EXCLUSIVE: Dr. Cristina Eisenberg Wants Wolves in Our Backyards

Dr. Cristina Eisenberg

Most people would sound the alarm at the sight of wolves in their backyard while breathing a sigh of relief once they’ve left. For Cristina Eisenberg, it was the exact opposite.

She wanted them back.

“Wolves touch everything in an ecosystem. They are what keep the web of life healthy and thrumming with energy,’ explains Dr. Eisenberg during an email correspondence from her home in rural Montana, just south of the Canadian-American border. “Coexisting with them is far more feasible than some people think.”

The disappearance of wolves from her remote home in Big Sky Country allowed for the encroachment and overpopulation of deer and elk, animals that grazed without fear and destroyed the lush, healthy landscape.

“They were literally browsing the trees and berry-producing shrubs that were trying to grow in our meadow to death,’ says Eisenberg. ‘You see, what makes an elk an elk is that it coevolved with an animal such as the wolf keeping it wary and on the move. It’s called ‘The Ecology of Fear.’”

That moment in the late 1990’s spurred Eisenberg to investigate. The initial presence of the wild carnivores did not disturb Eisenberg, nor did it make her nervous for the safety of herself, her husband, or their two young daughters. She was not yet an ecologist, but the subsequent disappearance of the animals caused visible changes in the environment.

Eisenberg attended Prescott College in Arizona where she earned a Master’s in Conservation Biology and Environmental Writing, following that up with studies at Oregon State University, matriculating with a PhD in Forestry and Wildlife. What was once a curiosity has grown into a powerful understanding, and Eisenberg now teaches and promotes the importance of predators and specifically wolves in natural ecosystems.

“Wolves are keystone predators,” she explains. “Remove them, and an ecosystem can fall apart. I study how wolves touch everything in an ecosystem, from elks to plants to songbirds.”

Part of the education comes in the form of correcting societal predispositions and dissuading the public and government of mass misconceptions.

“Wild wolves are not dangerous to humans,” says Eisenberg, who also notes with wonder that wolves have fresh breath and aromatic fur. “When our daughters were little, they played in our woods, and the wolves would sometimes come around and howl and bring their pups. These wolves never presented any kind of threat to our family, and as a wildlife ecologist who works very closely with wild wolves I have never been threatened by them.”

The threat that exists from wolves, however, is one that has been created by humans. “It is only habituated wolves that present a danger to humans. For example, wild wolves that have been fed by humans in order to attract them (e.g., for photography) lose their respect for humans and can turn on them and attack.”

As a result, wolves have earned a bad reputation, a reputation that continues to propagate the notion that, as Eisenberg puts it, ‘the only good predator is a dead one.’ A purge of wolves was done in the lower United States in the 1920’s, and it is quite possible at one time or another that the continuous 48 had more wolves in captivity than in the wild.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has listed the Gray Wolf as threatened in Minnesota, and endangered elsewhere in the Great Lakes region, and according to Eisenberg, the wolf meets the criteria of recovery as specified in the Endangered Species Act. California is in the midst of a wolf recovery program as well, one that may set a template for other states’ efforts to help the animal thrive once again.

Eisenberg continues to work to note the significances of the maligned creature. She immersed herself in ecosystems, and radio-collared wolves to pen the book, A Wolf’s Tooth, a work profiling the impressive and important hunter, one that Eisenberg describes as ‘nature’s ultimate killing machine.’

Her current book has taken this notion a step further, looking at predators from a wider angle. “The Carnivore Way: A Transboundary Conservation Vision for a Changing World, is about the ecology, conservation status, and public policy of six species of large carnivores in Western North America from Alaska to Mexico,” says Eisenberg. Studying lynx, cougars, grizzly bears, and even wolverines, Eisenberg looks to explain the ways in which people and communities can create healthy, connected landscape with all animals, especially the ones that are a perceived threat to humans.

“I envision a future where a network of private and public mixed-use lands, as well as existing national parks, are managed in such a way as to help these large carnivores thrive,” she says.

“It is a story about people, and what it takes to open our human hearts to carnivores.”

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