No other North American mammal inspires such a wide range of human emotions as the gray wolf. Feared and admired, cursed and revered, wolves are the stuff of legends and a symbol of America’s vanishing wilderness. The passionate positive and negative responses that wolves inspire in people have complicated the issue of their recovery—both contentious and undecided, but also full of promise. The Wolf Conservation Center’s Executive Director, Maggie Howell, will introduce the Center’s work to save these species, including captive breeding, captive-to-wild release efforts, the husbandry challenge of caring for animals that are rarely seen, and the reward of restoring wolves to their rightful place in the wild.
Before joining WCC in 2005, Howell worked with big cats in the Southwest, where her charges included captive big cats, wolves, bears, and hyenas.