Readers will learn about the grey wolf and its behaviors, as well as the efforts to bring the wolf back.

At one time, the howling of gray wolves was a common sound throughout North America. Readers will learn more about these pack animals and what brought them to the edge of extinction. They will also find out more about the steps that have been taken to reintroduce gray wolves to the territories where they once roamed freely.

Find out what a gray wolf has in common with a red fox or an African lion. Discover what sets a gray wolf apart from a manatee or a giant panda. Readers will compare and contrast key traits of gray wolves—their appearance, behavior, habitat, and life cycle—to traits of other mammals. Charts and sidebars support key ideas and provide details. Through gathering information about similarities and differences, readers will make connections and draw conclusions about what makes this animal a mammal and how mammals are alike and different from each other.

Describes the physical characteristics of wolves and conservation efforts being carried out to protect them from becoming extinct.

Once vilified as a savage beast and systematically exterminated, the gray wolf has only been restored to sustainable numbers over the past few decades. In this book, readers will discover the tragic history and the prejudice surrounding the gray wolf and learn how wolves were saved by the determined efforts of conservationists. Examining the misconceptions that caused wolves to be targeted in the past, this informative and thought-provoking text examines how the growing understanding of ecology helped save the wolf from extinction. With photographs, sidebars, and a helpful timeline, this book is sure to inspire young conservationists.

In this book, early fluent readers will learn how the gray wolf came back from the brink of extinction. Vibrant, full-color photos and carefully leveled text will engage young readers as they learn more about the animal's habitat, diet, behaviors, and current status, as well as how conservation efforts helped these animals make a comeback.

In this book, we document and evaluate the recovery of gray wolves (Canis lupus) in the Great Lakes region of the United States. The Great Lakes region is unique in that it was the only portion of the lower 48 states where wolves were never c- pletely extirpated. This region also contains the area where many of the first m- ern concepts of wolf conservation and research where developed. Early proponents of wolf conservation such as Aldo Leopold, Sigurd Olson, and Durward Allen lived and worked in the region. The longest ongoing research on wolf–prey relations (see Vucetich and Peterson, Chap. 3) and the first use of radio telemetry for studying wolves (see Mech, Chap. 2) occurred in the Great Lakes region. The Great Lakes region is the first place in the United States where “Endangered” wolf populations recovered. All three states (Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan) developed ecologically and socially sound wolf conservation plans, and the federal government delisted the population of wolves in these states from the United States list of endangered and threatened species on March 12, 2007 (see Refsnider, Chap. 21). Wolf management reverted to the individual states at that time. Although this delisting has since been challenged, we believe that biological recovery of wolves has occurred and anticipate the delisting will be restored. This will be the first case of wolf conservation reverting from the federal government to the state conser- tion agencies in the United States.