Safe Return Doubtful

Non-fiction – Conservation – Published May 2025

Recently short-listed for the Baillie Gifford prize, this is the sort of conservation writing that I really enjoy reading, in that it considers both sides of the argument, those for and against the repopulation of the wolf.

In 2012, a young wolf who had been named Slavc wandered into the Lessini Mountains of Italy, thereby completing a 1200 mile route from Slovenia, where he was born. This was a dangerous place for a wolf to settle as the region had been intentionally wolf free for more than a hundred and fifty years. Slavc, who had been fitted with a GPS collar by Slovenian biologists, soon encountered a female, another wanderer, but from the south. They became a pair, the first spark of a lupine renaissance.

Weymouth determines to walk the path the wolf took, a thousand miles over a six month period, with a rucksack and camping gear, crossing the same passes and borders, sleeping in the same forests. On route he speaks with politicians, farmers, shepherds and hunters to understand how the reemergence of wolves has troubled rural communities in the Alps.

My Goodreads score 5 / 5