My life as a wolf, by British naturalist who dared to infiltrate a pack in the wilderness

The huge wolf's fangs hovered over my neck. I was frozen to the spot, waiting for his jaw to clamp around my throat - and bring instant death.

It didn't happen. Instead, the young male with him gave me a gentler nip on my knee while the older male knocked me over. As I fell, I put a hand out to steady myself and found it resting on the pup's shoulder.

He didn't pull away. In that split second, I was overcome by an incredible surge of love for this creature and his family, and an overpowering need to be part of it.

Unlikely bond: Shaun Ellis has an extraordinary affinity with wolves

I had been alone in the Rocky Mountains for ten months, searching for wolves to befriend. Being close to the creatures was not new to me. I'd infiltrated captive packs at Dartmoor Wildlife Park in England and at a wolf research centre in the American state of Idaho.

By staying with them in their enclosures, I learned about their body language, what their howls and whines meant, their smells and pack hierarchy. To become part of a wolf family, you must fit into their social order, rather than trying to rule it.

That means showing you come in peace by exposing your vulnerable throat area to them, as I had done with the big black male. Wolves have the power to kill but, unlike humans, they only use it when they must.

In Idaho, I also added scientific knowledge to my theories, working with biologists and studying wolf behaviour and communication.

Levi Holt, a native American who ran the centre there, believed wild wolves had moved into the area using old corridors between Idaho and Canada, living alongside animals bred in captivity but later released. I wanted to see if I could be accepted by a pack that had never seen a human.

The biologists at the research centre were against me going into the rugged, unforgiving landscape. To them I was a maverick from a foreign country with no qualifications. If the cold or wolves didn't kill me, a bear would. Despite this, I didn't take a gun, radio, sleeping bag or any shelter. I wanted to be like a lone wolf.

I had the SAS training I received during my seven years in the British Army and one 'get out of jail free' card: a rendezvous point agreed with Levi. If I wanted to get out, I was to wait there.

I never anticipated how long I would be gone, since at the time I was single, although I had a daughter from a previous relationship. Levi and I arranged that I would leave notes for him at the rendezvous point to let him know I was safe and well.

I set off on a bright autumn day, when the Rockies reminded me of my childhood in rural Norfolk, although the colours were intense: deep rich reds, oranges and gold lighting the forests.

I was in shock for the first few weeks, so frightened of predators I didn't dare move after dark. For the first four nights I slept in a tree. Only after I fell out did I start sleeping on the ground.

Gradually I became more confident and began to venture out by day, making rudimentary snare traps and catching my first rabbit before my rations of beef jerky ran out.

Daredevil: Shaun Ellis romping with wolves at a wildlife park

I was eating a diet, like the wolf's: one meal of raw meat gave me enough slow-release energy to keep going for up to two days. I would supplement it with nuts and berries and always tested it to avoid being poisoned.

As the weeks went by I established a routine and found a sheltered spot where I felt comfortable. Then I experienced my first reality check. For four days a storm raged around me. I became bored and depressed, but then the Army training kicked in and I remembered what I'd been taught about how vital it is to keep thinking positively.

It was four months before I saw my first wolf. I was walking down a track when a big black one crossed my path 150 yards ahead. It stopped fleetingly and looked straight at me with piercing yellow eyes before disappearing into the forest.

I also established a new resting place where I felt safe, some miles from the track where I saw the wolf. It was in a clearing, with a big rock behind me and a good view of the area in front of me. Although I never allowed myself the luxury of sleeping for hours at a stretch, I could doze in short bursts.

There were more sightings of the wolf over the coming months, and others joined him, each time coming closer, nipping and sniffing me. At times we exchanged howls. There were originally five in the pack: the dominant female, two older males, a younger male and a young female, the latter two being siblings.

After one of the older males went missing, I decided to try to infiltrate the pack, following them clumsily on all fours. But where the others were welcoming, the dominant female was hostile, growling to warn me away. She bared her teeth and let out low barking noises before disappearing into the forest with the young pups. The others followed.

A week-and-a-half later I was sitting on a rock when the big male and the pups came towards me. The female stayed back and I respected her distance. And so it went on for two weeks, if not a month.

I continued to interact with the other three members of the pack, however, and the bond with them quietly intensified. In some ways, they were like captive wolves I had known. The language they used was similar but these wolves were stronger and alert to every sound and scent.

They played as hard and roughly with me as they did with each other. My all-in-one jumpsuit was quilted but it didn't protect me from the bone-crushing strength of their jaws. I was covered in cuts and bruises.

Early one morning I was in a clearing when the four of them appeared after a long absence. As usual, I lowered my body as they came towards me, and this time even the female came to greet me.

