A young artist's life with wolf cub (4)

（China Daily）  08:33, January 18, 2013  

"When I first read the book years ago I thought that the writer was exaggerating on the wolves' special qualities. Then I saw he was telling real stories," Li says.

Li played the role of fellow cubs with Green, playing or competing with him. She got hurt frequently. She even tried to teach Green wolf howls by playing recordings and demonstrating.

Growing bigger, Green became a threat in city life. Though sad about separation, Li took Green back to the grassland where he was born in 2010 and made a plan.

"I didn't want to deprive Green of the freedom he deserves," Li says.

Li took three steps, placing Green first among Tibetan Mastiffs, then into the wild and then into the wolf pack. All along, she acted with the wolf and trained him like a mother wolf.

To teach Green to hunt, Li huddled with Green in front of a rabbit hole for hours. In return for the love, Green greeted his "mother" every morning through the window, and left her with the stones he collected from the wild as gifts.

When Green was finally accepted by the leader of a wild wolf pack in February 2011, Li watched as his footprints disappeared in the distance on the snowy ground.

From a little cub, Green had grown into a wolf 90 cm tall from the head, and 100 cm long, not counting the tail. Li was reluctant to turn to the next page of her life, without Green. She returned to the grasslands several times afterwards to look for the wolf, but never saw him again. Now she wants people to understand the wolves' importance in the ecological chains. According to an incomplete survey, the number of wild wolves in the country is in the thousands.

Most important: She'd like to wipe away the common notion that wolves are evil.

"Wolves carry the essence of grassland spirits of respect, freedom and equality," says CCTV anchor Bai Yansong, an Inner Mongolian native, after reading Li's experience.

Li says months with Green turned her into a stronger woman.

"Even the young wolf can find ways to adapt and survive. How can I lose or show fear in front of my own battles?" she says.