Real Wolf

The Myth of the Harmless Wolf

By Ted B. Lyon

Photo credit: Holly Kuchera/Shutterstock.com

There are no known gray wolf attacks on humans in modern times in North America.

—US Fish and Wildlife Service Website,
North Dakota Field Office, August 2016.¹

Predators

Predators are part of the web of life. Some are very selective in their prey. Others aren’t.

There are an estimated eight hundred thousand to nine hundred thousand black bears in North America. They are found in forty states and all Canadian provinces. According to wildlife biologist and bear expert Dr. Gary Alt, black bears normally operate as lone individuals, attack an average of twenty-five people per year, and kill an average of one to two people a year, primarily with the intent of predation and sows protecting their cubs.

There are less than one thousand grizzly bears in the Lower 48. Grizzlies primarily attack in defense of food and cubs. Attacks on humans average three to five per year, occasionally they are deadly. In June of 2016, Brad Treat, a thirty-eight-year-old Montana Forest Service Law Enforcement Officer, was fatally attacked by a grizzly bear while mountain biking on a trail in Glacier National Park.2

There are an estimated fifty thousand mountain lions in the Lower 48, increasing in numbers and spreading eastward to feed on the mushrooming whitetail deer population. Recently a mountain lion was killed by an SUV in Connecticut, the first such sighting in a century.³ Mountain lions have also been sighted in a number of Midwestern states, including Oklahoma, Indiana, Nebraska, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Cougars are solo hunters that shy away from people, unless they run out of food or have never been hunted. Attacks per year for North America run from two to nine, with up to two deaths resulting from the attacks. These attacks are almost always predatory, with cougars targeting runners or hikers whose movement may seem like deer to mountain lions.

There are approximately seventy-five million dogs in the United States. The CDC “Dog Bite: Fact Sheet” says that each year, 4.7 million Americans are bitten by domestic dogs, and as many as fifty Americans die every year from dog attacks. Feral dogs are often the most likely to attack humans (as well as breed with coyotes and wolves), however, 75 percent of the attacks and over 50 percent of the fatal attacks are by two breeds—pit bull and Rottweiler—all bred for aggressiveness. For perspective, there are approximately 4.5 million registered pit bulls, a least that many that are not registered, and there are about half of that number of Rottweilers. There are only about a hundred thousand wolves in the wild in North American but tame wolves and wolf-dog hybrids (three to five hundred thousand) are considered in the top five breeds that attack people, and as you will learn more later, these attacks can be predatory.

Most importantly, domestic dog attacks are almost always defensive, unless the dogs have been trained to attack or they are feral and have not developed the predatory skills of wild canines to catch wild animals.⁴ Feral dogs are a growing problem in the United States, as well as worldwide. Dog ownership in the United States has tripled since the 1960s, and the total number of feral dogs is uncertain. In Detroit, there are estimated to be at least fifty thousand feral dogs.

Once a western species, coyotes are now found in all states but Hawaii. No one is quite sure how many coyotes there are in North America; estimates range from ten million to one hundred million. The number of coyote attacks per year in the United States averages around fourteen, and it’s rising as more and more coyotes move into urban areas including Chicago, Washington, DC, Columbus, Toronto, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.⁵ Coyotes have recently been spotted in Central Park in New York City.

According to University of California at Davis biologist Dr. Robert Timm, forty-eight coyote attacks on children and adults were verified from 1998–2003, compared to forty-one attacks during the period from 1988–1998.6

Coyote attacks have been reported in at least eighteen states in addition to California and from four Canadian provinces, with the majority of attacks occurring since the early 1990s.⁷ Just how many of these coyotes have some wolf or dog DNA is uncertain.

Human deaths from coyote attacks are rare, but on October 27, 2009, Canadian folk singer Taylor Mitchell was hiking in Cape Breton Highlands National Park in Nova Scotia when she was attacked by two eastern coyotes and died of her injuries the following day.⁸

Coy-wolves, or eastern coyotes, or wolves, are larger than western coyotes and many scientists believe they are hybrids between western coyotes and gray wolves or red wolves.⁹

As the wolf genetics chapter in this book, “Canis Stew,” will show, cross-breeding among wolves, coyotes, and domestic dogs will inevitably increase as the three canines come into contact with each other. In hybridizing with other canid species, especially domestic dogs, the wolf loses some of its instinctual learning and wildness, and seemingly is born semi-habituated, which is the case with the coy-wolves of New England and the Mexican wolves of the Southwest.

We’ve already established that there are between three and five hundred thousand tame wolves and wolf-dog hybrids in the United States and their numbers are rising, even though such animals are illegal in forty states. Typically, such animals are either pets or living in educational centers, zoos, and sanctuaries, and they are unpredictable as people find that what started out as a cute puppy becomes a dangerous adult. When this happens, people will sometimes turn these wolf-dogs loose, resulting in them interacting with feral dogs and coyotes. All too often, wolf-dogs are responsible for attacks on livestock and people.¹⁰ One might predict then that increasing numbers of attacks on people, their livestock, and pets is inevitable, not only due to habituation, but hybridization.

Wolves are ancestors of dogs, but the pure wolf remains a very different species of wild canid. There are at least six thousand gray wolves in the Northern Rockies and Northern Great Lakes states, another fifty to sixty thousand wolves in Canada, and 7,700 to 11,200 in Alaska—seventy to seventy-five thousand gray wolves for all of North America, possibly as many as one hundred thousand.

There also are two subspecies: around a hundred Mexican wolves in New Mexico and Arizona, and forty-five to sixty red wolves in the Southeastern United States.¹¹ Both Mexican and red wolves were raised in captivity and released into the wild. There is considerable debate if these animals are truly wild or not and both species have hybridized with other canines.

