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is for anyone interested in:

  • Plains Indians and their cultural connection to animals

  • Field adventures of a biologist in spectacular wildlands

  • Natural history of large mammals

  • An inspiring and heartwarming conservation success story

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Utah State University Press 
Hardcover Published 2010, 227 pages
ISBN: 978-0-87421-791-9

     Wildlife on the Wind is the first book published about wildlife restoration on an American Indian reservation.  The book details the common fate shared by Native peoples and large mammal herds that sustained them as Euro-American expansion irredeemably changed the American West.
     The story focuses on two of these Indian nations, the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho and how their cultures and lifestyles forever were changed by the loss of their nomadic hunting economy.  In 1978, the tribal councils petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to help them recover their wildlife heritage. Wildlife on the Wind recounts how the first wildlife biologist to work on the Wind River Indian Reservation helped the Shoshone and Arapaho people change the course of conservation.
     In addition to a story of hope, perseverance, and restoration of charismatic wildlife, it’s also a biologist’s personal journey to understanding the true purpose of his work.

     What others are saying about Wildlife on the Wind:

"The urgent task of restoring nature must of necessity be carried out by dedicated people who give themselves over to knowing and loving particular places. Bruce Smith is one of those people, and his account vividly illustrates both the hard work of healing and the success that can come when that work pays off."  —Peter Friederici, author of Nature’s Restoration
 

"Combining history, biology, and memoir, Smith evokes the challenges of one of conservation’s least sung professions–the wildlife biologist. In the process, he also recounts an exciting story of how Wyoming’s Wind River Indian Reservation restored its wildlife."  —Ted Kerasote, author of Heart of Home: People, Wildlife, and Place

Wildlife on the Wind:
A Field Biologist’s Journey and an Indian Reservation’s Renewal

Wildlife on the Wind
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