Episode 2 Land of the Lost Wolves

Across the planet, most wildlife is under threat.

But one animal is defying the odds -

the wolf.

In America, all across their former range, wolves are coming back.

Only one thing stands in their way.

If they're a threat to my cattle,

and my horses and my family, I'm going to start shooting them.

A team of wildlife experts

spent the winter on the frontline of wolf return,

looking for a very special wolf family -

the Lookout Pack.

When you see a wolf track there's no mistaking it.

It's like, "Bam!" Now that's a wolf track.

These pioneering wolves were leading a dramatic comeback

down the west coast of America.

After weeks of searching, the team tracked them down.

That is amazing. Oh, my God!

But of the original ten, only two remained.

We have a lab report and we believe that animal was shot.

The pack had been illegally killed.

Isaac and Jasmine headed south, following up fresh wolf sightings.

If we can document a second pack this far south we're building up

a much bigger picture of a major comeback for wolves in this region.

And Gordon journeyed north.

Wolf! Yes, yes, yes.

Now the summer phase of the expedition is about to begin.

The next thing I want to do is head further north,

go over the border into Canada to find that source population,

to find out if the wolves are going to keep on coming.

In Canada and America, the team is back to find out if wolves

really do have a future on the west coast.

-You getting a signal?

-Yep.

We are further south in the Cascades

than I ever imagined wolves would be right now.

We've got a wolf, we've got a wolf. Gee whizz!

WOLF HOWLS

The battle between man and wolf is long-running.

When European settlers arrived in America

they saw the wolf as a threat, and waged war on them.

More than a million were poisoned, shot or trapped.

As people colonised westwards, wolves were wiped out.

The wilds of Canada became their last stronghold.

Now, wolves are sneaking back over the border into Washington state.

The Lookout Pack was the first to breed here in 70 years.

But with most of the pack dead,

wolf comeback to the west coast hangs by a thread.

Summer has arrived in Washington's Cascade Mountains.

The expedition has moved 100 miles to the south of winter base camp.

There has been some extraordinary news.

Following up on wolf sightings, government scientists

have managed to capture and radio-collar a young female.

This is the furthest south wolves have been found

in the Cascades for almost a century.

Expedition biologist Jasmine Minbashian has come

to see for herself.

We're up in the air trying to find this collared female.

We've got the telemetry equipment

and we're listening for a signal to try and pinpoint her exact location.

When the female was caught, scientists took a sample of her DNA.

It's revealed something no-one could have guessed.

Amazingly, it looks like this animal is a direct descendent of the Lookout Pack.

Which is incredible. To think that

despite all the odds of illegal killing and poaching,

that this pack could persist, it can continue.

It's just a testimony to how resilient wolves are.

The legacy of the Lookout Pack lives on.

Remarkably, this female from the Lookout Pack not only survived.

She has moved even deeper into Washington state.

By sampling wolf DNA from across North America, scientists have

traced the bloodline of some members of the Lookout Pack

up the Cascade range to the Great Bear Rainforest.

More than 500 miles north of Jasmine,

a small expedition team is getting ready to sail up the Canadian coast

in search of the ancestors of Washington's wolves.

Wildlife cameraman Gordon Buchanan is in charge.

I've come over the border into Canada, to British Columbia,

to try and find out this source population.

To find the wolves here, get an idea of the numbers, and to try

and find out whether they'll keep on moving south into north Washington.

On board is fellow Brit and expert tracker Chris Morgan.

He left Lancashire when he was 19 to follow his passion,

studying bears and wolves in the wilds of North America.

You've got this amazing source population of wolves that

could continuously feed into the Cascades.

But the source population has to be healthy as well, of course,

so I'll be trying my best to find out

how many are here and what they're up to.

They'll be travelling into the heart of the Great Bear Rainforest -

an immense wilderness.

Few people live here, so wolves can exist largely undisturbed.

But they're still wary and rarely seen.

There are thousands of hidden coves and islands.

They could be anywhere.

Before Gordon can begin filming,

Chris must try to narrow down their search.

This inlet goes in about ten miles here

and there are cascading waterfalls all around.