Wolves are predators—they kill other animals to eat, and for pleasure. As the quote from a USFWS website that opens this chapter shows, for decades we have been told in colleges across North America, and in countless popular books, articles, and films, that wolves do not attack and kill people in North America and that wolves have not attacked people in North America for almost a century.12 The reality is that this is not correct.

Do North American Wolves Attack People?

Wolves are voracious predators. They prefer large ungulates—elk, deer, caribou, moose, and bison. They also will regularly prey on snowshoe rabbits and beaver if they are common.

A pack of three to five wolves will kill an average of two reindeer or caribou every three days. They can eat six to seven pounds of meat per day, and over ten pounds if they have not eaten for a while. That translates into one and a half tons of meat per wolf per year—twenty-two to twenty-three elk if that’s what’s on the menu. When wolves run out of wild meat, domestic livestock comes next. Always, wolves first test conditions. If humans do not appear to be a threat, they move closer and closer, driven by hunger and the love of killing, taking pets, eating garbage, and ultimately stalking and attacking people. This is proven by the historical record of Europe and Asia, as well as North America. (See later chapter on habituation by Dr. Geist.)

Let us be clear at the outset that the record of wolf attacks on people does not reflect the total number of attacks for several reasons. The first is that there was no written record of wolf attacks in North America until the 1700s. In the oral tradition of Native Americans, there are many stories of attacks, but there is no way to authenticate them.

The second is that there is no central system for wolf attack reports. In general, newspaper reports are all that researchers have to go on.

And third, a surprising number of people are lost in the wilderness and are either not found for some time or are never found. Just how persons fall into either of those categories is unclear, as there is no central data collection system for missing persons in the wilds. However, the Oregon-based Mountain Rescue Association has ninety search-and-rescue teams in twenty states, which complete about three thousand missions each year.

Missing people in the wilds can be victims of bear, mountain lion, or wolf attacks, but we will never know for sure. Once a person in the wilds dies, their body becomes potential food for predators, omnivores, and scavengers, and so determining what animal killed a person in the wilderness, or even if they were killed by an animal, is a forensic nightmare. In Alaska, where the wolf population is at least ten thousand, there are many reports of missing people who are either never found, or only their skeleton is found.¹³ The Alaskan Troopers have an active list of missing persons that has at least ninety-six names on it.

This latter situation is also true for livestock. Did the animal just wander off, or was it chased away and killed in the bush? If a rancher does not come on the dead animal right after it is killed, a number of different predators can dine on the body and the animal that initially killed the cow, sheep, goat, or pig may never be identified.

Thus, anyone who claims that there has never been a fatal wolf attack in North America is basing this statement on wishful thinking, not realism.

Based on what we can learn from scattered reporting, there have not been that many fatal wolf attacks in North America in the twentieth century. A primary reason why is that wolves in the United States and Canada were relentlessly hunted, trapped, and poisoned beginning in the 1800s and continuing through the 1930s. Estimates of the original wolf population in North America range between a quarter and half a million, or more. A secondary consideration is that when European settlers arrived, they brought firearms with them.

The arrival of Europeans with firearms and livestock set the stage for eradication of wolves, as unchecked hunting, especially market hunting, killed off many big-game species and these animals were replaced by livestock. As wolves switched from preying on wild game to domesticated livestock, trapping, hunting, and poisoning wolves drastically reduced their numbers.

Aside from Alaska and the Artic, those few wolves that survived along the Canadian border in the Northern Rockies and Minnesota learned that they needed to retreat to wilderness areas and stay away from people to survive. Wolves are intelligent and North American wolves became seldom seen out of necessity to survive.

This chapter will demonstrate that wolves do attack humans in North America, and the number of attacks is increasing as the wolf population grows and these largest of the wild dogs increasingly come into contact with people, ranches, and towns, as well as coyotes and dogs they can breed with.

Wolf Attacks around the World

Originally, gray wolves were distributed throughout the northern hemisphere worldwide in every habitat where large ungulates were found. Saturating most of the region between 20°N latitude (mid-Mexico and India) and the North Pole, in temperatures from -40° to +40° C, the wolf inhabited areas as diverse as Israel, North Africa, China, Great Britain, Ireland, and Greenland. In North America, they were found from Mexico City north to the Arctic Ocean. Wolves, aside from man, were once the most widely distributed mammal living north of 15°N latitude in North America and 12°N in Eurasia.14

There may have been as many as two million wolves worldwide in earlier times, but today the global population is approximately one-eighth of that, because man has trapped, hunted, and poisoned wolves not just in the United States, but worldwide, for centuries. A primary reason for the campaign against wolves has been fears of attacks on livestock and people. Let us look at what history tells us about the propensity for wolves to attack prey other than wildlife.

Historical Wolf Attacks on People in Europe and Asia

There is a long history of wolf attacks in Europe and Asia. This is where most of our western fables and fairy tales originated, and as you shall see, for good reason. Let us briefly look at some statistics about wolf attacks on people abroad up until 2013.

