The Wolf Ranger
Inside the Co-Thriving Carnivore Corridor Co-Op (4C)
Feb 2026 | Documentary Film Series Proposal
A documentary film and research collaboration centered on Project GRIPH’s Co-Thriving Carnivore Corridor Co-Op (4C), developed in partnership with AnthroZooCo, a multispecies ethnography and documentary research initiative.
Why this work needs to be filmed
These relationships aren’t asking to be illustrated; they are asking to be witnessed.
The story unfolding here cannot be told through a single moment of success or loss. It requires time, patience, and presence. Film allows us to stay with what usually goes unseen: the quiet learning taking place between species, the subtle shifts in behavior, the absence of crisis where crisis is expected, cothriving in action, and the hard work it takes to arrive at that point.
A film series here would not follow a rescue arc or a conflict narrative. It would follow how relationships can be the answer to bridging the gap between divisive issues. Showcasing how wolves can teach us how to be better to one another.
What the camera can capture:
- Wolves calmly moving through working pastures
- Cattle holding cohesion rather than scattering
- Range riders reading behavior in real time, of cows, wolves, and land
- The layered traces of shared use: tracks, crossings, bedded ground, migration routes
- The “before” and “after” existing simultaneously, across neighboring ranches
- Range riders interacting with wolves and other large carnivores
- Range riders moving cattle across large wild landscapes with LSLH
This is not staged. It is an organic process, unfolding over seasons, across species. Our goal is to document an existing reality, not inflame a topic already saturated with conflict. The story is inherently compelling and will reach diverse audiences.
Camera traps, long lenses, and sustained observation are especially powerful in this context, wolves passing through pasture edges day and night, cattle maintaining calm as predators move nearby, and land holding multiple lives at once.
What makes this film series different
Most wolf–livestock films miss the essence of what cothriving encapsulates. The relationships that define a working landscape that allows all entities that use it to live in balance.
Rather than framing wolves as a problem to be solved, this work documents a different question: What changes when humans take responsibility for our own actions and understand that we can live with the planet instead of on it?
We prevent conflict instead of reacting to it. Allowing people who live with these animals to view them in a different light.
This film will showcase the steps to fostering a landscape where all can thrive. Taking the audience on a journey from a rancher who sees no potential for moving forward with wolves on the landscape to a rancher who is thriving alongside wolves and can view them as part of a working cattle operation.
Why now
The corridor is still forming.
Ranches are joining incrementally, one neighbor at a time. Wolves are already moving through properties at different stages of participation. Cattle behavior is actively shifting. Human relationships, between ranchers, riders, and predators, are in motion.
This moment will not exist again in the same way. A film made now captures a system becoming, not a polished outcome, but a living process. It documents co-thriving not as a concept, but as a practice taking shape in real time.
The invitation
Your support makes it possible to document co-thriving without disrupting it.
It allows cameras to remain where stories unfold quietly, over time.
It allows the land, the wolves, and the cattle to set the pace.
This is not a film about whether wolves can live alongside cattle.
It is about witnessing and supporting what it looks like when they already are.
Support can take many forms:
- Funding the film and long-term documentation
- Supporting conflict-prevention work on the ground
The Funding Ask
We are initially seeking $80,000 to support the development and production of a documentary film series embedded within Project GRIPH’s Co-Thriving Carnivore Corridor Co-Op (4C).
This funding supports:
- Long-term, ethical filming across working ranches
- Camera-trap deployment and monitoring in active grazing areas
- Documentation that prioritizes prevention, relationship, and shared use of land
- Storytelling integrated with real, ongoing fieldwork
Creating a compassionate narrative around a successful model. This is an investment to showcase the human spirit and how when we meet challenging issues with love and respect co-thriving can happen.
Draft Film Series Budget (36 months): Total Request: $80,000
Pre-Production & Protocols: $2,000
Story development, filming ethics, coordination with range riders and landowners
Series Camera Equipment: $30,000
Professional cameras and camera trap units, weatherproofing, etc
Field Production (36 months) $20,000
Cinematography, camera-trap equipment and maintenance, travel aligned with field operations
Post-Production: $20,000
Editing, sound, color, final master
Education & Impact: $5,000
Film festivals, educational resources, partnerships, and community screenings
Administration & Oversight: $3,000
Insurance, data storage, fiscal management, reporting
This is not a series about whether wolves can live alongside cattle. It’s about witnessing what it looks like when they already are and the steps taken to get there.