Wildlife advocate carves career awash in wonderment

Brian Peck helped escort the NBC network journalists as a small group skied into Christensen Meadows along the Camas Creek drainage in Glacier National Park.

They hoped to see or at least hear wolves of the so-called Magic Pack. But the day and the light were waning.

It was early December 1986. Peck was in his second day working with the Wolf Ecology Project. He had never before seen or heard a wild wolf.

“We got in there about an hour and a half before dark,” Peck recently recalled.

Suddenly, he spotted a wolf as it moved up from Camas Creek and paused briefly to observe the visitors before moving into the lodgepole forest. The NBC staffers readied their camera and a parabolic microphone.

Over the next two minutes, more wolves showed themselves, paused momentarily, and then melted into the forest, Peck said.

Finally, a jet-black wolf that was noticeably larger than the others loped out and stood peering at the intruders in a dignified pose.

“It was probably the alpha male,” Peck said. “It was like he was saying, ‘I’m not afraid of you people.’”

Seconds later, he too disappeared into the darkening forest.

And then, as the setting sun lit the peaks of Glacier with alpenglow, as a full moon began to rise, the 10 wolves of the Magic Pack howled.

“This was my first experience of seeing wild wolves,” Peck said. “And it was magic.”

Years later, Peck, now 71, shared this memory during a conversation Thursday morning on the front porch of his home near Columbia Falls. The setting provided a foreground view of an ancient Ponderosa pine and the frenetic flutterings of pine siskins and a background view of the Swan Range looming large.

The night before, a great gray owl missing one eye had flown in and perched on a post near the house.

Peck, a native of rural western Massachusetts, talked about his 45-year career in natural resources and wildlife conservation.

His career began in 1973 in Boulder, Colorado, after a two-year stint in the U.S. Army. He worked as a park ranger and in natural resources for the city, a job he held until January 1994.

While still in Colorado, Peck worked with the National Audubon Society to help organize support for the campaign to reintroduce wolves to Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho.

In 1995, Peck and his wife, Linda, moved to Montana and the house they share near Columbia Falls.

He has worked as an independent wildlife consultant, with a focus on wolves and grizzly bears, for organizations that have included: Audubon, the Great Bear Foundation, Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council and WildEarth Guardians.

Peck has worked also as an educator for Road Scholar, a nonprofit organization that offers experiential learning opportunities around the world. His offerings have included classes about Glacier National Park and Waterton Lakes National Park.

“We answer questions about everything from geology to glaciers to wildlife,” he said.

As an advocate and activist for wolves and grizzly bears, Peck is no stranger to controversy or the sort of emotional heat that can build at wildlife-related meetings convened by state or federal agencies.

“I don’t know if I have a particularly thick skin, but at public meetings I do,” he said, smiling. “I try to be calm and semi-articulate.”

Peck was asked about the strong feelings often evoked by large predators.

“I think humans are hostile to big carnivores such as wolves and grizzlies because they challenge our world view that we are the center of the universe; that we are, and should be, the dominant species on the planet; and that the rest of creation must bend to our will or be swept aside,” he said.

Peck said he believes the antipathy toward these animals began with the rise of agriculture, after both crops and livestock were first domesticated.

“Suddenly, the big carnivores that had been respected and even revered by earlier peoples, were direct competitors for our food supply — cattle, sheep, goats,” he said. “In short order, wiping out wolves, bears, and lions was not only viewed as a necessity, but a near patriotic duty.”

Peck traces the origins of his career to the influence of a Massachusetts Audubon educator, Marilyn Flor, who made presentations to his elementary school classes that struck him as fascinating.

As a child and teen, Peck spent hours exploring meadows, creeks and mountains in the vicinity of Windsor, Massachusetts. His sister, Marilyn, taught him how to fish.

The family often vacationed in Vermont, New Hampshire or Maine, where time was spent paddling the New England lakes.

His father, Ralph Peck, worked as a carpenter for General Electric at its plant in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Peck said his father taught him about honesty and integrity, about the importance of public service, about storytelling.

His mother, Esther, taught elementary school. Peck said she championed the value of education and had a remarkable ability to synthesize facts and communicate clearly about complex topics.

In his late teens, as Peck neared high school graduation, he happened to look at a catalog from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He was surprised and thrilled to discover the school offered courses in such things as wildlife management and wildlife biology.

“I was like, ‘Bingo!’” he said.

He studied for two years at a community college and then transferred to the university.

In 1969, he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in wildlife, fish and wildlands science and management.

Then Peck enlisted in the Army. It was the Vietnam era and his friends were being drafted and Peck felt enlisting might provide more control over his fate during a time of national upheaval.

“It was a tumultuous time,” he said.

After basic training, Peck ended up at Fort Carson, Colorado, near Colorado Springs.

And when his Army enlistment ended, he got the job as park ranger and educator with Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks. His duties included environmental education, wildlife management, law enforcement, natural resources education and more.

He said he and Linda decided to move to Northwest Montana because of its relevancy to recovery work with wolves and bears. For example, the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem is said to be home to about 1,000 grizzly bears, the largest population of the bears in the Lower 48.

In September 1995, Peck was working for the Great Bear Foundation, co-founded by the late Charles Jonkel, a legendary bear biologist and advocate.

He and Linda traveled to Logan Pass and, equipped with a stack of the foundation’s “Bear News” publication, set up a high-powered spotting scope off the Hidden Lake trail.

A grizzly with a dark-black coat and silver highlights was in full view about a quarter mile away in glacier lily meadows.

Peck wrote about the experience later for “Grizzly Times.”

“Over the next hour a crowd swelled and receded around our scope as scores of hikers stopped to see this magnificent bear, pick up a ‘Bear News’ and ask excited questions,” he wrote.

And then a family from Michigan walked up. When the mother learned about the bear, she was thrilled, Peck reported.

Through the spotting scope she got a close view of the animal she’d dreamed of seeing during the family’s time in Glacier. She then surrendered the scope to other family members.

Peck wrote, “...when she stepped back there were tears rolling down her cheeks, and a smile that stretched from ear to ear. Her face was radiant.”

It seems clear that Peck retains a comparable sense of wonderment about the wildlife whose habitat he enters or shares.

He grinned when displaying photos of the great gray owl that visited Wednesday. He marveled at the bird’s beauty.

And he shared with great enthusiasm the story of once encountering with Linda a young wolf along the Kintla Lake road in Glacier. From about 100 feet away, Peck howled at the wolf and the wolf howled back. (Later, he learned to his chagrin that imitating wolf howls is prohibited inside the park.)

Meanwhile, Peck said his parents emphasized he has an obligation to live and work for causes greater than himself.

“The world does not revolve around me or for me and I have a responsibility to make things better, whether it’s environmentally or politically or socially,” he said.

All while living and working within the realm of Northwest Montana’s mountain cathedrals.

When Peck teaches classes through the Road Scholar program, he often recites for students a John Muir quote:

“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings, Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.”

Reporter Duncan Adams may be reached at dadams@dailyinterlake.com or 758-4407.