The Hunt: A True Story of Resurrection and Retribution in the West

Summary

In a work of deeply reported narrative journalism, The Hunt tells the extraordinary inside story of the deadliest wolf hunt in the history of Yellowstone National Park, in which a fifth of the park’s wolf population was decimated in the winter of 2021–2022, a drama of conservation, corruption, and centuries-old battles to decide the future of wild creatures and wild spaces in the American West.

In 2020, the Yellowstone Wolf Project celebrated the 25th anniversary of the reintroduction of the grey wolf to the American West. The revival of these wild creatures, which had previously been extirpated in America’s Lower 48, had ushered in an ecological transformation and a tourism boom for the world’s first national park. But the very next winter, the park’s border became a killing field, with a fifth of Yellowstone’s world-famous wolves shot or trapped in a matter of months. Never before had there been a hunt so aggressive, so effective, and so deadly. It was an unprecedented blow to the most celebrated and controversial comeback story in American conservation history, but it was much more than that.

Set in a rapidly changing corner of southwest Montana, where wildlife is big business and a source of cultural identity, The Hunt is a story of politics, power, and polarization in the American West. With wide-ranging access to key sources, award-winning journalist Ryan Devereaux shows how the spasm of killing on Yellowstone’s doorstep—the product of a political backlash decades in the making—became a mirror reflecting back on a divided nation.

Tracing the social, cultural, and economic forces behind this environmental battle, Devereaux reveals how the wolf is a cipher for a deeper fight over how the West should be run. The result is a sweeping story not only of wolves, but of people, and the rupture that threatens the country’s last wild spaces.