In the Field

Family Dynamics - Coastal Gray Wolves. Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia, Canada. August 24, 2024.

What's that old saying? It never rains but it pours? Well...that's exactly how it was during BOTH my August "Summer in the Southern Great Bear" and September "Into the Great Bear Rainforest" photo tours. During both trips we put in huge efforts to find and photograph bears - and specifically Spirit Bears - but to no avail! On bears we got close to skunked - which is almost unheard of in the Great Bear! BUT...and this is a HUGE but...we did extremely well with subject matter that is normally much tougher to find (and photograph) than those boring old white bears - coastal gray wolves! 😉

This image is from a short (10 minutes or so) but incredibly memorable session we had with a family group (AKA a resident "pack") of gray wolves on the beach of a remote island in the Great Bear Rainforest. This shot was taken moments after the adult male wolf in the center of the image went into some trees on the edge of the beach and brought 4 pups (of the year) out. As you can see from this shot, the pups were incredibly excited to see the adults and romped with them on the beach. I love the "dynamics" of this shot - 3 of the pups are super-focused on the adult male (presumably to get him to "cough up" some food) and the fourth pup is getting playfully pummeled by a "young adult" wolf (which I believe is a pup from the previous year...and this is based on both its size and how it behaved during this encounter and in another memorable encounter we had with the same wolves 3 weeks later).

While gray wolves are quite common in the Great Bear Rainforest they are normally very elusive and only very rarely seen. And, most sightings are of the south end of wolf heading north in a real hurry. But, in this very unique case, the adult wolves were fully aware of our presence, but chose to bring their pups out onto the beach right in front of us and then go about with the daily business of being a wolf (including playing with the pups and interacting with one another as wolves do). The adult wolves did keep a close eye on us (but I'm not even sure the pups noticed us), but it was very apparent they weren't in any way alarmed by our presence.

Why were these particular wolves so calm in our presence and willing to "give" us so many great photo ops? It's impossible to say for sure. One possible explanation is that since the hunting of grizzly bears was banned in December of 2017 there have been far few humans taking pot shots at wolves with rifles. What's the connection with the grizzly hunt? Well...historically grizzly hunting drew a lot of hunters into the Great Bear Rainforest. In fact, the majority of hunters in the Great Bear were there to hunt grizzlies. Because any hunter is allowed to shoot wolves in BC (there is no requirement for a hunter to have a wolf "tag" to shoot a wolf in BC) I think it's likely that the "average" experience wolves had with humans prior to the grizzly hunting ban in 2017 was very negative (if not fatal) for the wolf. But now, almost 7 years later, we've had an entire generation of wolves grow up in the Great Bear with little to no experience with hunters, and thus far fewer negative interactions with humans. Maybe, just maybe, the wolves are already becoming a little less fearful and more tolerant of humans. I sure hope this is the case!

Anyway...this amazing and even heart-warming encounter with this wolf family left a huge impression on me (and all those who were with me at the time). Maybe before long we'll be thinking of the central and northern coast of BC as the Great Wolf Rainforest!

Here's a larger version (4800 pixel) of this playful wolf family:

• Family Dynamics - Coastal Gray Wolves: Download 4800 pixel image (JPEG: 5.0 MB)

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

1. These images - in all resolutions - are protected by copyright. I'm fine with personal uses of them (including use as desktop backgrounds or screensavers on your own computer), but unauthorized commercial use of the image is prohibited by law. Thanks in advance for respecting my copyright!

2. Like all photographs on this website, these images were captured following the strict ethical guidelines described in The Wildlife FIRST! Principles of Photographer Conduct. As such, no baiting or any form of attractant was used and, as always, we attempted to minimize our impact on the ongoing behaviour of the subjects. I strongly encourage all wildlife photographers to always put the welfare of their subjects above the value of their photographs.

3. This image was captured during my Summer in the Southern Great Bear Exploratory Photo Adventure in late August of 2024. Each year I offer trips into two different parts of the Great Bear Rainforest as well as two tours into the Khutzeymateen Grizzly Sanctuary (to photograph grizzlies, of course!). Details about these trips can be found on the Photo Tours page of this website.

Behind the Camera

Family Dynamics - Coastal Gray Wolves. Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia, Canada. August 24, 2024.

High Efficiency* Compressed RAW (NEF) format; ISO 4000.

Nikon Z 9 paired with Z Nikkor 800mm f6.3S. Hand-held from a floating Zodiac inflatable boat. VR on in Sport mode. Wide-area (L) AF area mode with subject detection set to "Birds" mode.

1/1250s @ f6.3; No compensation from matrix-metered exposure setting

At the Computer

Family Dynamics - Coastal Gray Wolves. Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia, Canada. August 24, 2024.

Initial noise reduction and capture sharpening on the .nef (raw) file using the DeepPRIME XD2S algorithm of DXO PhotoLab 8.1 Elite (using the appropriate lens/camera optical module).

Subsequent adjustments to the adjusted linear DNG file (exported from PhotoLab) and conversion to 16-bit TIFF file (and JPEG files for web use) - including all global and selective adjustments - made using Phase One's Capture One Pro 23 (build 16.4.6). In the case of this image the only global adjustments were an overall contrast tweak (using the Levels tool) and a reduction of the Highlights. Selective local adjustments performed using Capture One Pro's layers and masking tools. In this case numerous small adjustments and minor tweaks were made on 3 separate layers, with most of the tweaks being associated with "exposure balancing" and contrast adjustments (such as adjustments to clarity, highlights, shadows, etc.).

Photoshop modifications included insertion of the watermark and/or text.

Conservation

Family Dynamics - Coastal Gray Wolves. Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia, Canada. August 24, 2024.

Species Status in Canada*: Only Eastern Wolf listed as species of "Special Concern" in May, 2001. Other populations not listed as Endangered or Threatened.

Probably no species alive today has suffered as much direct persecution from humans as has the Gray Wolf (Canis lupus). Once extremely widespread in North America, the Gray Wolf was virtually extirpated from the contiguous 48 states of America and now is regularly found within only a fraction of its historical range in Canada. While the Gray Wolf is currently listed as endangered in most of the 48 lower states of the United States and enjoys the privileges associated with such status (if lack of persecution and abuse can be thought of as a privilege), it is still official policy in much of Canada to rid the countryside of this magnificent keystone predator. As an example, in British Columbia, there is NO closed season on the wolf in most hunting jurisdictions and opportunistic slaughter is encouraged by policy (it is the ONLY fur-bearing species for which NO species hunting tag is required in British Columbia!). Conservation of wolves presents a puzzling paradox. Reduced to the most basic principles, wolf conservation is simplistic: we need only to stop persecuting this species in order for it to survive. Yet accomplishing this invariably proves incredibly difficult - it's as though wolf persecution has been institutionalized directly into government (and societal) bureaucracy.

*as determined by COSEWIC: The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada