Barry Holstun Lopez

Contributing editor of North American Review, writer for Harper's, and author of numerous books including Desert Notes: Reflections in the Eye of a Raven and Giving Birth to Thunder. Resident of Oregon.

The wolf's body, from neck to hips, appears to float over the long, almost spindly legs and the flicker of wrists, a bicycling drift through the trees, reminiscent of the movement of water or of shadows. Of Wolves and Men, 1978.

 

I think, because the killing is so righteously pursued and yet so entirely without conscience, killing wolves has to do with murder. Ibid.

 

No one knows how many animals were killed on the plains from, say, 1850 to 1900. If you count the buffalo for hides and the antelope for backstraps and the passenger pigeons for target practice and the Indian ponies (by whites, to keep the Indian poor), it is conceivable that 500 million creatures died. Perhaps 1 million wolves; 2 million. The numbers no longer have meaning. Ibid.

 

There is something deep-seated in men that makes them want to "take on" the outdoors, as though it were something to be whipped, and to kill wolves because killing a wolf stands for real triumph. Ibid.