Sawtooth Legacy Films
Welcome to the Sawtooth Legacy
Wolves, predators, and the future of stewardship — three films designed to educate, challenge assumptions, and move the conversation beyond emotion toward understanding, responsibility, and action.
For over three decades, the Wolf Education & Research Center has stood at the intersection of wildlife conservation, public education, and one of North America’s most complex and emotionally charged conversations — our relationship with wolves, apex predators, and the wild landscapes we still share.
What began with the legendary Sawtooth Pack of the Nez Perce grew into something far greater than sanctuary walls. It became a living classroom where over 100,000 visitors encountered wolves not as headlines or symbols, but as living ambassadors for a much larger conversation about ecology, responsibility, and stewardship.
This page exists to preserve that story — and to carry it forward.
Here, you’ll find the Sawtooth Legacy Film Series — three films designed to educate, challenge assumptions, and move the conversation beyond emotion and ideology toward understanding, responsibility, and action. Thanks to the generosity of our supporters, you are invited to watch the first two films in this trilogy at no cost.
Film · 01
The Great Wolf Divide
A tribute to the history of the Wolf Education & Research Center and the remarkable story of the Sawtooth Pack: Wolves of the Nez Perce.
For longtime supporters, former visitors, volunteers, and those who helped shape this mission.
Film · 02
The Great Predator Debate
A Civics 101 for learners of any age who want to understand the complexity of what many simply call “the wolf issue.”
Diverse voices, competing interests, and difficult questions — predator conservation where wildlife, economics, public policy, private land and human values collide.
Film · 03 · In development
The Great Predator’s Future
The trilogy concludes with The Great Predator’s Future, now in development. The real-world efforts where ranchers, wildlife managers, indigenous leaders and conservationists are building a future where predators and people share the landscape.
Not whether predators have a future — but whether we have the stewardship to shape one.
Get notified →
Next · With your help
What comes after the trilogy
A field-guide companion. A teacher pack expansion. New cases of Sherlock Bones in the Pacific Northwest. The Sawtooth Legacy keeps going as long as readers keep showing up.
None of it ships without you.
Support the work →Where do we go from here?
The wolves may no longer walk the sanctuary grounds, but their story — and the responsibility it represents — is far from over.
If this work matters to you, we invite you to watch, learn, share, and help us continue producing films and educational resources designed to inform, challenge, and inspire the next generation of conservation leadership.
Keep going
Read the long version
From Sawtooth to Owyhee
The films distil three decades into hours of footage. The full written history — the Elder Eight, the Owyhee rescue, the night the pack howled in the new millennium — lives in our story.
Read the full story →
Support the mission
Help finish the story
Finishing the trilogy — and continuing to give it away — depends entirely on supporters. A monthly gift keeps the camera rolling. A larger gift underwrites a chapter.
Support the mission →Support the mission.
Help finish the story.
