WOLVES VERSES HUMANS

When I wrote my first book, “A Long Way Back,” I included a Timber wolf in the story. I wanted the wolf to be a help to the people in the story, not a hindrance or a danger, and I think I achieved that. In order that my story would be as factual as possible, I studied wolves for some time. I wanted to know more about their habits, their family life and how they live. What I found out has caused me to draw some comparisons between their family structure, and those of human beings.

Wolves are very family-oriented. They live in packs or families because, in a lot of ways, they are dependent on each other. Wolves will hunt and then bring back food to their pups, who are not yet able to hunt. There is, however, no free lunch forever, and no living in Mom and Dad’s basement. At some point, the pups are banished from the pack, and they learn to hunt on their own or they starve. It’s called, “growing up” in our society. Wolves will fight to the death to protect their families and homeland, and that can include fighting wolves from other packs, much as we protect our kids from those who wish to harm them. The natural mortality rate is high for wolves.

They have been depicted as natural born killers, and yes, if they are allowed to live close to livestock they will take an easy kill. Programs are in place to trap predatory wolves that do this, and to reimburse the ranchers. They are little, if any, threat to people, and they will do all they can to avoid confrontation with us. They kill only what they eat and they don’t waste any of it; compared to humans who throw away a lot of what they eat. In short, they hunt to eat and not for sport. Wolves are very good at communicating with each other. When you hear wolves howling, you don’t need to be afraid—they aren’t talking to you—they’re talking to each other.

As I said, the family structure of a wolf pack resembles human families except that most male wolves, that father the young, stick around and help out with raising them. Percentage-wise—far more than humans do. Why am I saying all this? Because we could take lessons from these animals on family living. After all, aren’t we the head of the food chain?

The wolf’s worst enemy is man. He doesn’t hunt just for food, he often hunts for sport, for the chance to hang a pelt on his wall and brag to his friends about the wolf he killed. They’re not good to eat. When you kill one, you disrupt the pack, perhaps causing many more to starve to death. Wolves do kill deer, which man does hunt and eat. But man has other ways to feed himself, and wolves do not. Wolves and deer have lived together in the same areas forever. Nature has a way of balancing this out. When food is scarce they move elsewhere—somewhat like when humans lose their jobs and there is no more employment in the area, but you are intent on working, so you look in other areas.

There are many species of wildlife, on this beautiful earth, that have vanished. Almost always because of man, who played a big part in it. Tigers, elephants, rhinos,  birds, and even fish and mammals in the seas, are all threatened—they are  being killed by mankind’s ego to assert his dominance. In most cases, he only asserted his ignorance.