Suddenly, the big male barged at me and I crumpled to the ground under his weight. Before I realised what was happening the female was snarling and growling three inches from my face.

Allies: Ellis with Levi Holt, who runs the wolf research centre in Idaho that Shaun used as his base

I could feel the warmth of her breath, her lips were lifted right back from her teeth. I lay there helpless: I had no choice but to take whatever was coming to me. Those were the longest two or three minutes of my life - but she didn't harm a hair on my head. When she finally let me go she loped back to the others; my disciplining was over.

The incident didn't seem to change her attitude towards me but it radically changed my view. She could have killed me easily but had chosen not to. Now I thought of her as an intolerant aunt: knowledgeable, respected, but always bad-tempered. We would learn to live with each other.

Every night I battled with my better judgment over leaving the wolves. I had begun to feel safer with them than away from them, but I left them as darkness fell and returned by first light.

One evening tensions were low, they had all had a good feed and even Miss Grumpy seemed relaxed. I decided to stay.

I didn't sleep a wink, kept awake by fear and excitement, but they all slept soundly until morning. The male pup lay alongside me. I could hear his breathing and feel his every twitch. When morning broke I was walking on air because I knew I had been accepted.

In the early hours of the second day, they took off. I tried to follow, but as soon as we were among trees they were invisible in the darkness and they were gone. Dejected, I went back to the clearing and waited.

Many weeks later they reappeared, the young female bringing me the leg of a red deer. After months of snared rabbits, it tasted fantastic, although raw. For the next few weeks, they would go hunting and leave me, but they would always bring me something.

By this time I had been in the wild for about 18 months, and winter was on its way again. That would make getting about more difficult, but would let me to follow the wolves at my own pace. At last I'd see where they went in their long absences.

The day they left, I followed. Their pace was slower and they seemed to be waiting for me. We must have covered 15 miles before coming to a steep, forested hillside, with a river running along the valley below.

How wolves help us to choose a pet Wolf DNA varies from that of a domestic dog by just 0.2 per cent. Few of us will live with wolves, but an awful lot of us live with dogs, so it is useful to understand how the social structure of wolves applies to the dog world. People think it's good to have an alpha dog, believing it to be the bold one who comes to say hello when you go to choose your puppy from a litter. That is not the case. Alphas stay at the back of the kennel because they have a strong sense of self-preservation. They never put themselves in jeopardy. If you take a true alpha puppy home with you, he will be a quick learner, easy to train so that one day, when he sees the time is right, he can take over the pack. And he'll be looking for that day, for a sign of weakness in you that suggests you are no longer capable of doing the job. Unless you are constantly one step ahead of him, he will turn into a wilful rebel who pays no attention to anything you tell him. The beta, or what we now tend to call the enforcer, is the one who comes boldly over to you when you go to view the litter. He's the disciplinarian, the bouncer, the bodyguard; he is pure aggression. He doesn't think; he just weighs in. If you choose this puppy to take home without being aware of what you have picked, it could be disastrous. You and he may differ in what you view as a perceived threat. It could be another dog in the park, a neighbour or a child. Then there's the tester within the pack, the quality controller, a very trying pet who will be pushing your ability daily, making sure you deserve to be the one who makes the decisions. Mid- to low-ranking individuals make good pets because they have no need to discipline or teach anyone anything. These ranks don't seek you out when you visit the litter. Owners have been taught they must take on the role of the alpha dog but, despite the miraculous results in problem dogs seen on television, this doesn't always work. If you have a nervous, low-ranking animal and you behave like an alpha, or even a beta, you could destroy him. Many people, of course, don't get their dogs as pups. Contrary to the saying, 'You can't teach an old dog new tricks', I believe you can, by going back to that time in the dog's life when he was at his most receptive. A pup learns basic principles from his mother: he picks up her calming signals, discovers the reward system, learns his pack value and how to communicate with his own kind. When he stumbles out into the world at five weeks and begins to mix mother's milk with regurgitated meat, that circle of learning increases. So to re-educate an adult dog you feed him on the sort of diet he had in his first few months of life: a mixture of milk and minced or finely chopped meat. After a couple of months on that he should be pliable and ready to listen, whereupon you can train him more or less as you would a puppy, heavy on reward and light on punishment.

We arrived before the snow, and the air was thick with the scent of pine needles. I guessed the wolves lived here during the winter, or it might have been where the youngsters were born. They wouldn't let me follow them when they went hunting from this base, but I never lacked food. Indeed, I was eating better with them than I managed by myself.

