Jack Whitman was born and raised in the mountains of central Idaho. In 1981, he migrated north to Alaska, where he worked for nearly three decades as a wildlife biologist and pilot, specializing in large predator research and management. He lived and worked in the Copper River Basin of Southcentral Alaska, the vast Western Interior, and amongst the mist-shrouded islands of Southeast. In 1993 and 1994, he took a sabbatical from his duties in Alaska and worked on Siberian Tigers and Amur Leopards in the Russian Far East. In 2008, he and his wife retired from Alaska, and completed their migration back to the mountains of Idaho, where he is still employed as a wolf biologist. He has authored many technical manuscripts on a variety of wildlife subjects, as well as popular articles in various outlets. He has been a passionate hunter, trapper, fisher, and outdoorsman his entire life.