Hungry for Home: A Wolf Odyssey - Hardcover

'Asta Bowen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684823616 ISBN 13: 9780684823614

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 1997

Synopsis

When Marta, a wolf mother, is captured and displaced by a group of well-meaning naturalists she must find her way back to her home hunting grounds and deal with the loss of her old hunting partner

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

Based on a true story, this powerful first novel dramatizes the tragedies and triumphs of a female wolf battling to find her way home after she and her pups have been relocated by well-meaning humans. Marta is trying to raise a trio of cubs in Pleasant Valley, nestled in Montana's Rocky Mountains. After the death of her mate, she has only an older lone wolf, Oldtooth, as her companion. Plucky Marta succeeds in her cub-rearing despite almost overwhelming obstacles, only to see her small pack captured, tagged and moved to Nine Mile Valley as part of an experiment to relocate the wolves into more hospitable terrain. Driven by her homing instinct, she inadvertently ensures the death of her offspring and her companion by trying to make her way back to Pleasant Valley. She stakes out new territory and finds a new mate who, with some unexpected human assistance, helps her raise another pack. Striving to inhabit the wild psyche of Marta with a minimum of anthropomorphic sentimentality, Bowen produces a genuinely eye-opening tale. She conveys both a reverence for the ways of the wild and a realistic grasp of wolves' fear of humans. And, despite a grim ending, she holds out cautious hope for experiments to find new homes in the Western woods for the wolf. Line drawings by Jane Hart Meyer, not seen by PW. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club alternate selection.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist:

Although not originally a "wolf person," Bowen rapidly learned Montana wolf lore and habits for this fictional tale based on a real wolf named Marta, who, along with her pups, had been captured, outfitted with radio collars, and reintroduced in the northern Rockies. Disoriented by unfamiliar sights and smells, Marta abandons her pack and litter and runs for days trying to return to her old home, away from the rocky terrain and grizzly-bear stench. After nearly running herself to death, the lone wolf settles on a new territory where deer are plentiful, and she hunts contentedly through the winter. Another, larger wolf with huge paws, Greatfoot, gradually enters her territory, and a potential fight over an old buck ends in them teaming up and eventually mating. While hunting game for their seven pups, Marta is killed by a poacher who tosses her collar in a nearby stream. In her memorable tale, Bowen underscores the fact that reintroducing wolves to protected wilderness areas is not easy for the animals themselves or for the humans whose pastures border those lands. Jennifer Henderson

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0684823616
• ISBN 13: 9780684823614
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 218