Review by Norm: My Life with Wolves: How I Became the Storyteller for the Yellowstone Packs by Rick McIntyre

Rockefeller University professor and humanist Dr. Rene Dubos (1901-1982) began his 1969 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, SO HUMAN AN ANIMAL, with: "Each human being is unique, unprecedented, unrepeatable." "We recognize him by...his creative responses to surroundings and events."  No one illustrates that more colorfully than naturalist-author Rick McIntyre.

No man alive or dead can claim more expertise on wolf behavior gained by firsthand observation than Rick McIntyre.  You can share that in his books.

In his foreword to L. David Mech's 2023 book, THE ELLESMERE WOLVES,  distinguished Italian wolf biologist  Dr. Luigi Boitani wrote: “The key story of the book is one of incredible adaptability, stamina, resilience, and endurance: the wolf is all this."  Rick brings those wolf traits to life in his series of books on Yellowstone's wolves.

In MY LIFE WITH WOLVES; How I Became the Story Teller for the Yellowstone Packs, he introduces us to the book by  - no surprise - telling a true story about an event in the life of the Junction Butte Pack.  He concludes it by observing: "The wolves of Yellowstone have allowed me to witness the joys, disappointments, and often heart-stopping dramas of their lives day after day, year after year, and generation after generation for forty years.  This book is my story - and theirs."

As I began to review MY LIFE, it happened that seasoned writer Brett French of the Billings Gazette wrote a comprehensive review of the book, complete with interviews with Rick, wolf project leader Doug Smith, and cinematographer Bob Landis, with whom Rick worked hand in glove to tell the story of the Yellowstone wolves.  It appeared as Legend of the Lobos in the April 15, 2026, Bozeman Daily Chronicle.  As I read it, I realized it was superior in content to any review I might write, so I asked Brett French if I could reproduce it in this article.  He said, "Yes."  Here 'tis.

As a member of the Yellowstone Center for Resources wolf restoration team, I was in the process of giving 400 talks and mailing thousands of custom responses to inquiries about wolf restoration to high school and college-level students when Rick arrived in 1994, and began to share the effort to inform the public about wolves.  Because of our shared interest, we enjoyed working together to put finishing touches on his second wolf book, A SOCIETY OF WOLVES.  

After I retired in 1997, I was invited to lead field courses on wolves for the Yellowstone Institute.  From 1999 to 2005, I led forty of them.  Before each course, I would phone Rick and let him know when I'd be afield, and in the classroom at the Buffalo Ranch.  Since he was in Lamar Valley daily, he made it a practice to loan me one of his radios, so he could guide me and my groups to where wolves were in sight, and he always took a while to stop in and brief my group on what was going on among the wolves then.  Those actions added immeasurably to the richness of the outings for my course participants and for me. 

In 2003, a bus carrying a group I was leading was parked at the lot at the east end of a trail known as Jackson Grade, and we were trying to see Wolf 302.  Rick called me on the radio and said, "Get your group on the bus.  I think 302 is headed down the road."  

Sure enough, we scrambled aboard, and here came 302, in pursuit by Alpha male 21 of the Druid Peak pack, who avoided the road.   Wolf 302 trotted past the bus, ten yards away, and began to climb the trail.  When he was about a dozen yards opposite us on the trail, an alert guest stood in the seat of the bus and snapped a shot of 302, which is my all-time favorite wolf image.  

Here it is. 

Yellowstone Wolf 302 in 2003.

A common interest in wolves fosters camaraderie among those who study, talk about, and write about them.

 On January 12, 2025, we celebrated their arrival in the park thirty years before.  Jim Halfpenny hosted a group at his track museum that included, left to right, Doug Smith, who led the wolf project from 1997 to 2022, Rick, and Norman Bishop, retired resources interpreter.

Doug Smith, Rick McIntyre, and Norman Bishop, photographed in 2025.