France

Between 1580 and 1830, 3,069 people were killed by wolves in France, 1,857 of these victims killed by wolves that were non-rabid.14 In the winter of 1455, forty people were killed by wolves in Paris, France. These wolves came to be known as the “Wolves of Paris.”¹⁶

Between 1763–67 in Gévaudan, Auvergne, and Languedoc, France, ninety-nine people were killed by a wolf known as “the Beast of Gévaudan” and its offspring.¹⁷

Sweden

From December 30, 1820, to March 27, 1821, around Gysinge, near the border of in central Sweden, a wolf attacked thirty-one people, killing eleven children between three-and-a-half to fifteen years of age and one nineteen-year-old woman, most of whom were partially consumed by the wolf. The wolf had been captured as a pup and raised in captivity for three to four years before it was released prior to the attacks.¹⁸

Italy

Between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries, 440 people were killed by wolves in the Po Valley of Italy. In 1704, sixteen people were killed by wolves in what is today the popular tourist region of Varesotto in Northern Italy.¹⁹ Today there are between five hundred and one thousand wolves in Italy. According to Luigi Boitani, who heads the La Sapienza University Animal and Human Biology Department, “However, the problems start when wolves return to an area after decades, and the ability to coexist has been forgotten.”²⁰

Russia

There are more wolves in Russia than any other country in the world today, and those wolves have evolved in a culture where there are scant few hunters, and the general population traditionally owns very few firearms. That we have not heard more about wolves in Russia since the fall of Czarist Russia, author and scientist Will Graves contends, is a function of the Communist government suppressing such information, because if people knew how really dangerous wolves were, the people would demand to be well-armed, and an armed populace could lead to revolution.21

During the last century, wolf numbers in Russia have risen and fallen through five cycles. When wolf populations became large, special hunting efforts were organized to reduce them. When the population was lowered, the hunting efforts were disbanded, and the wolf populations began to rise again. The greatest number of wolves was documented during World War I and World War II, when men were called off to war. Since the general populace of Russia has few firearms, and in the absence of men and without firearms, the wolf population grew quickly, as much as 30 percent per year.

In contrast to the US standard line that wolves do not attack people, Russian wildlife biologist Mikhail Pavlov states in his 1982 book The Wolf in Game Management:

Cases of severe unprovoked aggression by wolves toward humans are numerous. In 1988, the editorial board of the magazine Hunting and Hunting Economics sent me information on aggressive wolves in Kaluzhskaya Oblast. Ex-chairman of the hunter’s society, S. Semiletkin, informed the magazine that in 1943–1947 there were 60 victims of wolf aggression, including 46 children. . . . In Viatskaya in 1896–1897, 205 people became victims of predation, while there were only 10 in Vologodskaya, 18 in Kostromskaya, 1 in Arkhangel’skaya and 9 in Yaroslavskaya.²²

Graves’s exhaustive study, Wolves in Russia: Anxiety through the Ages, builds upon Pavlov’s work. Graves reports that from 1804–53 non-rabid wolves killed 111 people in Estonia, of which 108 were children, two men and one woman. Another 266 adults and 110 children were killed by wolves in the period of 1849–51 in the European sector of the Russian Empire. Another 1,445 people were killed by wolves in 1870–87 in the European sector of Russian Empire.²³

Rabid wolves have long been a problem in Russia, with wolves contracting rabies from foxes, raccoons, dogs, and other mammals. Pavlov reports that in 1975–76 attacks of rabid wolves on humans were also recorded in Ulianovskaya Oblast (fifteen cases), Kaluzhskaya Oblast (seven cases), Orenburgskaya Oblast (six cases), and Orlovskaya Oblast (four cases). In Gorkovskaya Oblast, during the ten years from 1929–39, forty people who were bitten by a rabid wolf were treated in hospitals. In the same area, after a rise in numbers of wolves in 1978, some twenty-four attacks on humans were recorded. In the 1980s, there also were numerous stories in newspapers on battles between humans and rabid wolves. Some of these wolves were rabid. In July 1976, in three days a rabid wolf bit sixteen people in the Lubomil district of Volinskaya Oblast.24

India and Pakistan

India typically has two thousand to three thousand wolves in rural areas. Pakistan and neighboring Kazakhstan traditionally have many more wolves. Attacks on people in this area are all too common, especially where there are few weapons available for self-defense and little or no police or military presence. A sample of what has taken place there includes 721 people killed by wolves in 1875 North-Western Province and Bihar State, British India.²⁵ One of the worst cases ever recorded of wolves attacking people occurred in 1878 in British India when 624 people were killed by man-eating wolves.²⁶

These tragic events might seem like a thing of the past, but wolves killing people in India has continued over the years. In 1926, ninety-five people were killed by wolves in the Districts of Bareilly and Pilibhit, United Provinces, India.²⁷ Fast forward to April 1993–95 in the Bihar State of India when wolves killed sixty children, and another twenty children were rescued from what would surely have been death. All the children were taken from settlements primarily during March to August between 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. There were more female victims (58 percent) than males and 89 percent were three to eleven years old. Of the eighty child casualties, only twenty were rescued.²⁸

Yadvendradev Jhala, a scientist at the Wildlife Institute of India, reports that in Uttar Pradesh during a two-year period (1996–97), a wolf or wolves killed or seriously injured seventy-four humans, mostly children under the age of ten years.²⁹

Literature provides a decidedly different tale, as a friendly wolf pack raised the boy Mowgli in Rudyard Kipling’s classic children’s tale, The Jungle Book.

Iran

Two recent fatal attacks by wolves in Iran suggest why wolves continue to be feared in the Middle East, even when the land is so heavily developed. January 4, 2005, an Iranian homeless man was eaten alive by wild wolves in the village of Vali-Asr, near the town of Torbat Heydariya in northeast Iran.³⁰

In November 2008, a wolf attacked an eighty-seven-year-old woman in the village cemetery of the central Iran town of Kashan. It bit one of her fingers, but she fought back and suffocated the wolf to death.³¹

Norway

In Scandinavia over the past three hundred years, ninety-four people have been killed by wolves. All of those cases were before 1882 and most were children under the age of twelve.32 Wolves were widely killed off in Scandinavia, Great Britain, and in many areas of Europe beginning in the 1600s. In contrast to the myth that native people don’t hunt wolves, for centuries Eurasian wolves have been hunted by the Saami, the indigenous people of northern Scandinavia, for protection, furs for clothing, and to safeguard their herds of reindeer, which are a main source of meat for the Saami.

