Shaun Ellis

Ever since my extraordinary encounter with that big cream-colored wolf in the zoo near Thetford, I had wanted to see and know more about these creatures that had so preyed on my imagination as a child. I began reading natural history books, and a lot of what I had learned about foxes from years of watching them seemed applicable to what I was reading about wolves. Foxes were being cruelly and systematically persecuted because of a reputation I knew they didn't deserve; mankind had gone one further with wolves and exterminated them from most parts of the world. I began to wonder whether all the negative stories I had heard about wolves as I was growing up were any more reliable than the falsehoods I had been told about their small, red cousins.

Native Americans would say that [the sight of a fox killed in a trap] was the moment when my fate was sealed. They say that you sign nature's unwritten contract to work with animals at a very young age as a result of some experience, either good or bad, that happens in early childhood. Looking back, there is no doubt that the shock of seeing that magnificent young fox-my friend-hanging from that tree left me with a feeling of revulsion for my own kind and a desire to distance myself from the human race.

Wolves had got under my skin and my mind was in turmoil. I felt nothing but contempt for my fellow man and nothing but admiration for these creatures that had admitted me into their world. Theirs was the world I wanted to stay in. It was safer than mine, more disciplined, and I had a greater sense of belonging.

I knew that scent was important and I discovered that if I put on different clothes or washed or at different food, the beta male would start nipping me again until he was satisfied that the new smell didn't mean I was going to react differently to his approach or that my mood had changed. The other high-ranking wolves did the same thing, but it didn't involve every wolf in the enclosure. The lower-ranking members of the pack, I was to learn, don't question what the higher-ranking members decide; they are foot soldiers - they have an important job to do, but it is not to think for themselves.

I was a regular visitor to the headmaster's office, so it was unsurprising that I left with no qualifications at the earliest moment I legally could, when I was barely sixteen.

The alphas are the most important members because they are the decision makers and without them the pack is leaderless. So their survival is paramount. If food is scarce, they will eat first and they may be the only ones who do eat. Other members of the pack will go hungry, even the pups, and starve if necessary. And the rest of the pack knows better than to touch something that has the beta's scent on it.

I had never considered joining the army and, had I not been dodging the police, probably never would have done so, but the more I learned about it, the more it seemed the perfect career for me.

No one would listen to me when I tried to protest that foxhunting was cruel. And as a young boy it was hard to argue with my elders about being disrespectful, but it seemed to me that if you didn't want foxes to get into your henhouse, then you needed to build an enclosure that was foxproof. It seemed totally unjust to set foxhounds to kill foxes because human beings were too lazy to take proper care of their chickens. Whenever I tried to speak to anyone about it, I was told to mind my manners, what did I know? I was just a child. It was years before I was vindicated and foxhunting was banned in England and Wales. During the debate that raged beforehand, I was involved in researching the effect hunting had on the fox. The prohunting lobby said that they only caught old and sick animals, but that was simply not true. I examined foxes that had been caught and among them were carcasses of eighteen-month-old foxes - animals in the prime of life - too young to know how to save themselves. Another myth was that the lead dog brought down the fox and it was all over in seconds with a single bite. The truth was they ran the fox to exhaustion until its brain boiled and swelled, its lungs bled, and the fox drowned in its own blood. They were often dead before the hounds even touched them. It was the most horrific death.

I've seen three wolves successfully take on a seven-hundred- to eight-hundred-pound bear and remain in control throughout just by waiting until it was pitch dark for the final assault. Being nocturnal animals, the wolves could still see clearly, but the bear, which is fundamentally a daytime creature, was at a disadvantage.