GoatGuy
04-26-2010, 10:57 AM
The myth of the harmless wolf
[FONT='Arial','sans-serif']By: James Swan
ESPN Outdoors.com
April 24, 2010
http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/general/columns/story?columnist=swan_james&id=5131109
On March 9, 2010, Candice Berner, (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35913715/ns/us_news-life/) a 32 year-old special education teacher working in Chignik Lake, Alaska, went jogging at dusk on a road near town and was attacked and killed by wolves.
On October 28, 2009, Canadian folk singer Taylor Mitchell (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/outposts/2009/10/musician-taylor-mitchell-dies.html) was hiking in a Provincial Park in Nova Scotia when she was attacked and killed by two coyotes, which were subsequently identified by park rangers as a wolf-coyote hybrid.
In November of 2005, college student Kenton Carnegie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenton_Joel_Carnegie_wolf_attack) was hiking on a road near Points North Landing in northern Saskatchewan when he was attacked and killed by wolves. There was some dispute over whether Carnegie was killed by wolves or a bear, but a provincial inquest (http://www.cbc.ca/canada/saskatchewan/story/2007/11/01/wolf-verdict.html) found that wolves were responsible.
The attacking wolves in these three incidents were not rabid.
Because more than 90 percent of the population lives in urban areas and relies heavily on electronic screens to get information, most people today form opinions based on books, films and what people say.
For decades we have been told and taught that wolves have never attacked (http://www.forwolves.org/wolves.html) people in North America. The Internet Movie Database lists over 150 film and TV titles with the words "wolf" or "wolves." There was only one found about wolf attacks: "The Man-Eating Wolves of Gysinge" (2005), a TV drama based on the true story of a wolf that terrorized a rural Swedish community and kills 10 children.
We've also been told that children's fairy tales about the "Big Bad Wolf" were created to keep children home at night, and do not paint a realistic portrait of wolves.
Some light on wolf-human encounters was shed in 2002 when Alaskan wildlife biologist Mark McNay published a report (http://www.wolf.org/wolves/learn/intermed/inter_human/wolf_human.asp) of a two-year study documenting 80 aggressive encounters between wolves and people in North America in the 20th century.
In only 12 of the attacks were the wolves rabid. Since McNay's report came out there have been three fatal attacks by healthy wolves, and an unknown number of non-fatal aggressive encounters and attacks on people and their pets in the U.S. and Canada. So what's up?
"In Wolves In Russia (http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/general/columns/story?columnist=swan_james&id=3113247)," Will Graves reports on a long history of wolf attacks on people in Eurasia, especially Russia, Pakistan, India and Kazakhastan, including thousands of fatal ones. Have Siberian wolves sneaked across the Bering Sea ice in winter and turned our harmless wolves into bad guys? People were killed (http://www.aws.vcn.com/wolf_attacks_on_humans.html) by wolves in North America before the 20th century. The appearance of people with firearms led to the demise of wolves in the Lower 48 as there was concentrated effort to eradicate Canis lupus. More than two million wolves (http://www.cnn.com/EARTH/9711/12/yellowstone.wolves/) were killed in the process.
Not nearly as many people in Eurasia are armed. As Graves points out, in Russia the populace was kept unarmed to prevent revolutions and reports of wolf killings were also suppressed to keep people from demanding to be armed. Our perspective on wolves is based on our experience, which is different from people abroad. All three peopled recently killed by wolves were unarmed.Some perspective
There are an estimated 750,000 black bears in the U.S. According to Dr. Gary Alt, they operate as lone individuals and kill an average 1-2 people a year, primarily with the intent of predation. There are less than 1,000 grizzlies in the lower 48. They also kill an occasional human. Grizzlies primarily attack in defense of food and cubs.
There are an estimated 50,000 mountain lions in the U.S. They occasionally kill a human, but cougars are typically solo hunters that shy away from people, unless they run out of food and/or have never been hunted.
Deer attack and kill people, too, as many 3-4 a year. A lot more people, more than 100 a year, are killed by deer-car accidents, but there are over 30 million whitetails in the U.S.
There are at least 6,000 wolves in the Northern Rockies and Northern Great Lakes states, 40,000 to 50,000 wolves in Canada and 7,700 to 11,200 in Alaska — 65,000-70,000 wolves for all of North America.
Wolves live in wild places, where there are few people, at least until recently. In recent years, especially since Canadian wolves were released into the Northern Rockies in 1995, the North American wolf population (http://www.wolf.org/wolves/news/2009releases/050709_wolfpop.asp) has doubled. Elk and deer herds have been dramatically reduced in some areas.