Historical Accounts of Wolf Attacks in North America

Wolves were largely exterminated from heavily armed North America a hundred years ago when cattle and sheep replaced buffalo and other wild game as primary sources of meat and ranchers responded with traps, guns, and poison. A 1997 CNN article states: “While the wolves pose some threat to humans’ domesticated animals, there is little risk to people themselves. And while humans have killed an estimated two million wolves in this century, there is not a single documented case of a human being killed by a healthy wild wolf.”³³ That statement is blatantly false.

Let us begin a discussion of wolf attacks in North America by clearing up a common misconception. Often we hear from pro-wolf people that Native Americans and other traditional cultures considered the wolf to be a spiritual being, implying that indigenous people revere wolves and want them protected. Among traditional cultures all around the world, there is a spiritual dimension to all parts of nature—animals, stones, clouds, bodies of water, plants, places, and heavenly bodies. And, each part of nature has a unique spirit and power that man may be able to access. That an animal like a wolf has a spiritual aspect or power does not mean that a native person will not kill it, wear its pelt, or even eat it. In fact, in many cultures killing a wolf and wearing its skin is considered a path to gaining the wolf’s powers as a brave hunter, as well as protection from cold weather. This is one reason why the Mongolian Winter Olympic teams wear parkas with wolf fur.

Additionally, one should never assume that all Native American tribes hold the same beliefs about wolves. There are 562 federally recognized tribes in the United States, as well as Aleuts, Polynesians, and Inuits. While some tribes regarded wolves positively, others, such as the Navajo, saw wolves as witches—people taking the shape of wolves, wearing wolf skins, and becoming like werewolves.³⁴ The Chilcotin tribe of British Columbia believes that contact with wolves can lead to madness and death. The Blackfeet, while respecting wolves as great hunters, believe that wolves can never be trusted.³⁵ According to Blackfoot guide Alvin Yellow Owl, “The elders teach us to respect the wolf, for he is a good hunter. However, the elders also teach to never trust the wolf (or the coyote), for he can turn on his own kind, as well as anything else.” In 2011, the Blackfoot tribe in Montana issued ten wolf tags for hunters on the reservation.

Among the Koyukon tribe of Alaska, the wolf’s spirit is seen as third in ranking of animal power after the bear and the wolverine, and according to tribal customs all three mammals may be trapped or shot, providing proper ceremonies are conducted to honor the animals’ spirits.36

In present times, much has been made of the Nez Perce tribe in Idaho supporting wolf reintroductions, and the tribe has made a considerable contribution to wolf conservation along these lines. However, in 2009, when hunting licenses for wolves were issued in Idaho, thirty-five licenses were sold specifically for killing wolves on Nez Perce lands.

Farther south, the White Mountain Apaches support Mexican wolf restoration, but the San Carlos Apaches oppose the Mexican wolf restoration program in New Mexico and Arizona.³⁷

Native Americans and Inuits have co-existed with wolves for thousands of years. They respect wolves as great hunters, but they also feared attacks by both rabid and healthy wolves. According to Barry Lopez, “It is popularly believed that there is no written record of a healthy wolf ever having killed a person in North America. Those making the claim ignore Eskimos and Indians who have been killed and are careful to rule out rabid wolves.”³⁸

Early Europeans encountered wolves upon landing in the New World. Recalling what they had known about wolves in Europe, the settlers responded with firearms, which drove wolves back into the wilderness, where there was abundant wildlife, especially buffalo, which once numbered sixty million in the United States. Accounts from the Lewis and Clark Expedition reported large packs of wolves following herds of buffalo. Even though wild game was abundant, wolves were considered fearless and might attack people, including the Expedition.³⁹

In 1807, Clark’s squad was camped along the Yellowstone River near Billings, Montana, when a wolf stole into camp and bit a sleeping Sergeant John Pryor “through the hand.” The wolf then turned on Private Richard Windsor before being dispatched by another squad member.⁴⁰

The noted naturalist and artist John James Audubon reported in 1830 that wolves attacked two men who defended themselves with axes. Three wolves were killed, while the wolves killed one man.⁴¹

In his book The Great American Wolf, Bruce Hampton reports that in 1833 at a fur-trapping rendezvous for trappers in Wyoming, a rabid wolf wandered into camp on two evenings and bit thirteen people.⁴¹

Contracting rabies is possible in any warm-blooded animal, but in Asia, Africa, and parts of North America, dogs are the primary host, especially feral dogs, with foxes, raccoons, and skunks being primary carriers. Wolves and coyotes are dogs, and can also carry rabies.

There are an estimated fifty-five thousand human deaths annually from rabies worldwide, about thirty-one thousand in Asia, and twenty-four thousand in Africa. The disease has been known since 3500 BCE. The first written record of rabies appears in the Codex of Eshnunna (ca. 1930 BCE), which dictates that the owner of a dog showing symptoms of rabies should take preventive measure against bites. If another person was bitten by a rabid dog and later died, the owner was fined heavily.43

Japan once had wolves, but the Japanese exterminated their wolves by 1905, when most of the population of wolves had contracted rabies.⁴⁴ Currently, Japan is considering reintroducing wolves to control sika deer, which are very abundant and cause considerable crop damage. There are pro-wolf groups currently in Japan including the Japan Wolf Association.

