- You see in the movies cowboys are depicted as generally men.

They are people that are out in the landscape and they're eating beans watching their herd and making sure that predators don't attack them.

It's a cow and wolf protecting cowboy.

So instead of pulling out a rifle to deal with that wolf, it's a cowboy that pulls out something else before lethal is ever grabbed.

(narrator howling) (coyote's howling) We're still a little damp from our last ride Buddy.

Hey buddy.

So everything on the southern aspect of that to everything we can see east of us, this is all part of the federal grazing allotment.

For me, the first time I saw it, it was like, well, this just doesn't look like a place where I would normally see cows.

There's two packs in there, probably consisting of 10 wolves somewhere in that chunk of land with 150 cattle, a lot of space to cover especially for one guy and his horse.

Very good boy.

For all of my twenties, I spent working with wolves in captivity.

I was the lead animal care for Wolf Haven.

It's a world renowned wolf sanctuary.

Being in close proximity to wolves like that is something that's kind of ineffable in a way.

When you look at a wolf, you really see that primal aspect of what we used to be too and like a life that a lot of us really crave still.

I kept hearing about all these horrible things that were happening to the wolves.

They were getting killed quite regularly in my home state.

I just felt like I needed to do something for wild wolves.

I took a map of Washington.

I found out where all the wolf packs were located and I was like, okay they're all up in this northeast corner.

And I literally was like, I kind of connected the dots and drew a circle and I was like I'm gonna go in the middle of all those guys that need help.

Majority of the people live on the west side where there's very little wolf activity.

70% of the population love wolves and there's really no cattle ranching.

Then you come over to the east side the majority of the population does not like wolves.

Once wolves learn how to hunt cattle it can become a real problem.

Let's get out boys.

You guys did well on your ride.

Yes you did.

In the 1930s, we eradicated the species from the landscape for our own personal needs.

Oh no back.

They're only in a fraction of their home range where they used to be.

Wolves recovering in some of their areas has been a great success story in many ways for the endangered species program.

They invoke a very like passionate response on either end of the spectrum generally.

So they get re-listed and that federal protection does offer some protection even though there's still poaching that goes on.

We often see wolf recovery as a number that we have to meet and then we're good, right?

And it's like, nah, I don't believe that.

I think wolf recovery happens when we've cultivated that want for the community to have wolves.

and landscape.

This culture needs help and these animals need help and they both deserve to be out here.

I really feel kinda like I'm right where I need to be.

(cows mooing) What's up big fella?

Haven't seen you in a while.

Yeah, so sometimes I'll just spend time with the herd like this just to help him acclimate to my presence.

Stay.

(soft music) Throughout the whole day.

You're just like constantly on, and you have to be aware of what's going on around you.

And you have to be ready for kind of anything to happen.

So in order to find out what they're eating, you obviously have to get in to the core of this.

It's really a bad thing when you break those scats open and you actually find a bunch of cow hair.

If we see that, we're like, okay, they're continuing to come back here and why is that?

And how can we kind of maybe disrupt that behavior or outright change it?

(birds chirping) My job is to scare the heck out of them and associate that fear with the cattle and myself.

(gun shot) (leaves rustling) I am gonna howl, see if they respond.

(narrator howling) (wolves howling) (narrator howling) (wolves howling) Alright babe, these pups are like right by us.

(howling continues) Sorry guys, (inaudible) Not in the safest spot Loud noise guys.

(gun shot) So we just got done putting some pressure on 'em just 'cause they're in some private land areas and they're right adjacent to houses and that sounded like the whole family unit.

So let's regroup back out here.

(narrator howling) (wolves howling) Here how far down there are?

We did disrupt them.

I broke.

(howling continues) Oh there's one right there.

See him?

Right in the road.

All right, I gotta scare him though.

He is looking at us too much.

(gun shot) You gotta move.

Not a good spot here, baby.

I'm gonna put some fear of humans in 'em or else somebody will take a shot at one of those guys like that.

Little buddy's just running down the road.

You can tell he's just this year's young.

He doesn't know what to do.

For me, that's way too close to human activity.

That's way too much potential for conflict.

So I think we made a good impact on those.

That was actually a positive thing to encounter them like that.

That could also have saved that whole pack's life right there.

That one encounter.

At the end of the day, the alternative of them dying because they killed my friend's cows, that's not an acceptable alternatives.

So I have to scare them.

These fates are intertwined.

I don't think that the wolf conflict is really about wolves.

I think it's a disconnect problem.

Rural Americans are disconnected from city dwelling Americans.

They're just nervous that this lifestyle that they're trying to pass on to the next generation in this ever-changing world is just gone.

It's gonna disappear.

We have much more in common than what we do differently.

And I think the world's in dire need of that.

You know?

And and wolves are a good example of how we can learn that as humans.

(soft music)