In early November of 2005, a Canadian was apparently attacked and killed by a pack of wolves. While we await the official report on the role of wolves in this attack, there is tremendous speculation on what this means for wolf recovery in North America and across the globe.
I’ve been waiting to weigh in on this subject until we know more about what happened. Unfortunately, some of the public commentary that has emerged in the meantime is rubbish. So I’m reposting an excellent commentary from Amaroq Weiss and Laura Jones, Co-Moderators of the Pacific West Wolf Information Network (PW-WIN). If you would like to learn more about the network, please visit the PW-WIN yahoo group.
cheers, Bill
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PW-WIN Friends and Colleagues:
While we ordinarily confine postings on PW-WIN to wolf-related information in our region, occasionally something exterior to the Pacific west warrants our bringing it to your attention. Such is the case regarding a recent incident in Canada that is being investigated as a potential fatal wolf attack on a human.
Early investigations are reporting that the November 8th death of a 22 year-old man in northern Saskatchewan was caused by an apparent wolf attack. The reported incident occurred in an area of Saskatchewan where it is widely known that wolves have become highly habituated to people who have purposely fed them, sought encounters with them or left food attractants such as garbage unsecured. It is also an area where domestic dogs have been allowed to run wild and form feral packs. For a news story on the incident, see
http://english.epochtimes.com/news/5-11-17/34683.html
If, in fact, the individual’s death was caused by wolves, it is extremely unfortunate and signifies the danger that can be caused when wild animals become highly habituated to humans, an unsafe situation no matter the type of wildlife species. To prevent animals from being accustomed to humans, one should always be respectful, keep a safe distance from and take care not to habituate wild animals, especially large carnivores, to humans. As all losses of human life are tragic, we grieve for the victim and for his surviving family.
Such losses should also be kept in perspective as to their relative occurrence. Although there have been a handful of incidents involving aggression or attacks by wolves that had become food- habituated to humans or where a wolf injured a human who interfered with a wolf attack on a dog, there have been no recorded incidences of healthy wild wolves attacking human beings in North America for the last 100 years. Arguments regarding the dangerousness of wolves should be tempered by an understanding of their relative occurrence compared to attacks on or deaths of humans caused by other animals.
For instance, in the United States each year, an average of 17 people are killed by dogs, and approximately 1.2 million dog bites occur, 800,000 of which are serious enough to send people to the emergency room. Furthermore, U.S. Department of Labor data indicates that between 1992-1997, there were 142 work-related human fatalities caused by cattle and 95 caused by horses and mules, in which people were mauled, charged, rammed, gored or knocked down. In addition, each year in the U.S., an average of 200 people are killed in deer- car collisions, 30-120 die from bee or wasp stings, and an average of 30 die from fire ant stings.
While people should always maintain caution around and respect for large carnivores, such as wolves, bears and mountain lions, and should never feed wild animals or take other actions that cause wild animals to lose fear of humans, the fact remains that chances of a dangerous encounter with large carnivores in the wild are remarkably slim compared to the risks associated with simply driving our cars or associating with domestic animals, something most of us do repeatedly on a daily basis.
Regards to you all,
Amaroq Weiss and Laura Jones
Co-moderators, PW-WIN
Defenders of Wildlife
Posted to the PW-Win yahoo group on 23 December 2005.
Image: Frank Franzetta, Wolves, 1965.