Isabelle Mauz is a French sociologist with a background in agronomy and forestry; she works at the Research Institute for Environment and Agriculture (IRSTEA) in Grenoble, and has published a number of scientific articles in environmental and animal studies, especially on protected areas’ history. The book she published in 2005 presents her sociological research on the relationships between mountain people, chamois, and ibex in the Vanoise French National Park at the time of the return of wolves to the French Alps in the 1990s. Mauz carried out more than one hundred interviews with hunters, farmers, tourism professionals, local inhabitants, park managers, scientists, and environmental activists, backed up with participant observation of activities involving people and animals, including hunting, farming, and nature conservation. She is herself an Alpine inhabitant.