Cases of rabies in wolves are numerous in the eastern Mediterranean, Middle East, and Central Asia. Wolves commonly develop a “furious” phase of rabies, aggressively attacking whatever they encounter. This, coupled with their size and strength, make rabid wolves among the most dangerous of rabid animals. Heptner and Naumov state that bites from rabid wolves are fifteen times more dangerous than those of rabid dogs.⁴⁵

Linnell and associates report cases of rabid wolves biting humans in numerous countries, including Italy, France, Finland, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, Baltic States, Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, China, India, and North America.⁴⁶

The noted naturalist George Bird Grinnell, who was skeptical about wolf attacks on humans, confirmed that in the summer of 1881, an eighteen-year-old girl in Colorado was attacked and bitten on the arms and legs by a wolf.⁴⁷

With the disappearance of the buffalo, wolves had to look elsewhere for food or starve to death, for other species of wildlife were not nearly as common as some claim. As Dr. Charles Kay has pointed out, “. . . early explorers who spent 765 days in the (Yellowstone) ecosystem on foot and on horseback between 1835 and 1876, reported seeing elk only once every eighteen days and bison were only seen three times, but not in the park itself.”⁴⁸

When wolves began killing livestock as a substitute for wild game, people began a campaign to exterminate wolves with poison, traps, and hunting.

When Young and Goldman looked for wolf attacks on humans before 1900 in North America, they found thirty accounts of attacks, and six possible human kills.⁴⁹

Wolf Attacks in Recent Times in North America

Today we tend to think of habituated or rabid wolves being the ones most likely to attack. However, the historical record shows that healthy wolves have attacked people in wild settings in North America, and continue to do so. Again, this is only a sample of what has occurred as formal records of wolf attacks have not been kept until very recently. Let us look at some examples. In February 1915 on the Coppermine River in the Canadian Arctic, a large white female wolf came into the camp of the Canadian Arctic Expedition of 1913–18, as they were eating breakfast. The wolf attacked one man and then bit another man on the arm before one of the party shot the wolf, which was later mounted and is today in the collection of the National Museum in Ottawa.50

In 1922, an elderly trapper near Port Arthur, Ontario, disappeared in the woods. Two Native Americans were sent to find him. When they did not come back, a search party was organized and the bodies of all three were found, killed by wolves.⁵¹

On January 26, 1950, a missionary driving a dog sled from Palmer to the Copper Basin, carrying supplies and gifts for orphans and needy families, was surrounded by wolves in deep snow near Sheep Mountain, near the headwaters of the Matanuska River. All the dogs were killed. The missionary survived by keeping the wolves away by building a fire.⁵²

By the late 1930s, wolves had been virtually eliminated from the lower forty-eight states due to hunting, trapping, and poisoning. Wolves were still thriving in Alaska, however, and as more and more people moved to Alaska, encounters with wolves began to increase. In 1974–75 in Fairbanks, Alaska, wolves attacked and killed 165 dogs, a number of which were being walked by owners or were in the yards of their owners. In response, thirteen wolves were shot in and around Fairbanks, and attack incidents dropped dramatically.⁵³

On April 18, 1996, five wolves attacked and killed twenty-four-year-old Patricia Wyman in the Haliburton Forest and Park Reserve in Haliburton, Ontario. The wolves had been raised in captivity but had never been trained to socialize with people.⁵⁴

In September of 2006, a wolf attacked six people in Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario. The wolf had a broken clavicle and tooth when it was shot by park rangers following the attacks, but it did not have rabies.⁵⁵

Dogmatic teaching in colleges and universities, coupled with claims by wolf advocates, pushed the belief that wolf attacks on humans could only be abroad, and surely not in North America. In 2000, two wolf attacks on humans in North America changed things forever.

In April of 2000 in Icy Bay, Alaska, six-year-old John Stenglein and a nine-year-old friend were playing outside his family’s trailer at a logging camp, when a wolf came out of the woods towards the boys. The boys ran, but the wolf attacked young Stenglein. It bit him on the back and buttocks. Adults, hearing the boy’s screams, came and chased the wolf away. The wolf returned a few moments later and was shot. According to Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the wolf was a healthy wild wolf that apparently attacked without provocation.56

This incident moved the Alaska Fish and Game Commission to request that a comprehensive study of wolf attacks on people in recent times in North America be undertaken. In response to this request, in 2002 Alaskan wildlife biologist Mark McNay published a report of a two-year study documenting eighty aggressive encounters between wolves and people in North America in the twentieth century. Forty-one were from Canada, thirty-six were from Alaska, and three were from Northern Minnesota. Thirty-nine were aggressive encounters with healthy wolves. In only twelve of the attacks were the wolves rabid. Since McNay’s report came out there have been two fatal attacks by healthy wolves—one in Canada and another in Alaska, and an unknown and increasing number of non-fatal aggressive encounters and attacks on people and their pets in the United States and Canada.⁵⁷

Also in 2000, on Vargas Island, British Colombia, university student Scott Langevin, twenty-three, was on a kayaking trip with friends. They camped out on a beach in an area where other campers had stayed. In the middle of the night, Langevin awoke with something pulling on his sleeping bag. He suddenly came face to face with a wolf. Langevin yelled at the wolf and it bit him on the hand. Langevin attempted to fight back, but the wolf jumped on his back and started biting him on the back of his head. Friends, hearing his yells, came to his aid and scared the wolf away. Fifty stitches were required to close Langevin’s wounds. The BC Ministry of Environment speculated the reason for the attack was wolves being habituated at that location as a result of being fed by people who used that campground. Langevin’s party did not feed the wolves.⁵⁸

