On March 26, King’s Academy welcomed the Living with Wolves organization to speak to the school community during a special school meeting. This is the organization’s second talk, having visited King’s previously in 2013. Living with Wolves is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to engaging the public worldwide in education, outreach and research to promote truth and understanding about wolves, while encouraging coexistence and inspiring people to take action to protect them.

The founders of Living with Wolves, Jim Dutcher and Jamie Dutcher, took to the stage to present a fascinating presentation to students about their work as wildlife filmmakers that led them, during the 1990s, to live in the wild for over five years in order to document the lives and behaviors of the Sawtooth Pack, a family of wolves reintroduced to the Yellowstone National Park and Central Idaho. 

Presenting their beautiful photography and video footage of the wild wolves, accompanied by a commentary about their work and experiences as filmmakers, the Dutchers opened the floor to a flood of animated questions from King’s students.

The Dutchers’ first groundbreaking and award-winning documentary film, Wolf: Return of A Legend, was followed by other films that aim to educate the public about the often-misunderstood wolf, portraying the animal in a way it had never been seen before: intelligent, caring, family-oriented and, most importantly, not a threat to people or livestock.

With the establishment of Living with Wolves in 2006 and the release of books, exhibits, presentations, magazines articles, a traveling museum exhibit, and world-wide wolf related interviews, as well as their longstanding relationship with National Geographic, the Dutchers and the wolf pack whose life they documented, have educated and touched the lives millions of people.