Human attitudes towards wolves

The relationship between people and wolves has had a very long and turbulent history. Historically, humans have often viewed wolves as a great danger or as nuisance to be destroyed. An opposing view, held by most biologists and naturalists, postulates that wolves form a valuable part of the ecosystem by hunting down animals such as deerwhose population would grow out of control if it were not for wolvesand require protection. Often, these views occur simultaneously and cause conflicts among differing groups of people, as one sees when a wildlife service or organization attempts to preserve endangered wolves or to reintroduce wolves to a habitat, like the rare and almost extinct Red Wolf.

Changing attitudes

In the late 20th century, an increased awareness of the beneficial nature of wolves arose, encouraged by books like Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowat and nature documentaries as well as by classification of the species as endangered. Accordingly, while the stereotype of wolves still has influence, a significant portion of the public has gained a positive opinion of wolves as interesting, valuable, and even noble animals. Thus, parks with a visible wolf population have often become popular tourist attractions. For instance, visitation to Yellowstone National Park has shown an increase partially due to the wolf reintroduction program and the hope of spotting a wolf.

Such organizations as the International Wolf Center and Mission: Wolf attempt to educate people about the true nature of wolves, and such action proves helpful to the reintroduction process, especially in places such as Yellowstone National Park.

In other parks, tourists often participate in wolf howls, trying to produce wolflike howls in hopes that the resident wolves will answer. In fact, some nature lovers have complained that this popularity has drawbacks, since tourists sometimes intrude into wolf habitats and disturb them.

The large amount of research done on the wolf in the past half century has also helped to educate people and make them realize how sociologically similar humans are to wolves, and how they have nothing to fear from these shy, majestic animals. Biologists such as L. David Mech and Luigi Boitani have been major leaders in wolf research.

Nature documentaries have also played a role in changing attitudes. For instance, the film evidence of the wolf being a very social animal and devoted parent to its young enlightened and charmed many viewers to a softer side to the feared predator.

Reintroduction

In the United States, wolves are repopulating where they were eradicated, and numbers have been increasing in Alaska and Minnesota, where some packs remained in the deep forests despite bounty hunting and other past eradication efforts. Not only are they slowly but surely coming back naturally from Canada, they are also being successfully reintroduced in some states such as Idaho and Wyoming. It is curious to note that some ranchers prefer reintroduction, as they can kill wolves that eat their livestock and get reimbursement for their losses, while wild animals are protected by law. In fact, wolf reintroduction was pushed hard by the U.S. Government, primarily by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which oversees threatened and endangered species within the United States. This includes several studies looking into the feasibility of reintroducing the wolf in places farther east, in areas like Adirondack State Park in New York and certain areas of Maine.

Recent studies have shown that the wolf would have enjoyed greater protection had they been allowed to repopulate areas on their own without human intervention. Reports by wildlife biologists working for the National Park Service who stated that they had seen, though rarely, wolves in Yellowstone National Park, and had photographic proof of their limited presence prior to the "reintroduction", were essentially suppressed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Where wolves are reintroduced after a long absence, it has a marked influence on the coyote population. As they started to fill in the niche of the top predator, they started to grow larger. With the return of the wolf, these bigger coyotes are forced to return to their previous niche, or face attacks from wolves.

In Sweden, there is a long and ongoing conflict between some groups who claim that the wolf has no place in nature, and that it has been reintroduced by the Swedish government with some sort of secret agenda. The opponents are generally the rural working class who fear competition for Roe Deer and moose; they consider the wolf to be a foreign element, much like immigrants. It has been argued that modern Scandinavian wolves are recent arrivals from Russia, not the remnants of the old wolf tribes. In spite of the fact that attacks on people are virtually nonexistent historically, and hundreds of dogs are killed each year in hunting accidents, the wolves' possible threat to dogs and people is often cited by these people as a strong argument against the wolf's right to exist in Swedish forests.

In Norway the situation is further complicated, since sheep farmers use the forests as pasture for their animals during summer. It is difficult to hinder the wolves from preying on the sheep, and in areas were the wolf has been reintroduced many farmers have quit. Generally, the urban population is most positive to the wolf, while people actually living in the designated "wolf zones" are far more skeptical.

Wolves in religion and folklore

In many ancient myths, the wolf was portrayed as brave, honorable, and intelligent. The best examples of these myths can be seen in those of the Native Americans. The wolf was also the revered totem animal of Ancient Rome (see Romulus and Remus and Lupercalia). In Proto-Indo-European society, the wolf was probably associated with the warrior class (see also werewolf), and the term was subject to taboo deformation, the Latin lupus being an example of a mutated form of the original Proto-Indo-European *wlkwos. Many Germanic personal names used to include "wolf" as an element (e.g., Wulfstan).

In more modern western folklore, the wolf is a creature to be feared. The iconic examples of this image are the Big Bad Wolf and the werewolfa human that transforms into a wolf through magic or a curse, one that is shunned and reviled in regular society. Norse mythology includes several malevolent wolves: the giant Fenrisulfr, eldest child of Loki; and the giantess Angrboda, who was feared and hated by the sir; and his children Skoll and Hati, who devour the sun and moon at Ragnarok.

Human fear of the wolf is responsible for most of the trouble the species has received, and the reason it was nearly hunted out of existence. However, in the 20th century, with the new knowledge of wolves and the growing respect for Native American folklore, the animal has been generally depicted much more positively.

Despite their often negative image, wolves have variously been credited, in mythology, fiction and reality, with adopting, nursing, and raising human feral children, the most famous examples being Romulus and Remus and Mowgli of The Jungle Book.

In spite of the negative image of the wolf, no wild, healthy wolf has ever killed a human; they are most likely to flee than to attack.

Wolf hunting

Livestock predation

As long as there are enough prey animals, wolves seem to avoid taking livestock. However, some "problem animals" can specialize in hunting livestock. Sheep are frequently the most vulnerable, while horses and cattle are at less of a risk. Wolf-secure fences and the relocation of wolves are today the only known methods to effectively stop livestock predation.

Over several centuries in some countries, shepherds and dog breeders have used selective breeding to "create" large livestock-guarding dogs that can stand up to wolves preying on flocks. In the United States, as the timber wolf has been reintroduced, the USDA has been looking into the use of breeds such as the Akbash from Turkey, the Maremma from Italy, the Great Pyrenees from France and the Kuvasz from Hungary, among others.

Some ranchers in the United States hunt wolves from helicopters or light planes, some of them calling it an effective method of controlling wolf numbers, others calling it a sport. This practice is seen as highly controversial. Poisons have been used to kill wolves during the extermination campaigns in Europe and America. Today, most of the hunting is done on the ground or from helicopters. Other, non- or less-lethal methods of protecting livestock from wolves have been under development for the past decade. Such methods include rubber and beanbag ammunition, radio activated guard boxes, fladry lines, and use of llamas as guard animals.

Trapping and breeding for fur

Wolves are frequently trapped, in the areas where it is legal, using snares or leg-hold traps. The economic value of wolf pelts is limited, so it is mainly a recreation activity. Wolf trapping has come under heavy fire from animal rights groups, who also use it to attack other forms of trapping and hunting. It is alleged that trapping, using the right tools and equipment, can be considered as humane as hunting; however, unskilled trappers can create useless suffering in animals.

Wolves are bred for their fur in very few locations, as they are considered as a rather problematic animal to breed, and combined with the low value of the pelt, it has driven most of the fur farms to change to utilizing other animals, such as the fox.

From Wikipedia