In Canada, wolves have been extensively hunted and trapped for many years with a bounty as an incentive. This resulted in over one thousand wolves a year taken in Alberta alone. Such trapping and hunting keeps the wolf population in check and drives remaining wolves back into remote wilderness areas. The attack on Langevin took place in a campground, where wolves were protected and it is likely they were fed. Farther east in Algonquin National Park in Ontario, which has a viable wolf population and special wolf howling trips for visitors, there is a history of wolf attacks on people, including five attacks over an eleven-year period.⁵⁹

Alaska has seven to eleven thousand wolves, which are also hunted and trapped. However, as more and more people flock to Alaska and its urban areas increase in size, wolves investigate these new enclaves where hunting isn’t permitted.⁶⁰ For example, in the winter of 2007, the Elmendorf wolf pack around Anchorage attacked a number of people walking dogs, killing some dogs.⁶¹ This made the news in Anchorage and Fairbanks, but not much was heard farther south about wolf attacks until on November 8, 2005, college student Kenton Carnegie was hiking on a road near Points North Landing in northern Saskatchewan when he was attacked and killed.62 A thorough provincial inquest found that wolves were responsible. It was later determined that the wolves had become habituated to a garbage dump in that area, and that just a few days prior to Carnegie’s death, some other people were confronted by habituated wolves in the same area.⁶³ Dr. Geist was one of the experts called in to testify at a special inquisition held by the government to determine the cause of Carnegie’s death.

Another wolf attack in Saskatchewan occurred on New Year’s Eve, 2005, when Fred Desjarlais was coming home from his job at Key Lake, about 550 kilometers north of Saskatoon. The wolf suddenly came at him from a ditch and bit him several times on the back, arm, leg, and groin.⁶⁴ These incidents caused Canadian media to do some research, which discovered more wolf attacks on people in Canada, including those in 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, and 2004.⁶⁵

This occurrence illustrates that many wolf attacks do occur but do not make the national news or the scientific literature.⁶⁶ Four quick examples:

Resort owner Ken Gangler in Manitoba reports that recently one of his summer resort staff went out jogging on the landing strip for the private airport that serves Langler’s Resort. She was suddenly struck from the back by a large wolf that knocked her down. Before the wolf could attack any further, it was driven off by people nearby.⁶⁷

In Idaho, in 2008, a father and son were out hunting coyotes using a predator call. The pair was separated by a hundred yards. Suddenly a pack of wolves surrounded the son. The father came over and both men fired shots to scare the wolves away. The wolves left reluctantly, the men said. This was the year before it became legal to hunt wolves in Idaho.⁶⁸

Then, on March 9, 2010, Candice Berner, a thirty-two-year-old special education teacher working in Chignik Lake, Alaska, went jogging at dusk on a road near town and was attacked and killed by wolves. As this was on US soil, finally the reality of wolf attacks on people in North America became a front-page story in the United States. The attacking wolves were not rabid.⁶⁹

In December of 2012, Alaskan trapper Lance Grangaard was riding his snowmobile checking traps with his father when a black wolf appeared and attacked him. Grangaard raised his arm to protect himself and the wolf bit him through his parka and three layers of clothing to put a three-inch gash on his arm. Grangaard jumped off the snowmobile and wrestled the wolf to the ground, screaming and yelling, and hit the animal’s head on some ice. The wolf finally let go. As there was no way to test the wolf for rabies, Grangaard had the series of rabies shots just to be sure.

There have been nineteen confirmed cases of rabies in Alaska wolves since testing began in 1971, all of them in northern or western Alaska, where the disease is prevalent in foxes and occasionally spills over into the wolf population according to Alaska Fish and Game in Fairbanks.70

Wolf Attacks in North America 2013–2016

The first edition of this book came out in 2013. As wolves have become more established in North America, especially the lower forty-eight states, reporting of wolf attacks has improved, although there still is no central reporting system, such as is used by the Center for Disease Control for dog bites. Nonetheless, thanks to the Internet, it’s been possible to compile a list of attacks on people, pets, and livestock that have occurred between the fall of 2013 and the fall of 2016 in North America. This is a sample of what is happening. The total number of such incidents is much higher.

Alaska

March 2014: Wolf kills, eats dog after battle with owner in daylight attack near Haines.⁷¹

June 2014: Wolf attacked and killed a dog being taught what to do in such an encounter.⁷²

November 2015: Wolf attacks dog in Whitehorse subdivision.⁷³

June 2016: Two wolf attacks on Dogs in Ketchikan—one dog killed.⁷⁴

Arizona

November 2013: Four wolves attack man on horseback and his dogs.⁷⁵

April 2015: Three wolves attack couple walking their dog.⁷⁶

Idaho

August 2013: Wolves kill 176 sheep in one night in Idaho.⁷⁷

Fall 2013: Wolf attacks bicyclist.⁷⁸

May 2016: Wolves kill six hunting sounds.⁷⁹

August 2016: Idaho Wildlife Services investigated ninety-one wolf livestock killings during fiscal 2015, down from 107 the year before and 129 in 2013.⁸⁰

Michigan

October 2013: Eight more recent wolf attacks on domestic animals.⁸¹

November 2013: Wolf attacks nearly double previous years.⁸²

August 2014: Upper Peninsula wolf attacks on dogs continue.⁸³

January 2015: Wolf attacks on livestock and dogs in 2014 jump to one of the highest levels in more than a decade.⁸⁴

Minnesota

August 2014: The Sheriff’s office in Cook County, Minnesota, has issued a wolf warning after five dogs were killed by wolves in the last two weeks.85

March 2015: Dog killed by wolves in Duluth.⁸⁶

April 2015: Wolf kills pet dog in Suburb of Duluth.⁸⁷

April 2015: Wolf killings of dogs up dramatically in 2015.⁸⁸

April 2015: Wolves trapped after attacks on dogs in the Duluth-Two Harbors area.⁸⁹

