Yeah, as a certified Wolf Book Reviewer I had to cover one of Ellis' works eventually. He's a bit...(in)famous in the "wolf community".
In this autobiography, Ellis describes his life and how he came to be working with wolves. We start in his childhood with him volunteering and working at wolf centers, to eventually starting his own where he raises his own wolves.
Okay, so if you're not in the know: nowadays and probably even earlier Ellis is kind of considered a charlatan (or at least not very legit) when it comes to his wolf knowledge. He makes some really bullshit claims in this book (even for the time it came out) and since all it's an autobiography he easily could've fabricated some parts of the story (most notably the one where he left society behind for two years to "run with a wolf pack", as he says himself) because no one really was around to confirm what happened on that journey. I'm not saying he made up his story, but just not that he comes across as a credible source regarding wolves when you look at his other claims about the species.
Ellis sure does work with wolves, but he is no scientist and no expert. As you can probably infer by some of the claims he makes in this book. Including a really unique yet obviously wrong application of the "alpha" dominance theory (he does apply it, just not in the traditional way), him insisting incest is normal in wild wolf packs (it's not, there's a reason young wolves disperse from their birth packs), and various other claims. Even outside of this book, he has made other ridiculous claims such as that you can infer a wolf's "rank" in the pack by their colors and markings. So, yeah, Ellis definitely has spent his time with wolves, but most of them were captive (which influences their behavior) and of course he doesn't have his official qualifications.
There's also just the dangerous things he does in this book that just makes most sane people facepalm. Interact physically with wolves as much as possible, including wild ones. This is not just putting himself at risk, but also the wolf. And of course there's the lovely part where he decides to have a she-wolf impregnated by her half-brother by pairing them together during heat. Problem is, there were other brothers of hers in the pen as well, so she ended up being mated by three of her brothers. And of course he insists that incest in wolves is normal and has no averse affects (not true and, again, not true) just to justify this. There's a reason reputable zoos with breeding programs want to prevent incest as much as possible. You're not setting a great example for your wolf center here by having purposeful incest occur.
Writing-wise the book was fine, the writing voice was engaging enough and despite me vehemently disagreeing with a lot of Ellis' thoughts and methods I was still morbidly curious what other bogus claims he was going to make next and where his "wolf journey" would eventually lead. So from a writing perspective it's not godawful, but when you take his claims and reputability into consideration...this is not a good look. I do appreciate what he's trying to do (changing the reputation of wolves for the better) but his methods just...aren't it.
If you want to read non-fiction about wolves by more reputable sources, may I recommend the works by L. David Mech, Rick McIntyre and Ian Mcallister? There's more, of course, but they're a good place to start and have written a decent amount of good wolf non-fiction books.
Rating: 2/5
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