Grant Spickelmier
Executive Director
It is well accepted at the International Wolf Center that the two most stressful and time-intensive things we do in our work are integrating new pups into our pack and hosting the International Wolf Symposium. This is why we work hard to never schedule them to take place in the same calendar year. Except when they do.
In May 2022, our newest ambassador wolves Blackstone and Caz were successfully introduced to Rieka, Axel and Grayson thanks to the thousands of hours of staff and volunteer time spent helping the “pirates” adjust to their new surroundings. A few months later, we then hosted nearly 450 wildlife managers, biologists, students and wolf enthusiasts from around the world for an incredible four days of learning and sharing in Minneapolis as part of the seventh International Wolf Symposium.
These two incredible achievements were just the highlights of a year full of accomplishments including the announcement of the first two winners of the Dr. L. David Mech fellowship program, offering free virtual wolf programs to over 10,000 students and reaching hundreds of thousands more with our educational YouTube videos, Instagram posts, webcams and webinars. Check out the rest of this report for full details.
At the end of 2022—our team was almost universally exhausted, but also proud of what we had done, not for ourselves, but for wolves. We do this work, not because we like 12–14-hour workdays, but out of a shared love for the sound of a howl on a crisp autumn night, the shiver up our spine we get when we glimpse a wolf in the wild (or when Axel stares directly at us through the exhibit glass). We do this out of appreciation for the important role wolves play in wild ecosystems and a curiosity to discover more. We do this out of concern for the many ways woles continue to be misunderstood and misrepresented and a desire to chart a path towards greater understanding. Thank you to everyone who contributed to these efforts in 2022. You all deserve a medal…and a nap!
To return to the 2021 Annual Report, click here.
