So says the linguist Will Graves. Yes, linguist, and an expert on the Russian language. Russia has a long history of wolf hating. Wolves do kill livestock. However, they very, very, very rarely attack people. We’ve had only one fatality of a healthy wolf (it was actually two) killing a person in North America. In modern Europe, there isn’t a single case. A pack of wolves snatched children in India, but basically, wolves are not dangerous to people. Wolves do kill livestock and domestic dogs, usually over territority (sometimes for food).
Dogs attack 500,000 to 1 million people per year. As I’ve said before, the Spanish used dogs to their advantage against the native peoples of Latin America and Florida. These big mastiffs killed people in much the same way wolves kill their prey.
For some reason wolves just don’t think of people as food. I don’t know why.
Read L. David Mech’s works about wolves if you want to know the real animal. For fun, read Farley Mowat, but don’t believe everything he says in it, either. Some of what he says is really good in it, but wolves do kill game species. The Inuit he uses as a source actually consider the wolf vital to maintaining the fitness of caribou herds. This tribe no longer lives as it once did, so the wolf is alone in that part of the world.
We need to understant that both Mowat and Graves’s work are both based on folklore. Mowat’s book is based on Inland Inuit folklore as much as Graves’s book is based on Russian superstition. Mech’s work is real science.
Certain political organizations are really good at putting crappy “exposes” of this type on the market. In the world of politics, we know this too well.
Here’s a video of some researchers observing a wolf den. Really dangerous animals, aren’t they?
Wolves can kill people. I’m sure it’s happened, but it’s far rarer than shark attacks. And we all know, thanks to Shark Week, that shark attacks are quite uncommon.
So we should use Russian folklore to create wildlife policy?
Not at all. Anyway I think dogs should be given garlic if they ask for it, because if they ask for it it’s probably because they have a viral infection and know they need it–garlic is about the best treatment available for most viruses. Now, if they were horrible supernatural monsters, would they want garlic?
When my mother was a child she saw a “pretty dog” in a wooden case for shipment. She slipped her hand in and petted the dog, which in turn licked her hand. She was snatched away by the owner of the crate, who feverishly told her mother to watch her more carefully, because there was a ferocious wolf in that crate.
Doesn’t sound very ferocious to me.
Our former next-door neighbors owned a white wolf-dog named Luke. I miss the neighbors some, but to be honest, I miss Luke a lot more.
Hi Retrieverman
I know I haven’t commented much on your blogs, but I have actually been something of a fan of yours for many months now. Your recent entries promoting greater awareness on southern wolves and dholes as alternative dog ancestors are part of the reason why I enjoy visiting here.
However, as someone who has read “Wolves in Russia”, I feel I need to speak out. I mean no offence, but this entry does not give the impression that the material was read firsthand (if it was, or has been since then, then I apologise).
*The book does not cover folklore, it covers history. It doesn’t even go as far back as the medieval period, when European wolf folklore was at its peak. The earliest time period covered is the 1860s, the late Tzarist era
*Graves is a linguist yes, but the information provided in the book is composed of translated excerpts of Russian literature, including that of biologists, whose works have so far not been translated.
*The book’s described characteristics of wolf attacks (time of year they occur, differences in attack pattern between healthy and rabid wolves) are independently supported by other nations with histories of wolf attacks. See these sources here:
http://wolfcrossing.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/historical-data-on-the-presence-of-the-wolf-and-cases-of-man.pdf
http://books.google.it/books?id=gTqYP9mSyoYC&pg=PA72&dq=hunter+hunted+hans+kruuk+wolves+summer&hl=it&ei=vTF0TLSXOcuWOPrGhbII&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Records from Russia, Italy, Estonia, Holland and India come to very similair conclusions: a) that attacks from non-rabid wolves occur mostly in late summer b) that non-rabid wolves primarily target young people c) that attacks by rabid wolves mostly occur in winter, and are usually against adults. If they were nothing but folklore, one would expect them to contradict each other.
*Interestingly, the book mentions that although the Soviet Union did heavily manage wolves, the communist party prohibited the publication of reports involving man-eating wolves, as it desired to disarm rural populations in order to prevent them from rebelling against the insane collectivisation campaign. As the presence of wolves was a prime reason for farmers to keep weapons, the communists propounded a white washing campaign similair to that undertaken by Farley Mowat in order to reassure the populace that wolves were no danger, and thus they did not need their guns. It has only been recently, with the collapse of the USSR, that the previously covered up reports on wolf attacks (many of which occurred after WWII) were made open to the public.
There are several other aspects of the book which I could point out, but these are I think the most important points. I myself recommend the book to you, as it is an illustration of how human circumstance (Western rural living standards vs Eastern European ones) can be as much an influence on canid behaviour as inherent instinct.
Forgive this post’s lengthiness. My sole intention was to get the point across as clearly as possible.
Kind regards, and I look forward to future entries
Are you Dark Hyena?
If so, I would like to post a video of yours (if it’s still up) about wolf attacks (at some point).
What worries me about this book is how it’s being used in the United States.
It is being used fuel the hatred against wolves and wolf recovery.
That post was written in response to that.
***
I have a theory on dog domestication that essentially argues that the original wolf behavior was not exactly as modern wolves are. Such an animal is simply not capable of being domesticated, whether it is bottle-reared or not.
The original wolf had to have been much more curious and docile– more like Murie’s “Wags.”
The reason why wolves are this way today has a lot to do with the destruction of prey resources because of the rise of civilization and because man decided to wipe the wolf off the face of the earth. Such persecution selected for only the most emotionally reactive, nervous, and xenophobic animals in the population.
It is a reverse of the Belyaev experiment.
We know that many species of wild dog have no natural fear of man. The wolf-foxes of South America approach people readily, and some have learned to beg food from tourists.
I’m sure you’ve seen the Grizzly Man film in which Timothy Treadwell essentially tames a family of wild red foxes. Those foxes have never been persecuted in that park, and because it was in the deepest wilderness, they never had experienced people feeding them either.
They simply found Treadwell and joined up with him.
My theory holds that the original wolf was much more like these foxes than wolves we see today (either northern or southern).
There are lots of accounts of various Plains Indians allowing wolves to live in the camps among their dogs.
Lewis and Clark were able to kill wolves with espontoons. Just lure them in with meat and then dispatch them.
That I am!
Well, I’m flattered, but to be honest, I find the video to be something of an embarassment. However, I could, if you’re interested, send you some links or book suggestions which also deal with the matter.
I’m also interested in historical molosser dogs, those that were actually used in war.
Some of the accounts I have of these animals suggest that they have been responsible for more deaths (particularly in the New World as agents of the conquistadors) than wolves ever have been.
Although modern mastiff-type dogs have been toned down to be suitable pets in recent centuries, for most of their history they were quite aggressive. They were bred for a higher prey drive and higher pain tolerance.
In early days of Spanish colonization to the New World, they would actually kill Indians to feed to their dogs, and would let the dogs hunt Indians for sport.
I highly suspect that the Beast of Gevaudan was actually a cross between a war mastiff of some sort (maybe an early Dogue de Bordeaux) and a wolf. Such an animal would be larger than a typical common wolf, and because many of the dogue-type dogs in France were brindle, it would explain the stripes on the animal. The white spot in the chest that appears in a few depictions of the animal is almost diagnostic of a modern Dogue de Bordeaux, which is now a red-colored mastiff.
One theory on that animal is that is was intentionally bred and the attacks were used to foment a potential revolt against King of France.