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| Never Cry Wolf : Amazing True Story of Life Among Arctic Wolves | 
| Author: Farley Mowat
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Category: Book
List Price: $12.99
Buy Used: $1.62
You Save: $11.37 (88%)
New (40) Collectible (2) from $5.20
Avg. Customer Rating:  81 reviews
Sales Rank: 12501
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.8
ISBN: 0316881791
Dewey Decimal Number: 599.773
EAN: 9780316881791
ASIN: 0316881791
Publication Date: September 13, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More.
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| Customer Reviews:
 A taste of real arctic adventure June 22, 2008
This is an excellent book by and excellent author. Having traveled much in the arctic by kayak and canoe, I was thrilled to read a book capturing some of the idiosyncrasies that I've experienced myself. The joys and tragedies of the arctic come through brilliantly and only those with a hatred of wolves could fail to see the obvious conclusions Mowat makes concerning the fate of the caribou. I bicycled the Dempster highway in 2005 and found the landscape littered with caribou remains; a slaughter empowered by a gravel road. Time has proven Mowat right in his conclusions. Man, a relative newcomer, is responsible for the declines in wildlife, not the wolves who have lived on the land for countless centuries. The old saying of wolves and caribou: 'the caribou feeds the wolf and the wolf makes the caribou stronger' seems obvious now. Man on the other hand hunts the strongest in the breed, weakening the herd, kill by kill.
 I don't think they would print what I would like to say May 4, 2008
I read this ...how do you say "NOVEL" pretending to be non-fiction when in grade school years ago.
Since then I have learned that Sir Mowatt doesn't let the truth get in the way of a good yarn.
I will never read any book by him again. ...I give it a negative 5 stars.
save your money and buy a comic book.
Enthralling April 1, 2008
I have come to Farley Mowat and NEVER CRY WOLF rather belatedly, considering the author has been out there stirring things up for fifty years. I found the book absolutely enthralling and could not put it down.
Essentially, as a young field biologist emerging from World War II, Mowat signed up with the government which sent him north to study wolves. The government understood from hunters that wolves were decimating caribou herds and wanted to know more in order to correct the problem. Mowat heads north to the lonely tundra for what begins with a lot of disinformation about the lupine species, bureaucratic nonsense and a slapstick exercise in transportation and establishing a base of operations. Fortunately for him, a half Eskimo dog sledder named Mike shows up and helps him get his feet on the ground. What ensues is a study both in human comedy and the beauty of a naturalist's job. The wolf family Mowat observes is a model of nature in balance. Are they responsible for the overkill of caribou? Of course not. People are.
I gather that Mowat has earned some critics and enemies in his pursuit of environmental consciousness and an enthusiasm for bucking convention. I understand that there are those who discredit his research. This narrative exudes an honesty that makes this reader trust Mowat first.
wolf January 19, 2008
This is a true story and is amazing. It also shows the corruption of governments that attempt to blame animals for human excesses.
Whether it's 100% true or not, it still needs to be read December 21, 2007
I can't believe I never got around to reading this book until now. (I haven't seen the loosely adapted movie version, either). I snagged a used copy, though, and thoroughly enjoyed this quick but poignant read. At once joyful and heartbreaking, over three decades after it first appears it still delivers an important message amid a wonderful true story.
According to the book, Mowat got dropped into the middle of the Canadian wilderness on a government mission to "prove" that wolves were responsible for the depletion of caribou (and also to "prove" the innocence of thousands upon thousands of human hunters). Over the course of the next few months, he not only discovered a small family of wolves, but was able to observe them over time as they raised pups, hunted prey of all sizes, played, and did a lot of sleeping. He also encountered local Inuits and while some of the interactions were on the awkward side, he gained a good bit of knowledge about the wolves from them.
I won't give away the ending for those who haven't read it; needless to say, it was hard not to cry on the train this morning as I finished the book.
Never Cry Wolf has gained a good bit of criticism; wolf biologist L. David Mech has said that he's never seen some of the behaviors Mowat described, including wolves living on mice, and the fact that Mowat wasn't a scientist is also used against him. Whether the book is largely fictional or not, it still managed to paint one of the very first sympathetic pictures of Canis lupus. Even if you read it entirely as a novel, it's still an incredibly entertaining read, and I highly recommend it.
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Wildlife, nature and the Environment
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