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The New Wolves: The Return of the Mexican Wolf to the American Southwest
Discusses the reintroduction of wild Mexican wolves to the American Southwest, offering a sympathetic view of the many opposing viewpoints on the issue
184 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
2 people are currently reading
179 people want to read
About the author
Rick Bass
117 books481 followersRick Bass was born in Fort Worth, Texas, and grew up in Houston, the son of a geologist. He studied petroleum geology at Utah State University and while working as a petroleum geologist in Jackson, Mississippi, began writing short stories on his lunch breaks. In 1987, he moved with his wife, the artist Elizabeth Hughes Bass, to Montana’s remote Yaak Valley and became an active environmentalist, working to protect his adopted home from the destructive encroachment of roads and logging. He serves on the board of both the Yaak Valley Forest Council and Round River Conservation Studies and continues to live with his family on a ranch in Montana, actively engaged in saving the American wilderness.
Bass received the PEN/Nelson Algren Award in 1988 for his first short story, “The Watch,” and won the James Jones Fellowship Award for his novel Where the Sea Used To Be. His novel The Hermit’s Story was a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year in 2000. The Lives of Rocks was a finalist for the Story Prize and was chosen as a Best Book of the Year in 2006 by the Rocky Mountain News. Bass’s stories have also been awarded the Pushcart Prize and the O. Henry Award and have been collected in The Best American Short Stories.
Bass received the PEN/Nelson Algren Award in 1988 for his first short story, “The Watch,” and won the James Jones Fellowship Award for his novel Where the Sea Used To Be. His novel The Hermit’s Story was a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year in 2000. The Lives of Rocks was a finalist for the Story Prize and was chosen as a Best Book of the Year in 2006 by the Rocky Mountain News. Bass’s stories have also been awarded the Pushcart Prize and the O. Henry Award and have been collected in The Best American Short Stories.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
October 11, 2020
Rick Bass, a naturalist and a writer, recounts the struggle to reintroduce the Mexican wolf to the Southwest. He was involved, hands on, with building one of the pens for the wolves, and talked to both biologists and ranchers, volunteers and opposers, knowing that finally, inevitably, the wolves would be turned loose. It all builds up to March 29th, 1998, when 11 wolves were released in the Apache National Forest in eastern Arizona.
20 years later, their number has increased to over 160 in the wild, with more still in the captive breeding program. This is more than zero before the reintroduction, and more than the initial 11 that were released, and more than the 7 that remained that first year. But it's still critically low, and the wolf mortality is high, which means The New Wolves - published in 1998 - is still as timely as ever.
Other books on Mexican wolves:
The Wolf in the Southwest
The Return of the Mexican Gray Wolf
Vanishing Lobo
El Lobo
20 years later, their number has increased to over 160 in the wild, with more still in the captive breeding program. This is more than zero before the reintroduction, and more than the initial 11 that were released, and more than the 7 that remained that first year. But it's still critically low, and the wolf mortality is high, which means The New Wolves - published in 1998 - is still as timely as ever.
Other books on Mexican wolves:
The Wolf in the Southwest
The Return of the Mexican Gray Wolf
Vanishing Lobo
El Lobo
October 14, 2021
Oh man... The story of Lobo and Blanca (recounted in the penultimate chapter) always makes me sob. This guy's a good writer and this was a relaxing and informative read. Feel like I spent a nice evening with someone who told me wonderful stories.
February 26, 2019
The New Wolves by Rick Bass is when the wolves in the past were being reintroduced. The wolves are slowly decreasing and then there will be a short amount. The characters are Douglas Peacock and Edward Abbey.
The two of them go on a journey, but they don’t find a lot. There is one wolf that travels from Mexico into the Southern part of the United States. The characters would go to church every Sunday morning and see red wolves in front of the church trapped. Every Sunday they would see them slowly vanishing. The wolves all slowly disappeared and the land all got turned into a strip mall, gas station, florists shop, and a James Coney island. Then the wolves out in the wild were hunted down to change the land forever. The Mexican Wolf reintroduction is fully underway in the Blue Mountains of Arizona. 11 wolves were released from the wild Mexican wolves captured in Mexico 20 years ago. Now they roam around in separate packs.
I personally would only recommend this book to people that like wolves because I honestly thought that is was really boring. The only people that probably will like this is people who like animals and wolves. I only like the part of the book when they talked about freeing the wolves and letting them go into the jungle. I disliked how the narrator narrated the book because I thought that it was really boring because I only like books that are realistic fiction.
The two of them go on a journey, but they don’t find a lot. There is one wolf that travels from Mexico into the Southern part of the United States. The characters would go to church every Sunday morning and see red wolves in front of the church trapped. Every Sunday they would see them slowly vanishing. The wolves all slowly disappeared and the land all got turned into a strip mall, gas station, florists shop, and a James Coney island. Then the wolves out in the wild were hunted down to change the land forever. The Mexican Wolf reintroduction is fully underway in the Blue Mountains of Arizona. 11 wolves were released from the wild Mexican wolves captured in Mexico 20 years ago. Now they roam around in separate packs.
