Hunt for the Shadow Wolf: The lost history of wolves and the myths and stories that surround them

Longlisted for the Wainwright Prize 2024 for Nature Writing

Hunt for the Shadow Wolf is Derek’s quest to uncover the true nature of this magnificent creature. As Derek worked to reintroduce the beaver, he began to hear stories of the wolf, both real and mythical, and his fascination with it grew. He pieced together fragments of information, stories and artefacts to reveal a shadowy creature that first walked proud through these lands and then was hunted to extinction.

What Derek came to realise was that the underlying motives behind our hatred were actually rooted in power and profit. We turned the wolf into a savage beast and saw its extirpation as a civilising mission. But the wolf endured and Derek tells of his sightings through folklore and mythology, the records of grand estates and parish churches as well as wolf heads, both real and recreated.

With bitingly funny but also tender stories, Hunt for the Shadow Wolf makes clear why we must reconcile our relationship with this majestic animal before we can begin to bring it back to these lands.

‘Gow has a fire in his belly. We need more like him.’ BBC Wildlife Magazine