Bruce Weide and Pat Tucker lived with a wolf
for 16 years, and needless to say, they have followed Montana’s long
wolf controversy with more than a passing interest.
The story of
how Koani came to be part of their family – and their profession – is
the focus of a new documentary titled “True Wolf,” produced by Montana
filmmaker Rob Whitehair.
Weide and Tucker got Koani when Tucker, a wildlife biologist, was asked to be a consultant on another documentary about wolves.
“This
filmmaker had a batch of wolves born in captivity,” Weide said. “Then
he asked us if we would raise one of those wolves so he could shoot a
scene of Pat and this wolf in a classroom.”
The Bitterroot Valley
residents were just out of graduate school, and agreed to take the wolf
pup, with the belief the filmmaker would reclaim the wolf when the
filming was done. He didn’t, and suddenly they had a huge decision to
make.
“We thought it was not right to have a wolf as a pet, you
know have it chained up in a pen outside,” said Weide. “If we were going
to keep this wolf, we were going to have to come up with leading a
wolf-centered life.”
And so they did. The alternative was to have
Koani euthanized since having been raised in captivity, she did not have
the skills to survive in the wild.
Weide and Tucker formed an
organization called “Wild Sentry” and decided to have Koani be an
“ambassador” for education about wolves. Their lives for the next 16
years, were centered on Koani – a full-time job since wolves are social
animals. Every day, twice a day, using a 50-foot leash attached to a
climber’s harness, they took Koani on two-hour walk/runs. They gleaned
leftover game from the local butcher shop for the hundreds of pounds of
raw meat needed to feed her. They got her a dog, named Indy, for
companionship. They even built a special tunnel from the wolf’s
enclosure into part of their house.
But for all they did, they never forgot this was not the life a wolf was supposed to lead.
“Every
day being faced with the fact that we could not fulfill this animal’s
needs,” said Weide. “I think Koani led a good life in terms of being a
captive wolf. But those animals are meant to be wild and running free …
they’re meant to be chasing elk and deer and being out there in the
wild.”
Weide, Tucker and Indy the dog became Koani’s “pack,” but
they were never under any illusion she could be domesticated. Weide says
they lived by her rules, because she wasn’t going to live by theirs.
They
took Koani to hundreds of schools and community organizations, so kids
and adults could see a real wolf, likely for the first time. They even
made an appearance at the American Museum of Natural History in New York
City and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.
“But
the real power of Koani was that these people had the opportunity to
look a real wolf in the eye,” said Weide, “and seldom did Koani ever
live up to what a wolf should be in their imagination. … For them just
to see this animal had a real impact on them gaining a new understanding
of what wolves really are.”
Weide and Tucker took many videos
documenting their life with Koani – scenes of Tucker and Koani howling
together, Koani pulling them on skis, and Koani snarling menacingly when
they did something she didn’t like. These videos form the fascinating
nucleus of Rob Whitehair’s new documentary.
The film also has real
and re-enacted scenes of wolf opponents at public meetings on the
controversial reintroduction of wolves into Montana and Idaho – a
controversy that has not diminished. Whitehair says he wanted to make
the film in part to show the power of stories in our lives – and to
question stories that show wolves as either demon or deity.
Weide says Koani proved they are neither. Yet he remains conflicted about their life together.
“Koani
very literally stands as this symbol of the wild, and yet here she is
in this captive life,” said Weide. “And I hope that makes viewers
uncomfortable, because it made Pat and I uncomfortable for 16 years. But
I like to think good came from that.”
Like other good
documentaries, “True Wolf” raises as many questions as it answers,
especially about the boundaries of our contemporary relationships with
wild animals.
And you won’t soon forget the ending.
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