The Wolf Preservation Blog

Discovery Channel premieres a new special on July 7th. The 90-minute documentary follows an expedition team into the Cascade Mountains to discover the fate of Washington’s pioneer pack of wolves, the Lookout Pack, with surprising results.

SATURDAY, JULY 7th, Discovery Channel, 8:00 pm PT/ET*

(*Check local listings, as times may vary)

Wolves are making a comeback in the Northwest, but they face challenges from illegal killing and loss of habitat. It’s up to all of us to decide their future.

About the documentary: Man vs. Wolf

Few other animals inspire such passion as the wolf. For thousands of years they were America’s most widely distributed predator. European colonists brought centuries-old animosity toward the wolf with them to North America, and as Americans and their livestock expanded west, local predator control escalated into a full-scale wolf-eradication program. By the early 20th century, more than a million wolves had been poisoned, trapped, or shot. Pushed to the brink of extinction, the wolf found protection under the 1973 Endangered Species Act (ESA) only to be stripped of that protection in the northern Rockies by the U.S. Congress in 2011. As rumors of new wolf packs in the Pacific Northwest abound, Discovery Channel explores the sightings in Man vs. Wolf which premieres on Saturday, July 7 at 8 PM ET/PT (check local listings).

Man vs. Wolf follows an elite team through the rugged terrain of one of America’s great wilderness areas, the Cascade Mountains in Washington State, as they search for an elusive and mysterious pack of 10 wolves, the “Lookout Pack,” rumored to be in the area. These wolves were the first to have been discovered there in nearly 100 years. Team leader Jasmine Minbashian, of Conservation Northwest, wolf tracker Isaac Babcock, and wildlife cameraman Gordon Buchanan spend eight weeks in the Cascade Mountains spanning a six-month period to not only confirm the existence of the wolf pack but document their presence on camera.

The ESA brought protection to wolves in 1973 and in May 2011, for the first time ever, the U.S. Congress removed an animal, the Northern Rockies gray wolf, from the ESA’s protection, taking away the very protection that prevented its annihilation. The US Fish and Wildlife Service is now considering whether or not wolves in the Pacific Northwest warrant protection.

In addition to investigating the “Lookout Pack” sightings, Man vs. Wolf also uncovers how the possibility of a wolf pack’s existence can lead some to take forceful actions, and the results from those actions.

Are wolves back in the Pacific Northwest to stay? How did they make their way into the Cascades? Are they establishing breeding populations? As more sightings of wolves are reported closer to major cities, finding these astute animals and the answers to these questions, and more, has never been as important. It will require every ounce of field skill and technical expertise Minbashian and the crew can muster.

Man vs. Wolf was executive produced by Tim Martin with Jonny Keeling, Susanna Handslip, and Rowan Musgrave for BBC and executive produced by James Manfull with John Cavanagh for Discovery Channel.”