It's one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen.

His 15 years of tracking experience tell him

this might be a good place to start.

Over the next ten days, Chris will be living rough in one of the wettest places in North America.

At least I have some kind of dry storage and a place to retreat to when it really starts raining.

Cos this is nothing, apparently!

Oh, look at that! Some scat - bear scat right there.

Yeah, this is full of berries, some grasses.

We're going to have to keep our wits about us.

This is grizzly bear country, so definitely, extra precautions needed.

I always pull the bear spray out

when I'm in thick vegetation like this.

It's just a dose of capsicum pepper that puts off a bear

when it's charging towards you.

It changes his behaviour pretty quickly and deters him.

The problem is, in this thick vegetation, with lots of noisy creaks around,

you can stumble across an unsuspecting bear quite easily.

A surprised bear can be a dangerous bear, especially if it's a grizzly,

so we've got to make noise, but that scares the wolves away, so it's tricky.

Hey, bear!

Fatal bear attacks happen every year in North America,

almost always in this kind of setting

where they can't hear people coming.

Hey, bear!

Just up the coast from Chris,

Gordon's found a slightly easier route.

He's checking the shoreline for any wolf tracks.

There's a dark shape on the shore.

Oh, there it is. OK.

OK, where are you?

There you go.

Now, raise your head up.

OK, we've got a black bear eating salmon.

It's a youngster from this year.

Its mother and its brother or sister probably aren't that far away.

Oops, he's just got a little whiff of us. If we stand nice and still...

OK, he can smell us.

He's sniffing the air but he's carrying on munching his fish.

OK, we've got this bear coming towards us.

Gordon doesn't want to surprise him.

The bear can smell something strange

but his poor eyesight means he hasn't seen Gordon yet.

He's just here.

Hey, bear!

He just got a little waft of our scent and it sent him off running.

They're a really peaceful animal.

There are so many people that are petrified of these animals.

Practically every big carnivore is misunderstood - black bears, wolves.

We're just fearful of things that are bigger than us.

Animals that have claws and teeth.

Look at this animal - beautiful, just beautiful.

This deep-seated fear of large carnivores

is one reason why so few wolves exist beyond pristine wildernesses.

But their century-long absence from much of the United States

has had far-reaching consequences for the wildlife.

Scientists like wolf expert Doug Smith have realised only recently

that wolves are a vital part of the American landscape.

These large carnivores are one of the major structuring forces

in nature. I mean, equal to things like climate and sunshine.

These large carnivores really do affect what we see out there.

Wolves hunt elk and deer.

This prevents herds from becoming too large

and also keeps them on the move.

Unchecked, they overgraze shrubs

and young trees, damaging the habitat for other wildlife.

Wolves in the landscape produce an environment

that's very different without them.

We lop that level off, and we're losing something.

We're losing how these systems were put together for millions of years.

If Canada's coastal wolves keep spreading and gain a foothold

in Washington state, it might be the start of something historic.

Wolves could continue down the Cascades,

helping to re-colonise their former range...

..even as far as California and Mexico.

In Washington, the Lookout Pack survivor is on the leading edge.

Jasmine is working to locate this female wolf,

with local biologist Scott Fitkin.

-ELECTRONIC BEEPING

-There we go.

-Are we getting a signal?

-Yep.

Yep, she's down there, hiding somewhere.

-I'm spiralling down.

-OK.

To pinpoint her location, the pilot must now pull

tighter and tighter circles.

Jasmine's keen to get a sighting.

That's the only way she can be sure

if the wolf's alone or part of a pack.

BEEPING CONTINUES Anything?

I don't see any movement, but I know she's close. It's frustrating.

It's the heat of the day. It's likely she's laying down somewhere in the trees.

Yeah, you're right. That'd be my guess too.

Dense forest cover means the search will have to continue on the ground.

Final team member and expert wolf tracker Isaac Babcock

is heading to the last known position of the wolf.

Jasmine called me down to tell me that they

radio-collared a female wolf here

and we are further south in the Cascades

than I ever imagined wolves would be right now.

So I'm going in to try to find out if she has pups,

if she has other wolves with her, what's going on,

what's the status and what's she doing down here, this far south?

