A Wolf Called Romeo

May 12, 2014
Nature photographer and author Jans (The Grizzly Maze) reflects on a six-year relationship between the citizens of Juneau, Alaska, and an unusually friendly lone black wolf named Romeo. Jans recalls his early meetings with the wolf on Mendenhall Lake, including when it intercepted a tennis ball intended for Jans’s Labrador. Romeo’s popularity grew through press coverage and word-of-mouth; he became “the town’s de facto mascot” and companion to innumerable local canines. Jans’s story is marred by political strife caused by Alaska’s “controversial wildlife management” practices, with off and on aerial gunning programs targeting wolves which the human residents, “infused by a free-thinking, old-Alaska egalitarianism,” largely disapproved. Threats to Romeo’s survival escalate after a couple near-violent incidents with area dogs forces the Fish and Game agency to consider removing the wolf. Hunters set up illegal traps and a dog was mistakenly, and brutally, killed. When Romeo disappears, outdoorsman Harry Robinson investigates, leading police to a pair of sadistic poachers. Jans explains pack hierarchy and the punishing wolf life cycle, “a Darwinian gauntlet that demanded constant adaptation and complex responses,” and defends the animals as unfairly perceived to be a threat to humans. Insightful and philosophical, Jans probes the boundaries between wilderness and civilization and our responsibilities to the untamed creatures in our midst. Photos. Agent: Elizabeth Kaplan.