The cover of the December issue of Canadian Geographic features Marriott's photo of Delinda. (Canadian Geographic)A Banff wolf will grace the cover of Canadian Geographic next month, and the photographer hopes the unfortunate story behind the photo will spread his message of conservation.

The magazine's readers voted John E. Marriott's photograph of a wolf, known to him as Delinda, the cover image for the December issue, which is a special anniversary edition dedicated to wildlife.

"I think it's really critical as a wildlife photographer that you don't just concentrate on getting the shot but actually tell a story behind it and get a message out," Marriot said.

Marriott, a photographer based in Canmore, Alta., first took pictures of Delinda in 2007 while on a morning drive looking for grizzly bears. She didn't flee with the other wolves she was with, but instead walked straight down the road toward Marriott.

"She actually walked right up towards me and got so close that I couldn't photographer her with my big lens on her," he said. "So it was quite a remarkable introduction to Delinda."

'Wild, free wolf'

Marriott joined a wildlife biologist and another wildlife photographer on dozens of trips in search of wolves. He encountered Delinda 10 times and was never frightened by her.

"She really struck me as a wild, free wolf," he said. "She was a curious and inquisitive wolf, but she was really tolerant of humans and traffic."

Delinda was the alpha female of a Bow Valley wolf pack, whose home range was between Banff and Lake Louise.

She was killed in Trans-Canada Highway traffic on September of 2008.

"She snuck through a hole in the fence," Marriott said. "Unfortunately, the fence they put up along the Trans-Canada Highway is not monitored at all. I don't know if she was hunting squirrels or what."

Photographer identifies remains

Marriott was one of the people called to identify her remains in a park warden's office.

"It was probably the saddest moment that I've had as a wildlife photographer," he recalled. "It didn't look like anything had happened to her. She was just absolutely beautiful. To stand there that one final time, to touch her fur and take a look at her was incredibly sad, a tragic moment."

No one knows for sure what became of Delinda's pack, which at its height had 12 wolves, he said. Marriott believes at least five more were killed in traffic.

"I think she is definitely an icon … for what's going wrong in the Bow Valley conservation-wise — how we are spending way to much time managing wildlife and not managing the people and the habitat of the wildlife.

"[Banff] is supposed to be Canada's flagship national park and we aren't doing a very good job of making sure there are still wolves there and grizzly bears and so on. It's actually a bit of a sinkhole for wildlife instead of a stronghold."

Often the animals whose images are captured by wildlife photographers are the most vulnerable because they are also the most accessible, he said.

Marriott hopes that if a million people see his photograph of Delinda, which already is shown on hybrid buses in Banff, it might have an impact on how Banff and other national parks are managed.