Local scientists have already criss-crossed this forest

from the air, plotting the female's movements.

Before he starts tracking her, Isaac checks in

with biologist Bill Gaines for an update.

Bill's discovered an intriguing pattern.

This is the most recent telemetry information

we have from the female with the radio collar.

You can see how in some places we have clusters of locations

where she's spent some time.

We're not sure what she's doing there. Is she on a kill,

is she at a den site?

If there's something bringing her back and back

and back, you know, through all those movements,

something's got to be holding her down there.

Either... Puppies makes sense.

-That's what we're hoping to find out.

-All right.

This could be an exciting development.

If she does have pups, she'll have hidden them away

at a carefully chosen place deep in the forest, called a rendezvous site.

Usually a rendezvous site has shade and water nearby

and it's just a place for the pups to grow up.

It's kind of an epicentre of activity for the pack,

like spokes on a wheel with the rendezvous centre at the middle,

the wolves kind of fan out and hunt for the summer.

A pack can be based at the same rendezvous site for days on end,

making them easier for Isaac to find.

But it also makes them vulnerable to illegal hunters.

500 miles north of Isaac, Chris is on the trail of the ancestors

of the radio-collared female.

The key to finding a wolf is first to find its prey.

During late summer, the rivers of the Great Bear Rainforest

are filled with millions of spawning salmon.

They draw predators of all shapes and sizes out of the forest.

Chris is hoping that wolves might be tempted out

to feed on the energy-rich salmon.

Wow, look, look!

Look at this channel. It's packed full of fish - humpies.

That's the male that has that humped back.

See? Three of them next to each other.

There's some dead salmon over there,

and a dinner table over here. Look, bingo!

There is a salmon with its brain bitten clean off.

A sign of potential wolf feeding.

Here's one of the pink salmon.

You can see the size difference between the pink salmon

and the chum.

This one, look at that, it's got a claw mark or a canine hole

in it there, and also, the brain has gone.

The brain is full of protein and fat and they've chewed that right off.

I think that we are hot on the trail

of something big with teeth and claws.

Ooh, look at that.

Scat, wolf scat, and it could be quite fresh. Look at that.

There are salmon teeth.

Fantastic! Ha-ha!

Not only have we got wolf scat, but this is the evidence we need

to show that they've been here feeding on salmon as well.

And I've got a hunch that they're probably going to be over

in this main channel here.

The riverbank is lined with crows and gulls,

there's eagles flying overhead. It seems to be where the heart of the action is.

Chris thinks the wolves may well return to this salmon hotspot.

He reports back to base with the news Gordon's been hoping for.

We got into this cool spot.

It was just by the river there. That's where the tracks were.

I was even thinking it might be a spot for you to get in and maybe place a hide.

It could be Gordon's best chance to catch up

with the elusive coastal wolves.

It's pretty guaranteed that I'm going to see salmon.

Whether I'll see the wolves or not, I can't quite picture it in my own head. I think it is...

quite incredible to think of a pack of wolves catching fish.

I just thought they'd scavenge fish, but they're actively going into

the river and fishing. Catching fish in the same way grizzly bears do,

hooking them out and eating them, and that's not something new,

that's been happening for thousands and thousands of years.

Gordon will stake out the river mouth alone, in a hide.

He'll have to remain here, alert, 24 hours a day, to stand any chance

of capturing this unusual fishing behaviour on film.

Wolves are incredibly adaptable.

Able to live anywhere from the Arctic tundra to baking desert.

Feeding on everything from mice to huge male bison.

Wolves are very intelligent.

They have large brains for their body size.

When you're killing something that is anywhere from, you know,

two to ten times as big as you and you weigh 100 pounds, and you

could get your brains kicked out, you have to be smart about it.

A single wolf is one of the cleverest animals on the planet,

but when they put their brains together

and work as a pack, they can hunt the most formidable prey.

In Washington, Isaac has trekked into the Cascade Mountains

to the rendezvous site the radio-collared wolf keeps returning to.

Now he needs to find out if she's raising a family here.

