COST OF FREEDOM is the story of a wolf the feds named B36F. She was one of 66 wolves brought from Canada to the lower 48 states during the Wolf Reintroduction Program of 1995. While other wolves formed packs, B36 roamed the Idaho mountains alone. After several years, she found her mate—a native wolf that biologists called “The Old Man”—and gave birth to a litter of puppies that many people saw as an indication of the reintroduction experiment’s success. What followed would not only question that theory of success but expose the complicity of the US government in the subsidized destruction of the American west at the behest of hunters and the livestock industry.