In the United States, wildlife management agencies pursue an approach to wolves rooted in agricultural traditions and economic priorities, rather than pursuing science-based, ecologically sustainable policies. This talk will examine the roots of our society’s dysfunctional relationship with wolves, how it contrasts with more ecologically healthy approaches of Indigenous cultures, and will discuss how we can move to a mutualistic approach in the human relationship to wolves. Erik Molvar is Executive Director of Western Watersheds Project. He is a wildlife biologist with peer-reviewed publications on the role of predation risk in the evolution of group behavior in prey species, and also in the role of moose herbivory in driving Alaskan plant communities and soil dynamics. He has worked for many years to eliminate predator-killing programs and promote large carnivore restoration in the western United States, and is a co-author of the Western Watersheds Project ESA petition to protect wolves in Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, and parts of Washington, Oregon, and Utah under the Endangered Species Act.