The rendezvous site, basically, is like a puppy playground.

It's a place where the wolf pups stay and the adults come and go.

They go hunting, they go out and then they always return there

and meet the pups there.

Isaac is such an experienced tracker he can spot the tiniest signs

that wolves have been here.

We've got wolf tracks right here.

These tracks here don't look very fresh to me, but the good news is this looks like

an ideal spot for a rendezvous site. You've got a creek coming through,

you've got some open areas to play in.

Everything's pointing that this might be the spot.

In the Great Bear Rainforest, Gordon is 30 hours into his vigil.

A new influx of spawning salmon has brought

the bounty of the ocean deep into the heart of the forest.

You see so many different species benefit from salmon.

There's a seal coming up the river, but it's no surprise.

The river is just full of fish.

The first wolf that comes along is going to have a field day in there.

I've still got really high hopes for this place. It feels so right.

Why wouldn't a wolf come here?

But there's still no sign of them.

Chris is further up the coast.

Now the rain has stopped, soft banks are the perfect place to look for wolf tracks.

There's some mud down here, maybe...

Oh, wow, look, grizzly tracks!

Right here, quite fresh, as well, some of them.

Tracks of all sizes. Look, there's cub tracks here. See that?

Then there's adult tracks.

There's a main palm pad and then five toes

and you can even see the long claws -

grizzlies have really long claws and that's what these holes are here.

Look at them all up here! Wow, super-fresh as well.

There's a grizzly bear right on the logs here. Look at him.

Hey, bear, it's OK. It's all right.

OK, this is quite a deep pool, but we should be ready to move back here.

He definitely knows I'm here.

Look at that. He's pulling up scraps from underneath.

Can you see? He's moving his paws around under the water

trying to find fish scraps. There's one! He just pulled one up.

Suddenly the sun is out, the bears are out... It's just magic!

Oh, see that? He just heard a fish splash

and went right over to the shallow little pool over there.

He'd much rather get the fresh ones than the dead scraps.

He's pulling the skin off this fish cos it's full of fat.

Just a beautiful-looking animal.

Look at that, huge.

Surveying the scene, looking for the next fishing spot.

Oh, my goodness, look at that! You beautiful bear.

The rain has started again, dampening Gordon's spirits.

I'm sitting here up to my ankles in freezing cold, squelchy mud

and there's rain splattering into the hide, so things have been better.

I just hope it's all worthwhile,

I really... I'm so desperate to see these wolves.

I just think... I just hope that this all pays off.

Oh, look, look, look.

We've got a wolf, we've got a wolf.

Gee whizz! Oh, wow.

A very wet, bedraggled-looking wolf, but it's a wolf.

Yes, yes, yes.

Its coat is a distinctive rusty brown colour,

characteristic of these coastal wolves.

Oh, he's got a fish, got a fish, yes.

I am so happy, I am so happy.

Only a handful of people have filmed this unique behaviour.

And it's the first time Gordon has seen a wolf close up in the wild.

This is very much the fulfilment of a lifetime ambition.

It is a wild, wild wolf.

You handsome, handsome, handsome dog.

Not only do wolves catch salmon,

there are reports of them hunting seals...

..snatching seabirds and foraging for mussels.

Some are known to swim more than seven miles at a stretch.

The fact that wolves and humans can survive in the same places,

and hunt the same food, has brought them into conflict.

Amazing to look at this animal

and think that the attitude was to exterminate, to wipe them out

because we fear them, we see them as competition.

One of the world's most interesting, charismatic animals.

Just to see it in the wild is utterly fantastic.

Young lone wolves will strike out into new territory

to establish packs of their own.

But once they leave pristine wilderness behind,

they are likely to come up against humans.

Just 90 miles from one of America's biggest cities,

Isaac thinks he's closing in on what could be a new pack.

(They could be 50 yards away,

(they could be a few hundred yards away,

(but, I mean, they could be farther than that

(but we're the closest we've been so far.)

Isaac has brought a camera and long lens to record what he sees.

If there is a pack here, they'll be incredibly wary of humans.