I personally would only recommend this book to people that like wolves because I honestly thought that is was really boring. The only people that probably will like this is people who like animals and wolves. I only like the part of the book when they talked about freeing the wolves and letting them go into the jungle. I disliked how the narrator narrated the book because I thought that it was really boring because I only like books that are realistic fiction.
January 20, 2016
The New Wolves: The Return of the Mexican Wolf to the American Southwest by Rick Bass (The Lyons Press 1998) (599.773) is a spectacularly fine volume by Rick Bass. Readers with an interest in natural history or an interest in the current state of the world around us will find this book fascinating. The author is obviously passionate about the western United States and (by the end of the tale) about wolves. His passion is contagious. I highly recommend this book! My rating: 8/10, finished 10/12/13.
March 6, 2018
This was a great book that both educated me about what is known of wolf behavior and the political complications of restoring native species that do not easily fit into America’s capitalistic system that puts the value of products and consumerism over that of our true place within Nature’s ecosystem. I feel inspired by the story of hope for Mexican wolves.
February 15, 2025
I had to read a book for my stewardship and protection of natural resources classes. I have to write a summary and an option of the book so making this one short. It was really good, very insightful a great way to read about a non fiction topic! hope to see the lobos in real life one day 🥹
March 8, 2017
The New Wolves: The Return of the Mexican Wolf to the American SouthwestThis book bases around the story of the Mexican Wolf species which were nearly killed to extinction.
It tells the story of a group of scientists who study the wolves behavior and how they adapt to environments. This book is a very interesting book, and you would love this book if you enjoy animals. Throughout the book, we learn about the Mexican Wolf population and how this amazing species made a strong comeback in the late 1900's. This is one of the best books I've read.
It tells the story of a group of scientists who study the wolves behavior and how they adapt to environments. This book is a very interesting book, and you would love this book if you enjoy animals. Throughout the book, we learn about the Mexican Wolf population and how this amazing species made a strong comeback in the late 1900's. This is one of the best books I've read.
July 22, 2011
My first Rick Bass reading. A perfect mesh of interests for me, since I am already very interested in the gray wolves in the Rockies, their fates intertwined with the various states, and their levels of recovery in different areas.
Bass steps through the reintroduction of Mexican wolves (lobos), from the Endangered Species Act to those whom the wolves may affect (ranchers), to the volunteers and activists taking part in the reintroduction efforts. He lends an element of mysticism and spirit, even animism, to the land and to the wolves. This is woven throughout, not heavyhanded, just his sentiments that the land itself desires what it once had, a complete ecosystem and food chain, natural wild predators. And that when the land and its environment and surroundings are complete, everything (and everyone) benefits. It is a healthy support system.
The book references the studies related to reintroduction, and notes that a lot of guesswork has to go into it, since there was no real documented behaviors or studies of the lobos before we stripped them from the land. Bass's biases are obvious--but this book will mostly invite reads from those with a similar mindset.
I recommend this. A fast read, a nice succinct view into real conservation efforts that are happening today, and that have science, government, and good people behind them.
--- ---
Some of my favorite quotes (of which there were many):
"wolves will make it back to this land because the land desires it" (31)
"I need wilderness, big wilderness, as an antidote to my sins--a place to say, Here I will finally devour nothing" (104)
"if the land is sick, nothing on top of it can truly be vital or healthy" (73)
"I wonder: are we having radicalism bred out of us? What does it say for us when the idea of having one hundred Mexican wolves free in the world again is deemed radical?" (91)
"Everything writes sentences: rivers, streams, wind currents, elk herds, migrating geese, wolves. Everything has a voice. Some voices are merely less audible than others. We ignore them at our peril; in shunning the lessons of history we embrace ignorance, we fail to take advantage of guidelines for the future. Our stories, our lives, our cultures sag and fracture into gibberish and monosyllabic chants of *More, more more*. [...] we are running out of the thing that once sustained us: a certain spirit and imagination upon the land, and certain stories told to us by that land." (121)
"There are no neat stories in nature, no tidy closures with beginning, middle, and end; no epiphanies. There is only ongoing process, continuous struggle." (158)
Bass steps through the reintroduction of Mexican wolves (lobos), from the Endangered Species Act to those whom the wolves may affect (ranchers), to the volunteers and activists taking part in the reintroduction efforts. He lends an element of mysticism and spirit, even animism, to the land and to the wolves. This is woven throughout, not heavyhanded, just his sentiments that the land itself desires what it once had, a complete ecosystem and food chain, natural wild predators. And that when the land and its environment and surroundings are complete, everything (and everyone) benefits. It is a healthy support system.
The book references the studies related to reintroduction, and notes that a lot of guesswork has to go into it, since there was no real documented behaviors or studies of the lobos before we stripped them from the land. Bass's biases are obvious--but this book will mostly invite reads from those with a similar mindset.
