The owner of Wolf People, Nancy Taylor, cuddling wolves. (Courtesy of John Christopher Fine)

The pups were 4 months old. Each had a distinct personality and vied for attention. They were domestic animals, as domestic as wolves bred and born in captivity can be. Still they were wolves. Even the name provokes human emotion that can be unsettling.

Many stockmen resent the reintroduction of wolves into national parks and blame those that drift onto public and private range lands for killing young livestock and pets. There are tourists who fall in love with wilderness and build million-dollar log homes in forests, and then complain that there are wolves and bears that annoy them. There are naturalists who demand protection for wolves, citing the important role they play in the environment.

Some people assume wild wolves are as cuddly as the domestic ones that roll on their backs to have their bellies scratched at Wolf People. Hunters say wolves kill their target animals and some, despite stiff penalties if they are caught, shoot wolves on sight.

Seeing the cute little wolf pups snuggling into Nancy Taylor’s arms in a large pen at the Wolf People facility in Cocolalla, Idaho, it was clear that even these domestic wolves in captivity are magnificent creatures. Wolves are capable of great love and loyalty, and they are intelligent and alluring.

Will places like Wolf People, a center designed to educate about wolves, be the only way that wolves can be preserved? Will these animals, like so many species before them, be banned from the wild, permitted only to exist in parks and zoos?

Human greed continues to develop wilderness outposts ever infringing on the range of wild animals and forcing them to exist on the temptations of garbage cans or livestock. Just as there are no werewolves or real-life Draculas, there are no animal behaviors with motives other than survival. Only human beings kill for reasons other than survival. Yet wolves in the wild do interfere with human order. Despite the fact that a conservation organization pays stockmen for any animals confirmed killed by wolves, they remain anathema to ranchers in the West.

When bison roamed the Great Plains in great numbers, and estimates put them at from 40 million to 60 million before the white man intruded and slaughtered the herds, there was an estimated 2.5 million wolves in the western territories. By the early 1940s, wolf eradication programs succeeded in killing all wolves in the lower 48 states with the exception of remote bands living in Minnesota’s winter snowbound wilderness.

Naturalists had to trap wolves in Canada to repopulate the national parks. This was a controversial policy then as it is now, and it is hard to say that a wolf wearing a heavy tracking collar can be integrated fully into the wild or even adapt to the rugged life of forming a pack and surviving. The packs exist and the wolves drift beyond park boundaries—and therein lies the trouble for them.

The Beginnings of Wolf People

Originally from Minnesota, Nancy Taylor moved to Idaho from Arizona in June 1990. “We formed Wolf People to educate people about wolves. We change hundreds of minds of people every year. We always bring some of our wolves to the center from home. People that visit can hold the little wolf babies and help us socialize them,” Nancy said.

Two of the 4-month-old pups demanded her attention, and Nancy alternated between scratching their bellies and receiving enthusiastic licks on her face. “We go into schools, parks, and places of business with our wolves, and tours come here,” Nancy explained.

When asked how she got involved with wolves, Nancy answered, “After I lost a very special dog, a collie-Australian shepherd mix called Rocky—to me, my ultimate dog—I didn’t want another dog. I talked to people about wolves. I got Shiloh, a wolf hybrid with Malamute. It was the most incredible animal I ever met.”

“Two days after I moved to Idaho, I got my first full-breed wolf from a breeder in Montana. Cherish was a grizzled sable Canadian timber wolf and Alaskan Arctic wolf cross. We got our start from breeders. We don’t take rescue wolves or take them out of dens,” Nancy explained.

“Most of the wolves we have, have been bred on our property. We have 15 adults and 5 wolf cubs now,” she said.

“They go home with us at night. They are all leash trained. They ride in the back of our truck in their cages. If they drive in a closed vehicle, they get sick,” Nancy said.

“Wolves are very destructive in a home. Each pair lives in a 5,000-square-foot enclosure. We have a 5-acre enclosed playpen of zoo quality. We live on 50 acres so they have loads of room,” she explained.

“What we are is all about education. We feed them beef, turkey, chicken, and lamb. This time of year, we get moose meat and venison.”