In 1995, when wolves were first re-introduced to the Northern Rockies, there were 19,000 elk in the Northern Yellowstone herd. By 2008, the herd was reduced to 6,000. Current estimates place the herd at less than 5,000. The moose herd in that area has dropped below 1,000.
Similarly, in 1994 there were 9,729 elk in District 10 of the Lolo Basin in Idaho, and 3,832 in District 12. By 2010, the elk herd in District 10 had plummeted to 1,473, and in District 12 in 2010 there were 705.
Such dramatic declines have moved the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation to move from a position of what RMEF President David Allen describes was "sitting on the fence about wolves," to its present stance, which favors "managing wolves like other predators (http://www.rmef.org/NewsandMedia/NewsReleases/2010/WolfGroupMotives.htm), because their population numbers have soared way over the benchmark goals of the re-introduction as elk herds have declined by 80 percent or more in certain areas of the Northern Rockies."
A recent study by Mark Collinge (http://www.pinedaleonline.com/news/2010/03/Relativeriskofpredat.htm) of the USDA APHIS Wildlife Services office in Boise, Idaho, finds "that individual wolves are much more likely to prey on livestock than are individuals of any other predator species in Idaho."
As wild prey declines, wolves will look for food elsewhere. Noted Canadian wildlife biologist Dr. Valerius Geist (http://mainehuntingtoday.com/bbb/2010/01/16/w-i-s-e-human-habituated-wolves-in-idaho/) finds that wolves (and coyotes, too) constantly test boundaries as they look for their next meal.
When normal prey is scarce, and they aren't challenged by people, both wild canids progressively move closer and closer — preying on livestock, pets, garbage, etc. until they experiment with humans as food. "Habituation," it's called. It spells "trouble."
Unfortunately, there has not been a follow-up study of wolf attacks on people like Mark McNay's, which concluded in 2002, but reports of attacks and aggressive encounters by wolves on livestock, wildlife, pets and people are either receiving better reporting, or the numbers are increasing. One recent incident involved a pack of wolves killing a mountain lion within sight of downtown Sun Valley, Idaho. Presumably these are the same wolves that have been seen prowling the streets of Sun Valley at night.
[FONT='Arial','sans-serif']By: James Swan
ESPN Outdoors.com
April 24, 2010
http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/general/columns/story?columnist=swan_james&id=5131109
On March 9, 2010, Candice Berner, (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35913715/ns/us_news-life/) a 32 year-old special education teacher working in Chignik Lake, Alaska, went jogging at dusk on a road near town and was attacked and killed by wolves.
On October 28, 2009, Canadian folk singer Taylor Mitchell (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/outposts/2009/10/musician-taylor-mitchell-dies.html) was hiking in a Provincial Park in Nova Scotia when she was attacked and killed by two coyotes, which were subsequently identified by park rangers as a wolf-coyote hybrid.
In November of 2005, college student Kenton Carnegie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenton_Joel_Carnegie_wolf_attack) was hiking on a road near Points North Landing in northern Saskatchewan when he was attacked and killed by wolves. There was some dispute over whether Carnegie was killed by wolves or a bear, but a provincial inquest (http://www.cbc.ca/canada/saskatchewan/story/2007/11/01/wolf-verdict.html) found that wolves were responsible.
The attacking wolves in these three incidents were not rabid.
Because more than 90 percent of the population lives in urban areas and relies heavily on electronic screens to get information, most people today form opinions based on books, films and what people say.
For decades we have been told and taught that wolves have never attacked (http://www.forwolves.org/wolves.html) people in North America. The Internet Movie Database lists over 150 film and TV titles with the words "wolf" or "wolves." There was only one found about wolf attacks: "The Man-Eating Wolves of Gysinge" (2005), a TV drama based on the true story of a wolf that terrorized a rural Swedish community and kills 10 children.
We've also been told that children's fairy tales about the "Big Bad Wolf" were created to keep children home at night, and do not paint a realistic portrait of wolves.
Some light on wolf-human encounters was shed in 2002 when Alaskan wildlife biologist Mark McNay published a report (http://www.wolf.org/wolves/learn/intermed/inter_human/wolf_human.asp) of a two-year study documenting 80 aggressive encounters between wolves and people in North America in the 20th century.
