Wolf Man, Wolf Wish

By 1931, the wild western prairie wolves were all but extinct, the victims of vehement hunting by ranchers and government hunters. Jack Lynch, profiled in this program, is the lone man who is trying to save the wolves from extinction. Wolves were hunted because they preyed on sheep, which they ironically turned to when the bison herds were wiped out in the 1800's. The few prairie wolves remaining today are the descendants of wolves that were saved in the early 1900's by a Pennsylvania doctor named E.H. McCleery. Shortly before his death in 1961, McCleery turned over his wolves to Lynch who has since moved them to a ranch in Montana. There Lynch keeps them in large cages, hoping to free them some day.