June 2015: Wolves attack and kill livestock.⁹⁰

October 2015: Fifteen Northern Minnesota wolves killed after dog attacks.⁹¹

December 2015: Minnesota agriculture officials see wolf attacks in new locations.⁹²

February 2016: Wolf attacks and kills dog, at Brighton Beach.⁹³

February 2016: Hungry wolf kills off-leash dog on a walk with owner in Duluth.⁹⁴

Montana

April 2015: Thirty-six head of cattle, six sheep, and one horse killed by wolves in 2014.⁹⁵

Oregon

March 2014: Cows suffering from PTSD-like sickness after watching wolves kill.⁹⁶

September 2014: Eight sheep and two dogs killed by wolves in Umatilla.⁹⁷

September 2014: Wolves kill two dozen sheep in Northeast WA.⁹⁸

March 2015: Umatilla pack wolves stampedes 250 head of pregnant cows.⁹⁹

Washington

June 2015: Wolves kill three sheep, one dog, and one calf in recent attacks.¹⁰⁰

August 2015: Huckleberry wolf pack attacks livestock guard dog.^{101, 102}

November 2015: Wolf attacks cattle, kills one in southern Oregon.¹⁰³

November 2015: Wolf attacks three calves in Klamath.¹⁰⁴

March 2016: Imnaha wolf pack adds fourth attack (three cows and one sheep).¹⁰⁵

March 2016: State officials kill four wolves after attacks on livestock.¹⁰⁶

Wisconsin

August 2014: Pet dogs killed by wolf packs in Wisconsin.¹⁰⁷

September 2014: Thirteen dogs in Wisconsin verified as killed by wolves in 2014, including six during the first three weeks of August.¹⁰⁸

September 2015: Deer hunter defends self with pistol from wolf pack attack.¹⁰⁹

October 2015: USDA Wildlife Services confirmed thirty-one wolf attacks on dogs. Those include twenty-three hunting dogs and eight pet dogs in 2015.110

November 2015: Second wolf incident lends credit to wolf attack account.¹¹¹

May 2016: Wolf kills Bowler woman’s dog.¹¹²

May 2016: Family speaks after DNR confirms wolves attack family pet.¹¹³

July 2016: More than thirty wolf attacks on hunting dogs since January of this year.¹¹⁴

British Columbia

March 2015: Wolf warnings posted after multiple dog attacks on west Vancouver Island.¹¹⁵

March 2015: Wolf attacks and drags off domestic dog in daylight on Vancouver Island.¹¹⁶

November 2015: People take matters into own hands as wolf attacks on pets escalate.¹¹⁷

NW Territory

June 2016: A starving wolf stalks a woman and her dog for twelve hours.¹¹⁸

Ontario

March 2015: Wolves attack, kill family dog in woman’s front yard.¹¹⁹

Saskatchewan

September 2015: Experts say declining deer numbers to blame for wolf attacks.¹²⁰

September 2015: Canadian man captures wolf attacking his dog on camera.¹²¹

August 2016: A wolf attacks a shift worker at Cameco’s Cigar Lake uranium mine, who was walking between buildings shortly after midnight. A security guard interrupted the attack and scared the lone wolf away.¹²²

Wolf Attacks in Other Parts of the World 2013–2016

Azerbaijan

October 2015: Wolves attack locals in Azerbaijan’s Agshu, two injured.¹²³

China

August 2014: Wolf attack in Chinese village leaves six people disfigured and one missing an ear after pack of five wolves surrounded a small farming community and attacks.¹²⁴

France

April 2015: Wolves attack flock of sheep on edge of a town.125

June 2015: French farmer’s son left terrified after attack by nine wolves.¹²⁶

September 2015: Fifty French farmers take park director hostage over wolf attacks.¹²⁷

October 2015: Team of hunters deployed to hunt wolves in French Alps.¹²⁸

October 2015: Wolves go on killing spree of in French village—more than six thousand sheep were lost to these wolves last year alone.¹²⁹

Iran

March 2015: Between April 2001 and April 2012, there were fifty-three gray wolf attacks on humans in the West of Iran.¹³⁰

Russia

January 2013: “State of emergency” declared over wolf attacks in Siberian region.¹³¹

December 2013: Locals say wolves threaten their reindeer.¹³²

November 2015: Pack of wolves attack man in dogsled in Russian national park.¹³³

Sweden

October 2015: Wolves attack hunting dog wearing a Go-Pro.¹³⁴

These articles are just a sample of attacks on people and pets from 2013–16 in North America and Eurasia. There is no central, official, count of wolf attacks. Setting up an impartial counter of wolf attacks, like the CDC who cover dog bites, might help to clarify exactly what is the relationship between wolves and people, and how to minimize attacks.

To keep up with wolf news, check in with the website of Wolf Education International—http://wolfeducationinternational.com/.

Some Perspective

According to Dr. Valerius Geist, wolves are generally not dangerous when they are well fed on wild animals, by virtue of successfully preying on abundant wild prey where they have either very little contact with people, or where they are hunted. Geist says that in general, the evidence indicates that wolves are very careful to choose the most nutritious food source easiest obtained without danger. They tackle dangerous prey only when they run out of non-dangerous prey, and they shift to new prey only very gradually, following a long period of gradual exploration. In a later chapter Geist will describe how and why wolves become habituated.

Geist believes that wolves are most likely to attack humans and/or their pets if: 1. they have become habituated; 2. they have rabies; 3. they have been provoked; 4. people in that area have few or no firearms; and 5. garbage is easily accessible.

