"After forming an intense bond with Natasha, a wolf cub she raised as part of her undergraduate research, Renée Askins was inspired to found the Wolf Fund. As head of this grassroots organization, she made it her goal to restore wolves to Yellowstone National Park, where they had been eradicated by man over seventy years before. In this intimate account, Askinsrecounts her courageous fifteen-year campaign, wrangling along the way with Western ranchers and their political allies in Washington, enduring death threats, and surviving the anguish of illegal wolf slayings to ensure that her dream of restoring Yellowstone’s ecological balance would one day be realized. Told in powerful, first-person narrative, Shadow Mountain is the awe-inspiring story of her mission and her impassioned meditation on our connection to the wild."

To honor Wolf Awareness Week, I delve into this memoir of the founder of Wolf Fund, the organization that was integral to the wolves returning to the wild in Yellowstone and Idaho in 1994-1996. More than a conservation story, Shadow Mountain is a tale of compassion and empathy for wolves, communities, and everyone in-between.

Find a copy for yourself at Amazon