous wolves." --Washington Post

"[The Rise of Wolf 8] is a goldmine for information on all aspects of wolf behavior and clearly shows they are clever, smart, and emotional beings." --Marc Bekoff, Psychology Today

Yellowstone National Park was once home to an abundance of wild wolves--but park rangers killed the last of their kind in the 1920s. Decades later, the rangers brought them back, with the first wolves arriving from Canada in 1995.

This is the incredible true story of one of those wolves.

Wolf 8 struggles at first--he is smaller than the other pups, and often bullied--but soon he bonds with an alpha female whose mate was shot. An unusually young alpha male, barely a teenager in human years, Wolf 8 rises to the occasion, hunting skillfully, and even defending his family from the wolf who killed his father. But soon he faces a new opponent: his adopted son, who mates with a violent alpha female. Can Wolf 8 protect his valley without harming his protégé?

Authored by a renowned wolf researcher and gifted storyteller, The Rise of Wolf 8 marks the beginning of The Alpha Wolves of Yellowstone series, which will transform our view of wolves forever.

Review Quotes

An Amazon.com Best Science Book of 2019!

Runnerup -- 2020 Reading the West Book Awards!

Named a Notable Book by the 2019 Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Awards!

"[McIntyre's] greatest strength is the quiet respect and wonder with which he regards his subjects, a quality clearly informed by decades of careful watching."
--Publishers Weekly

"Rick's book [The Rise of Wolf 8] is a goldmine for information on all aspects of wolf behavior and clearly shows they are clever, smart, and emotional beings."
--Psychology Today

"The main attraction of this book, though, is the storytelling about individual wolves, including the powerful origin story of one of Yellowstone's greatest and most famous wolves."
--Washington Post

"Yellowstone's resident wolf guru Rick McIntyre has been many things to many people: an expert tracker for the park's biologists, an indefatigable roadside interpreter for visitors, and an invaluable consultant to countless chronicles of the park's wolves--including my own. But he is first and foremost a storyteller whose encyclopedic knowledge of Yellowstone's wolf reintroduction project--now in its 25th year--is unparalleled."
--Nate Blakeslee, New York Times bestselling author of American Wolf

About the Author

RICK MCINTYRE has spent more than fifty years watching wolves in America's national parks, twenty-five of those years in Yellowstone, where he has accumulated over 100,000 wolf sightings and educated the public about the park's most famous wolves. He has spoken about the Yellowstone wolves with 60 Minutes, NPR, and CBC, and he is profiled extensively in Nate Blakeslee's American Wolf and in international publications. He lives in Silver Gate, Montana.

ROBERT REDFORD--actor, director, and producer--has been a passionate art and environmental activist since the early 1970s. He has been an advocate for climate change awareness, clean energy, and habitat protection for over forty years.