In the Northern Rockies and northern Midwest, in areas where wolves have not been hunted, big-game herds—elk, deer, and moose—that are wolves’ favorite prey, have declined dramatically due to wolf predation. This then sets the stage for wolves to approach livestock, pets, and people as prey.135

In a study of wolf predation worldwide, Linnell and associates found that there are four factors associated with wolf attacks on humans: 1. rabies; 2. habituation; 3. provocation as in people approaching dens with young wolves; and 4. environmental conditions including little or no natural prey, garbage dumps, children who are unattended, poverty, and limited availability of weapons, especially firearms.¹³⁶

Unfortunately, there has not been a detailed follow-up study of wolf attacks on people like Mark McNay’s, which concluded in 2002.¹³⁷ As wolf populations grow across North America, wolves are testing boundaries and moving into new territory. As wolves come into closer contact with people, the chance of attacks increases, especially if we approach wolves naively. Expanding wolf packs in North America are visiting the suburbs of Minneapolis and walking the streets of Sun Valley, Idaho. There are numerous reports of the four wolf packs living around Anchorage, Alaska, attacking dogs and people walking them.¹³⁸

In Yellowstone National Park, where visitors line the roads to take pictures of wolves, in 2009 rangers had to shoot a wolf because it was chasing bicyclists.¹³⁹

Wolf biologist Dr. David Mech advises people to never feed wolves and allow them to become habituated. He says that if you meet a wolf, do not run away—yell, look as big as you can, throw rocks. Pepper spray helps. The sound of a gun will let them know you mean business.¹⁴⁰ Wolves are smart, prolific, and adapt quickly. Mech says that so long as there is adequate food and habitat it is necessary to kill off between 28 percent and 53 percent in an area just to keep that wolf population stable, which is part of the necessary management program for wolves living in the twenty-first century in areas where so many people now live.¹⁴¹

The evidence of history clearly shows that when wolves and people do come together, especially when people are not armed and wolves are hungry, sooner or later, attacks will occur and someone is going to be hurt or killed. And, the historical record also shows that on occasion, both healthy and rabid wolves do go on killing sprees that can include humans, especially children. This reality must be factored into any responsible wolf management program.

Conclusion

Ultimately, by not accepting that wolves can and do attack people and have done so from time immemorial, people then believe that wolves are not dangerous to humans, an approach that leaves them vulnerable to wolf attacks.

“Only wolves and tigers seem to have learned to hunt man for food, and perhaps sharks and crocodiles.”

—John Muir 142

Endnotes:

1. http://www.fws.gov/northdakotafieldoffice/endspecies/species/gray_wolf.htm

2. http://abcnews.go.com/US/family-montana-man-killed-grizzly-bear-attack-speaks/story?id=40263924

3. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/08/mountain-lions-flocking-to-greenwich-ct-them-too.html

4. http://www.dogbitelaw.com/PAGES/statistics.html

5. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/vpc21/1/

6. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1075&context=icwdm_wdmconfproc

7. http://www.latimes.com/science/la-me-coyotes-20141218-story.html and https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Robert_Timm/citations

8. Note: The authors reported in the first edition of The Real Wolf that Ms. Mitchell was killed by coy-wolves. They have since received updated information. Several coyotes suspected of involvement in the attack were killed and genetically tested. The results were reviewed by animal geneticist Dr. Matthew Cronin, the author of chapter 18, who concluded they were eastern coyotes. News story about attack: http://latimes-blogs.latimes.com/outposts/2009/10/musician-taylor-mitchell-dies.html

9. http://www.coywolf.org/coywolf-basic-info/

10. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfdog&http://www.wolf.org/wolves/learn/intermed/inter_human/algonquin.asp

11. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Wolf

12. http://www.forwolves.org/wolves.html

13. http://www.adn.com/we-alaskans/article/missing-alaska-without-trace/2014/07/20/

14. http://www.wolf.org/wolves/learn/scientific/challenge_mech.as

15. Moriceau, Jean-Marc. Histoire du méchant loup : 3 000 attaques sur l’homme en France. (2007), 623.

16. Thompson, Richard H. Wolf-Hunting in France in the Reign of Louis XV: The Beast of the Gévaudan. (Edwin Mellen Press, 1991), 367.

17. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_attacks_on_humans

18. http://westinstenv.org/wibio/2010/02/22/the-danger-of-wolves-to-humans/

19. http://www.physorg.com/news90260221.html

20. Pavlov, Mikhail P. “The Danger of Wolves to Humans” in The Wolf in Game Management. Translated by Valentina and Leonid Baskin, and Patrick Valkenburg. Moscow: Agropromizdat, 1982.

21. Graves, Will. Wolves in Russia: Anxiety Through the Ages. Detselig Enterprises, 2007.

22. http://westinstenv.org/wibio/2010/02/22/the-danger-of-wolves-to-humans/

23. Knight, John. Wildlife in Asia: Cultural Perspectives. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2004. 280.

24. http://hindu.com/2001/05/08/stories/1308017f.htm

25. Maclean, Charles. The Wolf Children. (1980): 336.

26. http://www.wolfsongalaska.org/Wolves_South_Asia_child.htm

27. http://www.wolf.org/wolves/learn/intermed/inter_human/india_abstract_003.asp

28. http://www.iranfocus.com/en/iran-general-/homeless-man-eaten-by-wolves-in-iran-01150.html

29. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Wolf#cite_note-19

30. http://www.cnn.com/EARTH/9711/12/yellowstone.wolves/

31. http://www.wolfsongalaska.org/wolves_in_american_culture.html

32. Boitani, Luigi. Wolves: Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation. University of Chicago Press (2003).