The Seattle TImes

Wolves capture attention of filmmakers

By Diane Wright

Times Snohomish County bureau

JOHN LOK / THE SEATTLE TIMES

Sharon Howard and Mike Rosen of the Snohomish area edit footage from their upcoming television documentary about wolves.

Sharon Howard and her husband, Mike Rosen, of the Snohomish area were filming gorillas in Rwanda in 1990 when a male silverback came over and sat in Rosen's lap. Howard looked over at her husband, the 450-pound gorilla on his lap, and asked, "Are you rolling?"

With 30 years of TV experience, 28 regional Emmy Awards and a national Peabody, television's highest award, Howard and Rosen are partners with a passion: filming wildlife, nature and the environment.

Two weeks before airing, they sat at the editing bench in their home, tweaking the details of "Wolf: An Ancient Spirit Returns." It will air at 10 p.m. Saturday on KOMO-TV (Channel 4).

The colorful and haunting documentary, narrated by actor Peter Coyote, tells the story of man's interaction with wolves in a tight, distilled set of vignettes. Wolf biologists, wolf trainers, a wolf photographer as well as ranchers and farmers weigh in.

Unlike the couple's seven other documentaries, which were funded by television stations and grants, "Wolf" was self-funded. Howard and Rosen took money out of their savings to produce what they think is the first major program that explores the fragile relationship between wolves and humans.

"Our mission, in the work we do, is to show that everything we do has consequences," said Howard, who writes the scripts for the couple's documentaries.

"We do this by different vehicles - through bears, though eagles, through elephants in Africa, through gorillas. We also did a show on biodiversity and hope to do one on global warming.

"All of our shows have the same theme, and that is that everything is connected, and what you do has a ripple effect, and we all need to walk more softly on the earth."

Howard got her start with KIRO-TV in 1977 as a floor director for newscasts and the live "J.P. Patches" show. She spent eight years at KIRO before going on to KOMO, where she produced a show called "Front Runners," a series of profiles about high achievers.

Rosen, who started working at a local TV station in high school in his home state of Wisconsin, moved to the Northwest in the late 1970s, starting in news at KIRO and eventually heading up the documentary unit.

The couple married in 1985. In 1990, they did a show together called "Vanishing Giants," visiting Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania to film rhinos, elephants and mountain gorillas.

It was clear to them that man's impact on the environment has been profound.

In "Wolf," they describe the conditions that led to the species' endangerment.

As man moved from a hunting to a farming species, wolves became a casualty of that shift. They lost their traditional hunting habitat and began eating livestock.

In Yellowstone Park, for instance, wolves were systematically shot, trapped and poisoned. By 1926, they had been eradicated from the park.

Deer and elk and other big game then overpopulated and overgrazed park grounds, threatening Yellowstone's ecosystem, according to biologist Doug Smith. He led a team that brought the wolves back to Yellowstone, and the documentary chronicles the return of wolves to Yellowstone in 1995 in an epic undoing of the long-held policy.

"If we couldn't have restored wolves to Yellowstone, as one of the wealthiest countries in the world, what kind of message would that have sent to other nations who struggle with their economies and at the same time struggle with wildlife issues?" Smith asks in the documentary.

Others in the film speak with equal passion.

There's a segment on ranchers and outfitters who see the wolves' return as a scourge. The return would never have happened if it had been up to them, says Frank Rigler, a rancher in Montana.

The government has compensated them for livestock lost to wolves, but the issue remains divisive.

Howard and Rosen spent 10 days in Yellowstone with a pack of wolves, filming from a quarter-mile away.

"I think when we look at wolves carefully, they really mirror our social structure," photographer Jim Brandenburg says on camera.

"With a family size that's about the same size as our family size - three to 10 animals per pack. They weigh about the same as we do. They tend to mate for life. The aunts and the uncles and the kids all take care of the babies.

"They're a very, very tightly knit, sophisticated social structure compared to most animals - not much different than the primates. They're more devoted."

Sharing a career and a marriage have bonded Howard and Rosen as a couple, and four years ago, they moved from their home in Seattle's Magnolia neighborhood to a rural area near Snohomish. They have five acres, "where we can almost do a wildlife documentary in our back yard," Howard said.

"We love working together; we love being in the field together," Rosen said. "Every show brings us closer."

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