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Dr. McCleery Lobo Wolves Digital Archive

Lobo Wolves Photograph Collection

Gardiner, WA (1972-1980)

In the early 1900s, during the United States and Canadian governments' campaign to exterminate wolves from the American wilderness, Dr. E. H. McCleery of Kane, Pennsylvania purchased more than 20 live wolves from the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains (which he called "lobo wolves"). His "wolf farm," where he raised, bred, and exhibited his wolves for 41 years, became a popular tourist destination and ultimately saved the subspecies from extinction. 

Jack Lynch bought Dr. McCleery's wolves near the end of Dr. McCleery's life and continued to preserve the subspecies. In 1972 he moved the wolves to Gardiner, WA where he named the wolf park "Loboland USA" and the "Pacific Wolf Preserve." In 1980 he and his partner Mary Wheeler moved the wolves to a new park in Montana, where they are still bred and maintained today.

Read all about the Gardiner, WA wolf park here.

Gardiner, WA (1972-1980)