Wolves in the Fire

Feb 132 min read

Updated: Mar 1

My last posting began with an unusual reminiscence. Years ago, after a long day of documentary filming north of Moscow, USSR, our mixed crew pulled into a roadside rest area for dinner. As we finished our meal, our Soviet translator, Victor, gathered our trash and tossed it carelessly toward an overflowing bin, where it landed among the scattered debris. I asked him why he had done that, “Doesn’t everything belong to everyone here?”

Victor looked at me and, in a low voice, replied, “No. Nothing belongs to anyone.”

This was over 35 years ago. Yet this moment of irresponsibility and consequent inaction was with me just last year on a train returning from Munich, Germany, where I had visited the Dachau concentration camp and experienced a walking city tour of the birthplaces of the National Socialist Party. I sat with two local women who, after some polite talk, lowered their voices—much as Victor had done. One leaned closer to me and said, “Many people here, especially the younger ones, want a Hitler now…but just a little Hitler.”

It returned as I watched the recent California fires consume so many of the places I knew as a child. It was with me as I listened to a friend, embittered by today’s political climate, suggest, “Those Californians got what they deserve.” And today it’s here again, when I think of 25 wolves whose lives may end not because of malice, but because of indifference.

At Indigo Mountain Nature Center in Colorado, time is running out. The land they have called home has been sold, and if homes are not found soon, these wolves—who have done nothing but exist in the space granted them—will be euthanized. Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary in New Mexico wants to take them in. But enclosures must be quickly built, and there is not yet enough money to build them.

$17,500 stands between life and death.

A mostly-white wolf in a sanctuary being gently approached by a grounds keeper.

I have spent days at Wild Spirit. I have listened to the volunteers and walked with them as they cared for these magnificent animals—not out of profit or obligation, but because they understand something simple and true: that we alone do not own this world. That something belonging to all of us means it is ours to protect.

If nothing is done—if we choose to do nothing—the wolves will not rage. They will not blame, they will curse those who failed them. They will simply disappear.

And our world will be smaller for it.

If you can help, now is the time. The fire is spreading, and the choice is the same as it has always been: look away, or pick up a hose.