Polly Brewster visits the Wolf Conservation Center

Polly meets the Wolves of  the Wolf Conservation Center!

Recently an article about wolves published in OPRAH magazine spread like wildfire across conservation pages. National Wolfwatcher Coalition Board member Diane Bentivegna reached out to the author of that article, Polly Brewster, and invited her to visit with us at the Wolf Conservation Center in South Salem, NY.  She accepted.

An early morning meeting with temperatures hovering in the thirties brought together some wolf watchers at the Wolf Conservation Center.  http://www.nywolf.org

Managing Director Maggie Howell opened the center early and Alex was there stoking the fire in the woodstove.  The Education Building was warm and inviting, as we gathered.  As nice as it was inside, we were anxious to see the wolves.  Alyssa Grayson, Junior NWC adviser was there with her very supportive parents George and Cheri, along with her cousin Tori Bovi.  Diane and Dave arrived early,  looking forward to meeting with Polly, and also having the opportunity to watch Alyssa’s slide show presentation and celebrate her birthday in howling fashion! And of course Wolves!

First to greet us were Ambassador pups Alawa and Zephyr.  They have found their howls and are growing into their large paws.  Maggie sees them every day and asked if they were really getting bigger.  Most definitely YES!  And at the same time, being eight months old, they still carry a lot of “puppy” in them.  That is always fun to see as we  watched them interact.

Polly thoroughly enjoyed watching the pups and of course the “Rock Star” of the WCC, Atka.  Atka doesn’t just love the attention, he demands it!  We talked to Polly about her article and she mentioned she is considering turning that article into a book, and was also interested in also documenting  and writing a book about Isle Royale.  She has met with Rolf Peterson and visited Isle Royale recently.  Doug Smith of the Yellowstone Wolf Project also is someone that Polly  highly respects  when speaking about her Northern Rockies visits.

You can read her article about wolves in Wyoming at the following link:

http://www.oprah.com/spirit/Polly-Brewster-Finds-Solace-in-Fighting-for-Wolves

The day included an educational slide show presentation by Alyssa,  more wolf watching as we visited with the Red wolves and also spotted a Mexican Gray wolf in an adjoining enclosure.  We said goodbye to Polly and her friend Morgan(Morgan also has a very interesting story as he was part of the Nat Geo series with Casey Anderson in Yellowstone,  and currently working on other projects).  Thanks to Polly for visiting with us and talking WOLVES!

Look for a follow up post with Alyssa’s presentation and her day at the Wolf Conservation Center

Dave Hornoff,Diane Bentivegna, Maggie Howell, Alyssa Grayson, Cheri Grayson

National Wolfwatcher Coalition                                               

Understand, Love, Protect