(One of the hardest parts about this I think is that

(you're coming into an area that you've never been into before,

(and so you really don't know the lay of the land,

(and you really need every advantage you can get

(because the wolves' senses are just so acute,

(they pick you up so quickly whether they smell you

(or hear you or see you.)

(That's an old wolf scat.)

(You see that jaw bone over there?)

(This really looks to me like the spot,

(and I just heard a bunch of moving in the bushes right behind.)

(And now I don't know what to do.)

(I'd like to pull out of here to somewhere where I can watch it

(but be far enough away that they won't kind of know I'm here.)

Isaac finds a vantage point to keep watch.

(The meadow's all patted down, it's got bones around.

(It looks to me like an area where pups have been playing,

(so I'm going to sit here.)

The existence of pups would be fantastic news.

But there's still one thing that could halt wolf recovery

in its tracks.

The rendezvous site is just a few miles from farmland...

..and the neighbours may not be friendly.

When you're on the leading edge of colonisation,

when you're new to a human-dominated landscape,

you're going to run up against human attitudes

that are not hospitable to your existence.

I think there's great wolf habitat in Washington.

Will the humans allow them to occupy and live in that habitat?

That's the open question.

Their return is one of the most contentious issues in rural America.

Nowhere more so than in Idaho.

In the mid 1990s, 35 wolves were reintroduced here

in a controversial experiment.

With legal protection, they thrived.

But maybe no longer.

There's a new proposal in place to hunt wolves in Idaho once again.

The plan comes after President Obama's administration

lifted the ban on wolf hunting in both Idaho and Montana...

The change in the law means that wolves living here in Idaho

can now be shot legally.

Jasmine's crossed the state boundary to meet a local hunter,

one of thousands who bought a license this year to kill wolves.

I think understanding people is really the key to understanding

how wolves are going to return to this landscape

and stay on this landscape.

Gordon's flying back from Canada.

He also knows the most urgent problem for the wolves

trickling down into the United States

is that many people don't want them back.

He's arranged to meet the leader of the Idaho Anti-Wolf Coalition.

I've come here to look for a guy called Ron Gillett

who is a self-confessed wolf hater.

I've been told I'll find him at the rodeo.

I'm not quite sure what he's going to make of me

because I am a self-confessed wolf lover.

This is cowboy country.

Traditions and attitudes haven't changed much in a century.

Ron Gillette and his followers fear wolves will eat their cows

and destroy their way of life.

Cattle ranching has been a big thing

in this part of North America for 100 years.

Through the entire region, not just here in Pendleton

but the surrounding region - Idaho, Washington -

this is all cattle country.

Are people's livelihoods being affected by the return

of these wolves?

The livestock owners are losing their livestock.

Horse people are losing their horses, we're all being affected.

It is the most vicious, cruel predator in North America.

It will actually take its prey down alive

and suck the blood as the blood pumps out.

You're not talking about control, you're talking about wiping them out?

Get rid of them.

The facts are in, the experiment is over, it is failed.

Get 'em out, get rid of 'em.

He says that that his livelihood and his life

has been negatively affected by these wolves coming back,

but, you know, he's not talking about controlling wolves,

he is talking about extermination, about eradication.

You know, I thought we'd been through that 100 years ago,

we wiped the wolves out and we're giving them a chance to come back,

but things haven't changed enough for some people to allow that.

Wolves DO kill livestock. It tends to be uncommon to rare,

but it does happen, and those wolves will always be dealt with.

Wolves are eliminated so the ranches could be put there,

but now that they're there we are respecting the rights

and private property of the ranchers.

Wolves kill livestock, they're dead, that's the story.

Much more complicated is the story of wolves killing elk, deer,

huntable wildlife.

To get to the bottom of that story, Jasmine has driven to Idaho.

She has arrived at the home of deer- and elk-hunter Milton Turley.

Good you must be Milton.

I am Milt Turley. Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you, I'm Jasmine.

Jasmine wants to understand why Milton feels his lifestyle

is threatened by wolves.

She's decided to join him on a wolf hunt.

I wanna get a wolf this morning. Let's go hunting.

This is an AR-15.

It's a semi-automatic, it's an assault weapon.

