Known as “wolf girl” at her West Warwick, R.I. school, Alyssa Grayson has spent much of her young life teaching others to protect and respect animals. After starting a wolf club in the second grade, Alyssa learned all she could about her favorite animals. Today, she gives presentations about protecting wolves at libraries and schools—she's even spoken at a university. In fact, she's become such a wolf expert that she was appointed as the first junior advisor to the National Wolfwatcher Coalition. When she's not teaching others about wolves, Alyssa can be found volunteering at her local animal shelter, taking care of dogs and cats. She's also trained as a citizen scientist for FrogWatch USA. In short, Alyssa Grayson proves that you are never too young to make a difference for animals. When asked how she got interested in saving wolves, Alyssa says, “I've loved wolves since I saw them in a movie when I was 2 or 3 years old. Then one day I saw a commercial about wolf hunting. I asked my mother why people do this, and she told me because people don't like wolves. I decided from then on that I wanted to save wolves.” Today, wolves are hunted, trapped, or poisoned. Hunters chase wolves for miles in an airplane until the wolves are too exhausted to run anymore. Then they shoot them. The animal doesn't have a chance to escape. Animals are also trapped for their fur. They are left to suffer in a trap with no food, water, or shelter. Alyssa thinks the fur looks better on the animal in the wild, where it's meant to be, than on a human. Alyssa believes wolves are important to our worlds. She says, “Wolves are an apex predator, which means they are at the top of the food chain. Removing them from the ecosystem is a big mistake. The ecosystem is like a chain of dominoes (多米诺骨牌)—with the apex predator as the one in front. If you were to knock down that domino, the rest of the chain would go down too.” People usually think of “the Big Bad Wolf” when they hear about wolves. However, Alyssa says, “If they would base their thoughts on facts, not fairy tales, we wouldn't have people wanting to kill wolves.”