Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
physical (embodied) and cultural (symbolic) animal may be welcome, and where its
survival may be realised.
The place of the wolf in America
Despite its disappearance from the physical space of the US,
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the wolf continues to
occupy a contested and emotionally laden symbolic space within the American
imagination, prompting one author recently to ask, 'what do wolves mean?' (Scarce
1998). Shepard (1996:291) contends, 'every culture has its ultimate animal…[one
that] implies a unity—the most powerful effect of the animal on the mind.' In that
collective culture of 'American', surely there exists no more likely candidate for this
post than the wolf. Few other animals have been the focus of such an extensive
campaign of cultural representation (in art, science, film, audio, photography) or
have been so intensively pursued (by bounty hunters, photographers, film-makers,
biologists) as has the wolf in the American context.
Over the past several decades, the wolf has experienced a remarkable
transformation in the American imagination. It has emerged from an absolute fear
and loathing that resulted in its violent extermination from the greater part of North
America to occupy a position of admiration and fetish-like devotion among scores
of enthusiasts that has resulted in its recent return to the physical landscape. Aided
in no small part by the writings of Aldo Leopold (1949) and Barry Lopez (1978), the
photography of Jim Brandenburg and the research of biologist David Mech, the
wolf has, to a large extent, shed the loathsome and evil character once associated
with it and today embodies metaphorically concepts such as 'wilderness' and
'wildness' (Brick and Cawley 1996:1; Mech 1995), 'paradise lost' (Brick and Cawley
1996:2) and the 'wild, the free, the uncommodifiable' (Emel 1995:709).
For its advocates, this radical change in the symbolic space of the wolf in America
signals an opportune and unparalleled moment in American history to restore this
animal to the physical space from which it was removed so long ago. Yet, despite its
successful and relatively rapid restoration within the American imaginary, the wolf's
restoration to the physical landscape will not prove to be as simple. The embodied,
sentient wolf remains an emotional and political lightning rod. Among its
enthusiasts, wolf restoration and protection programmes have acquired an intensity
and a symbolism that appear more apologetic than scientific, more emotional than
ecological, often appearing to parallel an emergent shame over 'historical' brutality
towards Native American populations (see, e.g., Wishart 1994).
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Restoration
opponents, on the other hand, have shed the wolf of its 'old world' demonic
qualities (see Lopez 1978), replacing them with a more insidious and politically
powerful set of metaphors. To its opponents, the wolf is the current embodiment of
a conservation discourse perceived as unyielding and relentless, an agenda promoted
by an urban-based environmental agenda considered elitist, illegitimate, hegemonic
and exclusionary (Arnold 1996; Brick 1995; Heiman 1988:210-216; Nixon 1992;
Snow 1996).
