Lone Wolf by Adam Weymouth
I’m back after a summer break that included an unforgettable trip to the Alps, one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. Before my vacation, I had been looking for a book to help set the scene for me but found it surprisingly hard to find the right one.
During the early days of the pandemic, I read Thomas Mann’s early 20th-century novel The Magic Mountain, set in an isolated Swiss tuberculosis sanatorium where the Alps represent a dreamlike escape from reality. It’s a masterpiece, yet also a long slog. This summer, I wanted something more contemporary and approachable, which led me to Lone Wolf: Walking the Line Between Civilization and Wildness by British travel writer Adam Weymouth.
The book recounts Weymouth’s attempt to follow the trail of a young Slovenian wolf named Slavc (pronounced “sh-lough-ts”), who in 2011 traveled nearly 1,000 miles across the Alps to establish the first known wolf pack in Italy in generations. It explores both the remarkable resurgence of wolves across the Alps and the broader story of a rapidly changing Europe, as the return of the wolf has forced residents to confront not only predators in their midst, but also deep anxieties about politics, immigration and the future of rural life. Weymouth also uses his long walk, during what was then the hottest European summer on record, to meditate on the effects of climate change on a vulnerable continent.
Scientists at the University of Ljubljana had outfitted Slavc with a GPS collar that allowed them to follow his movements. A decade later, with each of Slavc’s coordinates recorded on his phone, Weymouth was able to approximate the wolf’s route. The aim, the author writes, was “not to ape him but, by echoing his journey, to see the continent a little more as he did.”
Weymouth shows how the dramatic comeback of wolves across Europe is at once a conservationist success story and a disaster for farmers in remote mountain villages. He interviews many farmers during his journey, who tell him in graphic detail about brutal wolf attacks on their sheep, cattle and horses. One farmer describes terrifying nighttime attacks on his livestock that traumatized his children, and he vents his frustration with European Union bureaucrats whose answer to the problem is that he should build higher fences. While Weymouth is sympathetic to these concerns, it's clear that he remains enthralled by the mystery and romance of the wolf.
For Weymouth, wolves are a stand-in for many things, and he compares the hostility they encounter to that which many migrants in Europe have experienced. He writes that anti-wolf elements of European society also tend to be aligned with far-right political parties, although these parallels did not feel well developed in the book.
Lone Wolf is at its strongest when Weymouth writes about the animals themselves. The wolf was once the most widespread terrestrial mammal on Earth, with an adaptability that rivals that of few species except our own. This may explain why humans across the centuries have viewed them as such a threat.
Since the days of the ancient Greeks, people have tried to eradicate wolves, often in horrific ways: stringing them up, feeding them glass and setting them on fire. In the 800s, Charlemagne organized the louveterie corps, a state-sponsored system of wolf catchers. And here in the United States, an estimated one million to two million wolves were killed as colonists arrived and the country expanded westward.
Since reaching their low point in Europe in 1965, wolves have made an astonishing recovery, with their population increasing roughly 1,800 percent. Nowhere in Europe have wolves been reintroduced – they have returned on their own. However, Weymouth notes that this has not stopped conspiracy theories from spreading among those who insist that wolves were accidentally released by scientists seeking to smuggle them, for some unexplained reason, across Europe, and that Slavc’s GPS map was fabricated.
I enjoyed reading Weymouth’s account of the wolf’s place in the human imagination. He writes about the fear, folklore and reverence that surround wolves – from the idea of the werewolf that has permeated across many cultures to the origin story of ancient Rome, in which a she-wolf nurtures the abandoned twins Romulus and Remus, enabling them to survive and found Rome. Weymouth also tries to dispel myths about wolves, including the concept of an “alpha” that dominates a wolf pack. Instead, he explains, a wolf pack is more like a family, typically consisting of five to 10 animals. Wolves are also very family oriented, with a breeding pair typically remaining together for many years.
It also turns out that the very phrase “lone wolf” is misleading. In popular culture, the lone wolf is a tough guy who rejects the company of others. In reality, a lone wolf has left behind its family to look for three core things: food, territory and a mate. It hasn’t renounced the pack; it simply hasn't yet found what it needs. Leaving the pack, known in scientific terms as “dispersal,” is a dangerous time for a wolf, as juveniles do not hunt well alone and must navigate the perplexing infrastructure of the human world.
Lone Wolf is not always convincing when Weymouth extrapolates the wolf into a metaphor for Europe’s political and cultural anxieties and divisions. But his sharp observations of wolves' behavior and their uneasy coexistence with humans make the book absorbing. And when he describes the stunning landscape he traverses – the meadows, farms and rugged mountain passes – he beautifully captures the enduring allure of the Alps.
