Running Wolf Nature Photography by Deby Dixon 15. Oktober · Bearbeitet Do Wolves Attack People? In honor of Wolf Week, more wolf thoughts I have had a couple of people tell me stories about how wolves looked upon them as prey and, based on my own close encounters with wolves, the number of wolf related human deaths and their hunting skills, I am skeptical of their interpretation of events. First of all, wolves are mighty hunters. These use strategy in choosing the weakest link and then select their timing and location to make the kill. As a side note, the present Lamar Canyons made three kills next to the road and lost all three to re-location of the carcass. Those kills were made in a relatively short amount of time and they have not had a single road carcass since the third one. It would not surprise me if they learned to try and avoid human areas for their kills. Anyway, wolves often hunt in packs, with each member having its job, but it is not unheard to for a single wolf to make the kill by itself. My point? My point is this, if they saw us as food, we would be much easier prey than a running, kicking, stomping elk. And, so, since the hunting of ungulates is so dangerous for the wolves, I would think that they would select easier prey, like the unsuspecting man. Second of all, I have had several unexpected close encounters with wolves and not once have I seen anything more than curiosity, or perhaps assessing if I will harm them. Several times I have seen wolves begin to cross the road and then look at the person driving the car nearest them, only to change their mind and cross elsewhere. Several times they have stopped next to my car, looked at me and then crossed right at my bumper. In this photo of Middle Grey running past me, she is being chased by a very small, mangy, mama coyote after the wolves had raided the coyotes den. I had been standing out in the field, watching Middles sister, 926, a long ways out, across the river, carrying a coyote pup, when I looked to my right and saw Middle coming straight towards me at a full run. I could tell that she was running but not focused on me and so I picked up my camera and ran back a few steps, just to get out of her way. The wolf and the coyote ran right on by, so close that I could smell their breaths. Neither even glanced my direction. For the most part, wolves avoid people and want nothing to do with them. I do believe, however, if they or their pups feel threatened, they will attack, just like any animal or human would. But, if any predator is human fed, it could become aggressive if it expected food and did not get some. For the rest of this explanation I have copied and pasted an excerpt on this topic from Living with Wolves. In the past 100 years, there have been only two incidents in North America, in 2005 and 2010, where wolves have allegedly killed a human being. In comparison to deaths caused by other large carnivores, this is an extremely rare rate of occurrence. Wolves usually have a natural fear of people that is only eroded when they learn to associate humans and human settlement with opportunities to find food. Importantly, both of these fatalities took place near illegal garbage dumps that attract a host of scavenging carnivores other than wolves, including bears and coyotes. In both cases, there is controversy as to whether or not wolves were the perpetrators. In the first incident, according to their reports, the coroner, the forensic anthropologist and the principal scientific investigator all were unable to determine whether a bear or wolves were responsible for the attack, since signs of both animals were found. In the second incident, in Alaska, the victim was a small woman, 4’11”, who was new to the area. She was running alone later in the day, in stormy, dark weather, along the garbage dump road outside of town, with music buds in her ears. This would not be safe in any area where wild animals hunt in those conditions and at that time of day. Wolves are large predatory animals capable of bringing down much larger prey. It wouldn’t be sensible to assume that under no circumstances could they be dangerous to people. However, in North America, such incidents prove to be exceedingly rare. To put this into context, in North America, since 1990, bears (black and grizzly) killed 59 people and cougars killed 11. In the U.S., domestic dogs kill 20 to 30 people every year. And hunters kill nearly 100 people in the U.S. and Canada every year and injure around 1,000. The facts should speak for themselves, because, if wolves wanted to kill people they are more than capable of doing so. But, for some reason, even though they have a bad rap for being dangerous, wolves killing humans is extremely rare - much more so than one would think. The end.
Posted on: Sat, 18 Oct 2014 14:56:30 +0000
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