We were entering the breeding season and suddenly the males were competing to convince the dominant female that she should mate with them. Then for a week-and-a-half they disappeared. When they returned they were calm and relaxed; even Miss Grumpy was tolerant, her mind presumably on other things.

Life returned to normal. An abundance of food was brought home, some of which the wolves would hide in the riverbank, where the mud acted as a preservative. Possibly they knew they would lose their hunter, the female, as she reached the later stages of her pregnancy.

A wolf's gestation period is 63 days and as the female neared the end of the second month it was clear she was carrying pups. She dug a den for herself on a ridge above us. That was where she would give birth.

When she finally emerged, thin and clearly lactating, she was triumphant, running from one of us to the next, nipping our mouths, frantic for food. Then she went to the river, eating two or three food caches before running back up the hill and disappearing underground.

Then, one magical morning, she emerged with two small bundles of black fur tumbling down the hill behind her. The adult wolves fell over one another to nuzzle them while they rolled over and exposed their little pale tummies.

The pups nipped at my mouth with needlesharp little teeth, and I realised how privileged I had been to have been accepted by this remarkable family.

One day, when the pups were about nine weeks old, their mother and the big male had gone hunting. As usual, the young male and I were guarding the den area. The young female was on a ridge acting as lookout. Spring was here and it was hot. My body was in revolt after what it had been through over the past two years and I needed water.

As I set off for the stream, the young male suddenly knocked me down. I lay there, winded, as he stood over me snarling, eyes blazing and teeth bared. Looking as if he might rip my throat out, he then backed me into the hollow of a tree. Every time I tried to move he snapped the air with his jaws. I had never seen him like this and feared for my life.

As dusk fell, his mood changed. He started to walk towards the valley. After a few steps he stopped and looked back, which meant he wanted me to follow. On the way he stopped and sniffed scratches on the ground. There were bear droppings, and deep gouges in the bark of the trees where a huge grizzly had scraped his claws: the signs of a bear intent on killing.

Suddenly it became clear. This wolf hadn't wanted to hurt me but to save me from the rampaging grizzly. I owed him my life.

About three weeks later, I was kneeling by a stream when I caught sight of my reflection. My face was gaunt with sunken eyes, long matted hair and a bushy beard. I had lost a huge amount of weight and my health was deteriorating. Unless I was prepared to die in this wilderness, I had to go home.

I left in the early morning without ceremony. It was a week before I reached the rendezvous point and another 24 hours before I heard the drone of a car making its way up the track.

When Levi saw me his usually inscrutable face looked horrified. He held out his arms to embrace me and I broke down. These two years had changed me in every way and the enormity of what I'd experienced was beginning to dawn on me.

Levi asked if there was anything I needed. I said 'honey', which someone quickly brought, and I ate my way through half a jar. I hadn't spoken to another human being for two years and I was feeling disorientated. The events that followed became a blur, but I remember being driven to a nearby town, where I had a shower in a wooden shed. It felt like the Ritz.

I was surprised by how long it took to get back to a normal diet. I longed to eat junk food, especially pepperoni pizza and ice cream, but my system couldn't take it.

But the hardest thing was adjusting to the human world. The one I had just left, and felt I belonged to, was so simple and balanced. There was no deception, no malice and no gratuitous cruelty. Keeping the family safe and fed was all that mattered: wolves killed to eat; never for fun and never more than they needed.



Back home, all I could think of was helping improve the lives of wolves in captivity. I had gained so much knowledge, far more than I would have in a lifetime watching them from a distance. So often their behaviour was misinterpreted and their needs neglected. I had a burning zeal to make a difference.

I would go on to work at Longleat Safari Park in Wiltshire. With nothing more sophisticated than tape recordings of wolves' calls, we altered the behaviour of a pack to help breeding. That had to be good news for biologists and for farmers protecting their livestock.

In Poland, I used recordings of howling wolves to stop packs from raiding farms by convincing them that a rival group already owned the territory.

I felt that what we had achieved offered great hope for the future. After the success at Longleat, I was approached by a number of other wildlife parks and zoos wanting help and advice about how to manage their captive wolf packs.



My interest is where the wolf and human worlds collide; in learning how to speak for this noble creature whose language no one else seems to understand. And to hope that one day, we humans might be able to learn from the animal that once walked alongside us about survival, loyalty and family.

© 2010 Shaun Ellis.

• The Man Who Lives With Wolves by Shaun Ellis with Penny Junor is published by HarperCollins on January 25 at £18.99. To order your copy at the special price of £15.99 inc free p& p, call the Review Bookstore on 0845 155 0713.

NEXT WEEK: Helen was the love of my life, but she was almost destroyed by my world of wolves