Lone Wolf by Adam Weymouth

Subtitled Walking the Faultlines of Europe (in the UK edition, which is the one I read, though not the one illustrated here), this book follows the author's journey across Europe in the footsteps of a male wolf. In 2011, a young wolf named Slavc set out from Slovenia, travelled for four months through the Alps, eventually arriving in Italy, near Verona, where he met a female wolf, named, perhaps predictably for Shakespeare fans, Juliet. Now there are over a hundred wolves in the area. 

Weymouth writes about the historical human persecution of wolves and the current resurgence of the population (the wolf population has increased by 1,000 percent since 1965) bringing the animal back into landscapes where it has been absent for decades (though its range is barely more than half what it was in 1800). He talks to farmers and hunters, and visits the Wolf Science Centre in Vienna, listening to people's mixed feelings about wolves and looking at other environmental issues including climate change and forest fires. 

Having not lived around wolves for so long, people are understandably nervous about the reappearance of predators that can eat their livestock, and without government support, it can be expensive to protect flocks against predation. People are reluctant to let nature take over: 

"...this is what we speak of when we speak of rewilding. Certainly we should manage the risks as best we can, but rewilding means that the wild gets a hand back in the game, with an agency all of its own"

As one of the farmers interviewed in the book says: "If you make the choice to work in nature, you can't complain about nature. Nature gives us all this and we must give something in return". 

This is a very readable, thought provoking book about our relationship with nature and 'the wilderness' centred on one species and the journey of one individual across a changing continent.  

Lone Wolf by Adam Weymouth, published (2025) by Penguin.  

 **

You may also be interested in my review of The Last Wolf by Jim Crumley.