title: Awakening Spirits: Wolves in the Southern Rockies
author: Richard P. Reading
description: <div>Richard Reading is the founder and director of the Denver Zoo's Department of Conservation Biology. Rich holds a PhD in wildlife ecology from Yale University and master's degrees in environmental studies, wildlife ecology, and philosophy. He is also an associate research professor at the University of Denver and holds adjunct faculty positions at Colorado State University. Amy Masching is a biologist and conservation specialist at the Denver Zoo. Brian Miller is the executive director of the Wind River Ranch Foundation. Rob Edward is the carnivore restoration director for WildEarth Guardians. Mike Phillips has served as the executive director of the Turner Endangered Species Funds since its inception in 1997.</div>
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  ![image](../images/MyCoverImage.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The Fellowship of the Talisman
  
  
  Clifford D. Simak
  
  
  ![image](../images/fig_02.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _1_
  
  
  The manor house was the first undamaged structure they had seen in two days of
  travel through an area that had been desolated with a thoroughness at once
  terrifying and unbelievable.
  
  
  During those two days, furtive wolves had watched them from hilltops. Foxes,
  their brushes dragging, had skulked through underbrush. Buzzards, perched on
  dead trees or on the blackened timbers of burned homesteads, had looked upon
  them with speculative interest. They had met not a soul, but occasionally, in
  thickets, they had glimpsed human skeletons.
  
  
  The weather had been fine until noon of the second day, when the soft sky of
  early autumn became overcast, and a chill wind sprang from the north. At times
  the sharp wind whipped icy rain against their backs, the rain sometimes mixed
  with snow.
  
  
  Late in the afternoon, topping a low ridge, Duncan Sta