Story and Photographs by Ronan Donovan

Modern Huntsman Magazine

Before my time in the Arctic, the notion of domesticating wild wolves seemed like some singular mix of circumstances that allowed for the crossover to occur. Every wolf I’ve seen from Mongolia to Montana ran in terror at the scent or sight of a human. After three summers in the Arctic with wolves that haven’t been spoiled by modern humans, it is clear to me now that the domestication of wolves was not a one-off event.

Hunting With Wolves

The notion that wolves will kill every last elk, deer or moose has been scripted by humans. It is the human hunter that has proven to be the only predator capable of total eradication. Wolves are neither good nor bad. Value is a human construct. Wolves exist because they can.

Ronan
The time that I’ve spent with wild wolves, engrossed in the pulse of their daily life, has been one of the greatest privileges of my life. Not because I have some misguided idea that I’m part of their lives — they do not think of me now, as I do of them — but because I feel that watching any animal liv- ing precisely how it evolved is a privilege.

Ronan Donovan
Without wolves and other predators, the prey animals that human hunters relish the opportunity to stalk would be some- thing very different — something akin to domesticated animals or the deer that browse manicured lawns of suburbia across North America.

Ronan Donovan

Modern Huntsman Magazine

Hunting With Wolves

The notion that wolves will kill every last elk, deer or moose has been scripted by humans. It is the human hunter that has proven to be the only predator capable of total eradication. Wolves are neither good nor bad. Value is a human construct. Wolves exist because they can.

Without wolves and other predators, the prey animals that human hunters relish the opportunity to stalk would be some- thing very different — something akin to domesticated animals or the deer that browse manicured lawns of suburbia across North America.

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