Almost a decade ago, during a visit to the now-shut UK Wolf Conservation Trust in Beenham with my course-mates from the Silwood Park campus of Imperial College London, I got a fascinating glimpse into the history and current status of wolves in Great Britain. As the wolves paced in their enclosures, I learnt about how this once widespread species was hunted to extinction on the island by the combined effects of accelerated deforestation and a bounty system brought about through the cultural vilification of the species. It made me think about how wolves in my native India have a similarly bad reputation, particularly in popular literature, where they are often portrayed as brute and evil.

In Hunt for the Shadow Wolf, Derek Gow—an active rewilder who is known for his work with water voles, wildcats, beavers and other species—goes on a quest to uncover the true nature of the vilified wolf, hoping to help reconcile our troubled relationship with this apex predator. Gow begins this journey by illustrating the underlying dislike that people have for wolves, which led to the narratives, policies and actions that ultimately drove the species to extinction in Great Britain. In the introduction he writes about the death of the last wolf in Scotland, purportedly killed by the legendary Highland deer stalker MacQueen of Pall a'Chrocain in Darnaway Forest, Morayshire. From there, through assorted pieces of evidence painstakingly gathered from family histories, churches, museums and other sources during his journeys throughout Britain, Gow leads the reader to a better understanding of this majestic animal.

Humankind's engagement with the wolf, though often fraught in recent centuries, has at times been almost reverential. Drawing on the notion of the wolf as a larger-than-life, mystical creature, wolf-related terminologies have crept into the English language in several ways, including the names of human settlements, and wolf parts have long been regarded as powerful remedies to treat a wide range of ailments and afflictions, such as breast pain, for which a wolf's fore-foot was recommended, and epilepsy, the treatment of which was thought to be possible using a wolf's heart. Rogerius, the 13th-century Italian physician, gave the autoimmune disease lupus its name because he thought the facial lesions associated with the disease were reminiscent of wolf bites.

Reverence for wolves is found in many cultures and throughout human history, as are stories and reports of human children raised by wolves, such as the ancient Roman tale of the mythical twins Romulus and Remus, who were suckled by a she-wolf. In his book, Gow references Dina Sanichar, a feral boy who was discovered among wolves in India in 1872 and forced into an orphanage, and who, despite subsequently spending many years in human company, never learnt to speak and continued to vocalize in grunts and howls for the rest of his life; some believe Sanichar may have served as the inspiration for the character Mowgli in Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book.

Gow is a skilled storyteller and I appreciated his various personal anecdotes peppered throughout the book, such as his work with two captive wolves, Nadia and Mishka, who were adopted by the wildlife park in Kent where he used to work. However, although well-researched and referenced, the book's structure is slightly erratic, which does not allow the breadth of Gow's research to shine through to its full effect.

In light of the European Commission's proposal to change the status of wolves in the European Union from ‘strictly protected’ to ‘protected’, which would allow EU nations to cull wolves at scale for the first time in 4 decades, this book is a timely publication. Although the wolf population has recovered in many parts of Europe and the species is no longer teetering on the brink of extinction, environmental organizations fear that this conservation success could be jeopardized by the proposed change. Personally, I hope this often misunderstood animal receives the support it needs to thrive in our human-dominated world, and that we will find a way to coexist with these ecologically and culturally important predators. The book's overall tenor of encouraging environmental stewardship, could help to change public perception of this unjustly vilified animal.