School Library Journal Starred Review

Gr 5-8-The excitement of science in action fills the pages of these two books. Montgomery focuses on one man and his research on the red-sided garter snake in Canada. The lively text communicates both the meticulous measurements required in this kind of work and the thrill of new discoveries. Large, full-color photos of the zoologist and young students at work, and lots of wriggly snakes, pull readers into the presentation. A list of "unsolved mysteries" about the snakes and instructions on visiting the snake dens will keep interest high to the very last page. Swinburne gives a historical perspective on the extermination of wolves from the Lower 48 states and details the work of biologists in their efforts to reintroduce the animals into Yellowstone National Park. Vintage illustrations (including pictures of dead wolves) and excellent full-color photos document a struggle that, unfortunately, is far from over. A map showing current and historical wolf ranges and a list for further reading that includes books, periodicals, and Web sites are helpful additions. Two outstanding titles that show scientists at work.-Ruth S. Vose, San Francisco Public Library Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

ALA Booklist

Swinburne reprises the controversy surrounding the battle to reintroduce the gray wolf to Yellowstone Park, a 25-year struggle that he calls the toughest conservation issue in American history. In looking back over the history, he gives some sense of the feelings of the farmers and ranchers who sought to eradicate the wolves, but he concentrates largely on biologists, conservationists, and others, such as L. David Mech and Doug Smith, who sought not only to reintroduce the wolves but also educate people as to their value in nature's scheme. He follows with the poignant account of the eventual reintroduction, a story both sad and joyous. The fine and plentiful pictures, by well-known photographer Jim Brandenburg, are disturbing (a distraught wolf caught in the jaws of a steel trap, a dead wolf and her equally dead pups), but they clearly and vividly depict the nobility of the gray wolf in its natural surroundings. (Reviewed March 1, 1999)

Horn Book

Brandenburg's unparalleled wildlife photographs illustrate this cogently organized and skillfully designed account of the reintroduction of gray wolves to Yellowstone National Park. "The number-one goal of the Yellowstone Wolf Project is to remove the gray wolf from the endangered species list," and while the book is in full agreement with this intent, the approach is bracingly journalistic, not sentimental. Bib., ind.

Kirkus Reviews

In the Scientists in the Field series, a title that documents those who have championed the much-maligned wolf, and the science used to dispute claims of ranchers and farmers that wolves threaten cattle and sheep. Wolves, villainized in folklore and literature, were nearly eradicated from North America by early settlers who feared their cattle would be eaten and their children menaced. Farmers shot them, ranchers poisoned them, and bounty hunters killed mothers and cubs in their dens by the thousands. Swinburne chronicles how, in the 1930s, conservationists and ecologists began to study the food chain, and began to see the gray wolf's necessary and important role in the balance of nature. So ingrained is the hatred of wolves that even with the efforts of dedicated scientists, it has taken decades to return the gray wolf to small areas of Yellowstone National Park and to begin efforts to return them to New York state. Swinburne (Guess Whose Shadow?, p. 230, etc.) quotes men and women of the past and present involved in these efforts; some balance is provided by including the views of a rancher, but the author clearly favors the reintroduction of the wolf. Brandenburg's striking full-color photographs of wolves in the wild and in captivity turn an already informative work into a glossy tribute to a majestic animal. (map, bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 10-12)