You couldn't find a better thing to hunt a wolf with, though.

It's a small calibre, and I've got 30 rounds.

Not that I'm going to use that,

but I'm not going to be shooting more than once or twice at him.

Jasmine has spent her life protecting wolves.

Now she may be about to see one shot - legally - in front of her.

Back in Washington, Isaac still has his sights trained

on what he thinks is the wolf pack's rendezvous site.

But he's seen nothing all day. Time to try something new.

IMITATES WOLF CRY

IMITATES WOLF CRY

WOLF HOWLS

It sounds like the howl of a lone adult wolf.

IMITATES WOLF CRY

WOLF HOWLS

(That's a pup.)

WOLF HOWLS

ANOTHER WOLF HOWLS

(Two pups.)

MORE WOLVES HOWL

(There's a bunch of wolves in there.)

(They're really, really close.)

It is indeed a new pack.

Now, Isaac must wait to find out how many pups there are.

In Idaho, Jasmine is heading towards the meadow

where Milton hopes to find and shoot a wolf.

It's really hard for me to think about the idea

of killing such a beautiful and intelligent animal,

but I'm here to learn and be open-minded,

but I have to say it's really hard.

As long as you don't make any fast movements,

generally speaking, wolves won't spook.

If you start jumping around, they're going to run.

Milton is going to try and lure a wolf out into the meadow

using an old hunter's trick.

This is what they call a wounded rabbit call. It squeals.

MAKES RABBIT CALL

Just seen something move already.

Stay down, I just saw it move across that open spot, right there.

Stay down, stay down. I don't know what it is.

I seen it move so there is something definitely down there.

It's a wolf!

No it's a deer, it's a deer.

Oh, yeah, I see, OK.

There's another one behind him too,

behind her and I'm going to have to tell you

that's probably the first deer I've seen this summer here too.

You got to come out with me more often.

When the wolf started showing up, the elk started disappearing.

Now, the only change...

Habitat doesn't change that quick, the only change is the wolf.

Are they declining or are they just harder to find?

If you knew the hunters that I knew that hunt that,

they're hard-nosed hunters.

If they can't find 'em, they're not there, period.

Elk and deer-hunting

is a multimillion-dollar industry in Idaho.

If wolves are decimating game herds, whole communities could suffer.

MAKES HUNTING CALL

You hunt wolves so the deer and elk populations don't decline,

is that the reason why?

Well, right now, I think the elk are taking a hell of a hit

and it's impacting my life, it's impacting my grandkid's life

and everybody I know that hangs around me, are impacted by this wolf.

Do you feel that there's a role for an apex predator in the ecosystem?

Yeah, as long as they're kept in check a little bit.

Anything has to be kept in check.

-That's our job as people?

-What's that?

That's our job as people?

Oh...

yeah.

Every time I hear a wolf it just sends chill down my back.

It just says that nature is a little sick because

one of the creatures is literally devouring the other set of creatures.

There's got to be some middle ground here that we can have

so many wolves and still have the herds of elk

maintain a lively number of animals.

I could live with that.

Yeah, I would agree with that, too,

but you know as well as I do there are radicals on both sides.

That is certainly true.

Some of my colleagues, when I told them

you were one of the people that was going to come, said,

"She is a radical environmentalist, what do you want to talk to her for?"

What do you think after meeting me?

Well, I mean we're getting along all right now

-and I'm not going to beat up on you or shoot you but...

-That's good.

-So let's take a walk, shall we?

-OK, let's do it.

Milton and Jasmine see a middle ground

where people and wolves can share the remaining wild spaces.

But many in the west see the wolf as just a wanton killer.

Some scientists believe differently.

Wolves are a very, very effective killer.

However, people overestimate that fact.

Wolves, most of the time, are very unsuccessful with their hunts.

In fact, the prey have evolved mechanisms

to evade and escape wolves for millions of years.

What we refer to it as is an evolutionary arms race.

You've got the wolf and the prey so close to each other's abilities

of wolf killing, of prey getting away.

The edge between who's got the advantage

is so fine that, really, wolves being this indiscriminate,

wanton killer, wiping out herds of animals, is incorrect

because healthy animals generally rebuff wolf attacks.

