Mech's landmark study of wolves and moose on Isle Royale National Park on Lake Superior. The author lived among them during the three-years of his research. Isle Royale is an isolated wilderness ecosystem which is perfect for scientific study.Dr. L. David Mech is the best-known and most highly regarded wolf researcher in the world. He works with the Biological Services Division, U.S. Geological Survey, and is also the author of several other books on wolves. He has studied wolves and their prey full-time since 1958, except for a four-year period when he studied radio-tracking. During this record-long career as a wolf biologist, he has published numerous books and articles; this book was originally published by the National Park Service in 1966."Mech is the foremost expert on wolves in this country, possibly in the world, hands down." - Smithsonian magazine

For more than nine years the wolves in Alaska's Denali National Park were the subject of intense research by a group of renowned scientists led by L. David Mech. The result of their work is the most comprehensive study of a population of wolves and their prey ever available. This accessible, fascinating, and extensively illustrated book will appeal to researchers, general readers, and wolf enthusiasts across the world.

Wolves are some of the world's most charismatic and controversial animals, capturing the imaginations of their friends and foes alike. Highly intelligent and adaptable, they hunt and play together in close-knit packs, sometimes roaming over hundreds of square miles in search of food. Once teetering on the brink of extinction across much of the United States and Europe, wolves have made a tremendous comeback in recent years, thanks to legal protection, changing human attitudes, and efforts to reintroduce them to suitable habitats in North America. As wolf populations have rebounded, scientific studies of them have also flourished. But there hasn't been a systematic, comprehensive overview of wolf biology since 1970. In Wolves, many of the world's leading wolf experts provide state-of-the-art coverage of just about everything you could want to know about these fascinating creatures. Individual chapters cover wolf social ecology, behavior, communication, feeding habits and hunting techniques, population dynamics, physiology and pathology, molecular genetics, evolution and taxonomy, interactions with nonhuman animals such as bears and coyotes, reintroduction, interactions with humans, and conservation and recovery efforts. The book discusses both gray and red wolves in detail and includes information about wolves around the world, from the United States and Canada to Italy, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Israel, India, and Mongolia. Wolves is also extensively illustrated with black and white photos, line drawings, maps, and fifty color plates. Unrivalled in scope and comprehensiveness, Wolves will become the definitive resource on these extraordinary animals for scientists and amateurs alike. "An excellent compilation of current knowledge, with contributions from all the main players in wolf research. . . . It is designed for a wide readership, and certainly the language and style will appeal to both scientists and lucophiles alike. . . . This is an excellent summary of current knowledge and will remain the standard reference work for a long time to come."--Stephen Harris, New Scientist "This is the place to find almost any fact you want about wolves."--Stephen Mills, BBC Wildlife Magazine