I recommend this. A fast read, a nice succinct view into real conservation efforts that are happening today, and that have science, government, and good people behind them.
--- ---
Some of my favorite quotes (of which there were many):
"wolves will make it back to this land because the land desires it" (31)
"I need wilderness, big wilderness, as an antidote to my sins--a place to say, Here I will finally devour nothing" (104)
"if the land is sick, nothing on top of it can truly be vital or healthy" (73)
"I wonder: are we having radicalism bred out of us? What does it say for us when the idea of having one hundred Mexican wolves free in the world again is deemed radical?" (91)
"Everything writes sentences: rivers, streams, wind currents, elk herds, migrating geese, wolves. Everything has a voice. Some voices are merely less audible than others. We ignore them at our peril; in shunning the lessons of history we embrace ignorance, we fail to take advantage of guidelines for the future. Our stories, our lives, our cultures sag and fracture into gibberish and monosyllabic chants of *More, more more*. [...] we are running out of the thing that once sustained us: a certain spirit and imagination upon the land, and certain stories told to us by that land." (121)
"There are no neat stories in nature, no tidy closures with beginning, middle, and end; no epiphanies. There is only ongoing process, continuous struggle." (158)
February 21, 2015
Very interesting read and one that I enjoyed very much. Reading this book it was sad to reflect on all the damage that we, as humanity, have evoked upon the natural world, especially in reference to the animal world. We basically hunted, trapped, and poisoned this species into extinction because we were too greedy to accept livestock losses of up to 10% a year. By the early 1900's the only Mexican Wolves left in the U.S. we're in zoos and by the 1950's they had all but disappeared in Mexico as well. The best part of this book is the questions that it forces you to ask yourself about how we as a people view the world around us. What is important and what isn't important? At the conclusion of this book I know what I felt; as the dominate species on this planet it is our job or rather our responsibility to preserve and protect our natural world. We all need to look outside of ourselves and our little bubbles to see that we can never bend the will of the world to suite only our gluttonous needs. If we don't change our ways and continue to turn a blind eye to what is happening in the world around us, we might all find ourselves in the same situation that the Mexican Wolves are today; clinging to survival in an almost impossible situation.
November 4, 2016
This book is about the reintroduction of Mexican wolves. The author studies the wolves and he talks about the experience he had helping with the reintroduction. The biologists study the wolf patterns and provide research and facts. This book starts out talking about the wolves and what they did in the past. The middle of the book is more facts, research, and the authors experience helping prep for the reintroduction. The ending is where they actually release the wolves and you get to learn about what they do and where they go.
I would recommend this book to someone who loves animals and science. Also someone who is into learning something new. This book is full of information and wisdom. If you are looking for a quick read this book is pretty short with 165 pages.
I would recommend this book to someone who loves animals and science. Also someone who is into learning something new. This book is full of information and wisdom. If you are looking for a quick read this book is pretty short with 165 pages.
July 19, 2010
this is an incredible story and account of the processes of reintroduction of the mexican wolf in the american southwest. rick bass is the perfect blend of scientific mindedness and spiritual mysticism. he understands and communicates perfectly the immeasurable wildness of the wolf. this is a beautiful book and it inspires me heavily to get involved in the fights for endangered species all over the country, and the world.
February 26, 2008
An informative work by an excellent writer on the plight of the endangered Mexican wolf in the American southwest.
October 28, 2008
Wolfiness
April 9, 2009
This book has so much information regarding ecology and lobos plus its almost a hand book to the reintroduction of wolves
February 20, 2011
A good overview of the beginning of the Mexican Gray Wolf reintroduction.
September 30, 2015
As if Edward Abbey were documenting the reintroduction of Mexican wolves to the southwest.
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November 16, 2017The new wolves by Rick Bass are about how the Mexicans wolves were so close to becoming eliminated completely by hunters. The hunters killed a lot of the Mexican wolves and not a lot of them were alive anymore. There was a law passed to stop hunters from killing them, the law was passed to try and protect the wolves from becoming totally eliminated. Some of the remaining wolves were put into zoos in order to protect them and try and reproduce them.
I thought this book was a good book even though it was out of my confront zone. I usually read a lot of fantasy and I really enjoyed this book because it got me interested to know what other species have gone there in their lifetime. I wish this book had a little more interesting facts instead of the borning ones, but other than that I liked this book.
People who like to learn about animals and their past would like to read this book because it is about the Mexican wolfs life and what it went through to have more of their bread be alive. Also, people who like interesting stories about how animals almost were extinct and their recovery should like this book.
I thought this book was a good book even though it was out of my confront zone. I usually read a lot of fantasy and I really enjoyed this book because it got me interested to know what other species have gone there in their lifetime. I wish this book had a little more interesting facts instead of the borning ones, but other than that I liked this book.
People who like to learn about animals and their past would like to read this book because it is about the Mexican wolfs life and what it went through to have more of their bread be alive. Also, people who like interesting stories about how animals almost were extinct and their recovery should like this book.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews