- Member, State of Colorado Wolf Working Group, 2004/5
- CSU wildlife ecologist, 1999-2009
- garywockner@comcast.net, 970-218-8310

DID A BOOK CALL WOLVES BACK TO COLORADO?
Did creative spirit to apologize and heal nature help recolonization efforts?

Fort Collins, CO -- Five years ago, at a time when the State of Colorado was writing a management plan for wolves, a group of writers got the idea to create a book celebrating the potential for wolf reintroduction in Colorado. The book, titled Comeback Wolves: Western Writers Welcome the Wolf Home, won the Colorado Book Award in 2005, and had 35 contributors including internationally celebrated writers Clarissa Pinkola Estes (Women Who Run With The Wolves) and Rick Bass (The Ninemile Wolves). Comeback Wolves also had a foreword by U.S. Congressman (now U.S. Senator) Mark Udall.

The book's website is here: www.ComebackWolves.com

Now in February of 2010, with the first reports of wolves returning to Colorado in the High Country News and Denver Post, the writers are wondering if their book helped call the animals back to the state.

"We sent that book out into the world 5 years ago," said Gary Wockner, co-editor of the Comeback Wolves. "It embodied the hopes and dreams of the public to heal our rift with nature, and to call these animals back to Colorado. Did it work?"

Comeback Wolves sold out its first printing and has been widely reviewed in publications across the western United States (reviews here) including the Rocky Mountain News and Los Angeles Times. The book contains essays and poetry that consider and celebrate the hope of wolves returning to Colorado. The book also offers an apology to wolves for Colorado's past behavior.

"Coloradans could be the luckiest people in the world," said Wockner. "We exterminated wolves from our state many years ago through the most heinous means -- poisoning, trapping, sheer slaughter -- and perhaps now wolves have chosen to forgive us. Comeback Wolves offers an olive branch suggesting that we Coloradans would try again to share our state with these wild animals."

One of the reviewers of Comeback Wolves worded it this way:

"If you believe that literature has the power to change the world, then you will love Comeback Wolves. It's beautiful, important, and full of wild hope." -- Kathleen Dean Moore

"The message of this book and of these potential new Colorado wolves is clear," said Wockner. "Keep writing, keep believing. Hope is still alive. Forgiveness could be the key."

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