In only 12 of the attacks were the wolves rabid. Since McNay's report came out there have been three fatal attacks by healthy wolves, and an unknown number of non-fatal aggressive encounters and attacks on people and their pets in the U.S. and Canada. So what's up?
"In Wolves In Russia (http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/general/columns/story?columnist=swan_james&id=3113247)," Will Graves reports on a long history of wolf attacks on people in Eurasia, especially Russia, Pakistan, India and Kazakhastan, including thousands of fatal ones. Have Siberian wolves sneaked across the Bering Sea ice in winter and turned our harmless wolves into bad guys? People were killed (http://www.aws.vcn.com/wolf_attacks_on_humans.html) by wolves in North America before the 20th century. The appearance of people with firearms led to the demise of wolves in the Lower 48 as there was concentrated effort to eradicate Canis lupus. More than two million wolves (http://www.cnn.com/EARTH/9711/12/yellowstone.wolves/) were killed in the process.
Not nearly as many people in Eurasia are armed. As Graves points out, in Russia the populace was kept unarmed to prevent revolutions and reports of wolf killings were also suppressed to keep people from demanding to be armed. Our perspective on wolves is based on our experience, which is different from people abroad. All three peopled recently killed by wolves were unarmed.Some perspective
There are an estimated 750,000 black bears in the U.S. According to Dr. Gary Alt, they operate as lone individuals and kill an average 1-2 people a year, primarily with the intent of predation. There are less than 1,000 grizzlies in the lower 48. They also kill an occasional human. Grizzlies primarily attack in defense of food and cubs.
There are an estimated 50,000 mountain lions in the U.S. They occasionally kill a human, but cougars are typically solo hunters that shy away from people, unless they run out of food and/or have never been hunted.
Deer attack and kill people, too, as many 3-4 a year. A lot more people, more than 100 a year, are killed by deer-car accidents, but there are over 30 million whitetails in the U.S.
There are at least 6,000 wolves in the Northern Rockies and Northern Great Lakes states, 40,000 to 50,000 wolves in Canada and 7,700 to 11,200 in Alaska — 65,000-70,000 wolves for all of North America.
Wolves live in wild places, where there are few people, at least until recently. In recent years, especially since Canadian wolves were released into the Northern Rockies in 1995, the North American wolf population (http://www.wolf.org/wolves/news/2009releases/050709_wolfpop.asp) has doubled. Elk and deer herds have been dramatically reduced in some areas.
In 1995, when wolves were first re-introduced to the Northern Rockies, there were 19,000 elk in the Northern Yellowstone herd. By 2008, the herd was reduced to 6,000. Current estimates place the herd at less than 5,000. The moose herd in that area has dropped below 1,000.
Similarly, in 1994 there were 9,729 elk in District 10 of the Lolo Basin in Idaho, and 3,832 in District 12. By 2010, the elk herd in District 10 had plummeted to 1,473, and in District 12 in 2010 there were 705.
Such dramatic declines have moved the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation to move from a position of what RMEF President David Allen describes was "sitting on the fence about wolves," to its present stance, which favors "managing wolves like other predators (http://www.rmef.org/NewsandMedia/NewsReleases/2010/WolfGroupMotives.htm), because their population numbers have soared way over the benchmark goals of the re-introduction as elk herds have declined by 80 percent or more in certain areas of the Northern Rockies."
A recent study by Mark Collinge (http://www.pinedaleonline.com/news/2010/03/Relativeriskofpredat.htm) of the USDA APHIS Wildlife Services office in Boise, Idaho, finds "that individual wolves are much more likely to prey on livestock than are individuals of any other predator species in Idaho."
As wild prey declines, wolves will look for food elsewhere. Noted Canadian wildlife biologist Dr. Valerius Geist (http://mainehuntingtoday.com/bbb/2010/01/16/w-i-s-e-human-habituated-wolves-in-idaho/) finds that wolves (and coyotes, too) constantly test boundaries as they look for their next meal.
When normal prey is scarce, and they aren't challenged by people, both wild canids progressively move closer and closer — preying on livestock, pets, garbage, etc. until they experiment with humans as food. "Habituation," it's called. It spells "trouble."
Unfortunately, there has not been a follow-up study of wolf attacks on people like Mark McNay's, which concluded in 2002, but reports of attacks and aggressive encounters by wolves on livestock, wildlife, pets and people are either receiving better reporting, or the numbers are increasing. One recent incident involved a pack of wolves killing a mountain lion within sight of downtown Sun Valley, Idaho. Presumably these are the same wolves that have been seen prowling the streets of Sun Valley at night.