Picoult also has Luke describe how a kill is shared within a pack of six wolves, with the alpha supposedly getting the internal organs, the beta the rump and thigh, and so on down the line. It's not only the supernatural knowledge attributed by Picoult to the alpha female that grates. In responding to the character Luke's statements in Lone Wolf, Mech pulls no punches. His peer-reviewed scientific work concerns wolf behavior in Yellowstone and Denali National Parks, among other places on Ellesmere Island, Canada, he lived close-up with a pack of wolves for parts of 25 summers. A wildlife biologist, Mech has studied wolves full time since 1958. When my review was published, The International Wolf Center contacted me and, through its staff, I corresponded about the novel with Dr. Only after turning my review in to my editor at the Post did I discover that wolf scientists are howling mad at Picoult for misleading the public about wolves. This claim is nonsense, not to mention scientifically untestable. ' This was bizarre enough, but my limit of tolerance was finally exceeded with Luke's remark that, even before she is pregnant, an alpha female wolf knows the number of pups she will birth, their sex, and whether they will stay with her or go off to live elsewhere. Luke Warren, the book's fictional wolf expert, describes a joyful moment sharing a carcass with captive wolves: 'I lowered my face to the carcass and began to rip off strips of raw flesh, bloodying my face and my hair. I was disappointed by Picoult's far-out characterizations of wolves and their relationship to humans. These questions have been on my mind since I reviewed Jodi Picoult's new novel Lone Wolf for The Washington Post. Do fiction writers have an obligation to ensure that the science they import into their novels is credible? Or does the creative license that writers enjoy mean that there's no such responsibility? What happens when a novelist explicitly notes that the work in question is based on trusted science, but scientists insist is it not?

Lone wolf picoult