Wolves target weak animals because they are easy prey.

With a top predator back on the landscape

herds may become stronger and healthier in the long run.

Anti-wolf people get wound up about it because it's values,

your view of nature. And it's simple,

"Who's dominant here, who is the top predator?"

And people, for the most part, want to be that top predator.

We need this group in the middle that's willing to compromise

on having wolves some places and not others,

and that's going to be a much more fruitful path

to solving our wolf issues.

In Washington, Isaac's been camping out for several days...

..but still had no view of the pack.

In full camouflage, he is returning to the meadow

where he heard the wolves howling.

(That's a pup.

(The pups are definitely here.)

(That's awesome.)

(Beautiful, couldn't ask for anything any better.

(Wow.

(It's really brown, a lot browner than I expected,

(brown and dark black, but just beautiful.)

(I kind of thought maybe they'd moved on,

(but they haven't, they're in here.

(They're just hunkering down and being really quiet.)

(Another one.)

(Two pups.)

(That's really, really great news.)

(Three.)

WOLF HOWLS

(One's over to the right, howling.)

(It doesn't sound like there's any adults here right now,

(and it really sounds to me like there's four pups.)

WOLF HOWLS

(I can't believe I'm this close.)

(I think what's so exciting about this,

(is not really seeing these wolves right in front of me

(but realising what they represent.)

(We're watching wolves return to Washington

(right in front of our eyes.

(The fact that this pack is this far south along the Cascades,

(the fact that they're succeeding,

(that they have pups and multiple adults,

(that it's a full-fledged healthy pack.)

(It goes to show that wolves are going to make it here no problem.)

(The only question is, are we going to let them?)

Jasmine's waited 20 years

to see wolves return to the Cascade Mountains.

Isaac's told her he's found the female,

but he's kept the discovery of four pups as a surprise.

So, I'm back down in the deep forest of the Cascade Mountains

and I've come to find Isaac who's been camping out,

and I'm really hoping he's had success,

because success in this case

means recovery of wolves to these mountains.

Aha! There's Isaac's truck.

-Well, hello.

-Jasmine.

Isaac.

How are you doing? Good to see you.

I'm doing good. You look like a man of the mountains.

Want to come take a look at the footage?

-I'd love to.

-All right, let's have a look.

That is amazing.

WOLF HOWLS

Oh, that just goes right to my heart.

Oh, he's quite the singer.

WOLF HOWLS

That is the sound I want to hear in these hills.

Oh, wow.

WOLF HOWLS

I can't believe what I'm seeing.

Don't get into trouble

and you'll be all right.

I never thought in the 20 years

that I've been looking for wolves in these mountains

that I would see this.

Thank you, thank you so much.

Isaac, you're the man, I'm so thrilled.

We've got pups, we've got pups! Nice, good job.

That's huge, I mean, that's going to change

the course of wildlife in this whole area.

The pups are around six months old.

When they're two, some will head off on their own to find a mate

and a new territory.

These wolves, the lookout pack legacy,

are proving they're smart.

They're learning how to survive in spite of people.

Gordon has come to meet wolf expert Doug Smith.

Doug thinks the wolf packs in the western United States

are revealing something new.

What's happened lately has revised some of our thinking

about what wolves are capable of doing.

A few years ago, we thought the wolves were only a wilderness species,

they had to have wild country, pristine habitat in which to live.

But here they're pushing out into this landscape

that, to me, doesn't look that wild.

200 years from now, what do you think we're going to see

across the wilderness states?

200 years from now,

I would like to see one vast connection of wolves

where they used to be in Canada all the way through these western states

and back into Mexico.

This doesn't mean there'd be wolves everywhere,

people don't need to be fearful that their way of life

is going to be taken out because of wolves.

We're talking about modest numbers of wolves

in habitats where they can be with low conflict to humans.

Doug's vision may not be that far away.

Wolves continue to strengthen their foothold in Washington.

Five packs are now confirmed living in the state.

The front line continues to push further down the west coast.

And a wolf has now reached northern California.

The return of the wolf continues.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd