With wolves now roaming the state in greater numbers than anyone believed possible, their future is tied less to biology and the landscape than to public opinion toward a creature that is defined as much by myth as by science.
Adrian Treves knows this better than just about anyone.
Treves is a UW-Madison animal behaviorist and ecologist, and along with his wife, UW-Madison geography professor Lisa Naughton, has used extensive surveys to plumb public attitudes toward wolves in a deeper fashion than has ever been done before in Wisconsin.