Having some upcoming business in Alaska (new territory to us), a coworker claimed how there has never been a report of an incident of a wolf attacking a person. I don’t know why he thinks he’s the authority on this, and I find it hard to believe. Any SDopers know the SD on this?
While reading lumberjack pioneer accounts you run accross the wolve attacks. Normaly the attacks are in winter. Animal attacks happen to any species man interacts with. They may not be as likely to attack as an individual, but as a hungry pack they are fearless. Don’t believe the idiots that claim wolves don’t attack, they will say your an exeption when it happens, and it’s unheard of. It’s common enough to be watching what the heck you do when in an area with a wolf population. That goes for bears and the like also.
I told the guy that his claim is only because those tasked to record such incidents were eaten by the wolves! 
I rememer the guy that told everybody bears won’t hurt people and ignored warnings. Him and the girl friend were eaten. It’s a movie now so I can’t find the articles. They’ve all been submerged.
Two Indian cases:
National Geographic had big piece on the predation of human children on on their TV program. Most recently there has been a leopard in India suspected of preying on human children.
The way this is usually phrased is heavily qualified. It is usually stated as "there have been no documented fatal attacks by a healthy wild wolf in North America. Wolves in Europe and Asia have been known to kill humans.
I believe this qualified statement may actually be true, or at least was until recently. This is supported by this article, which is an account of the same attack described in Harmonious Discord’s first link:
First fatal wolf attack recorded in North America?
However, even this recent attack can’t be considered to be fully confirmed.
The OP’s coworker no doubt has heard a distorted version of the qualified statement, or else misremembered it.
Note that the “lumberjack accounts” mentioned by Harmonious Discord would probably not be considered by scientists to be “documented accounts.”
If it’s any consolation, Jinx, I’ve heard a similar claim made on a TV documentary a few years ago - the only difference was that this something like “there isn’t a single recorded case of anyone being killed by a wolf” (emphasis mine). It seems to be something of an UL.
Here’s the CBC report from the time of the event: Wolf attack likely killed man, police say
There’s an element of truth to this, as the Wollaston Lake case suggests - one of the reason for the uncertainty is that the fellow was out alone, so there are no witnesses. The police and coroner are forced to make inferences, based on the nature of the wounds, the tracks in the snow, etc. And since wolves are pack animals, it’s far more likely that an attack would occur in those circumstances: a pack taking down a single person, rather than a pack attacking a group of people.
I wouldnt relate wolf attacks to grizzly attacks. I dont think anyone claims that grizzlies wont attack people – there are numerous documented cases of it. And whatever the guy in “the grizzly man” documentary said is also somewhat beside the point – he was clearly somewhat insane. But from what I have read, wolf attacks are much less likely (although certainly not impossible).
This cite is from the National Parks Service fact sheet about wolves on the Olympic Peninsula:
Bolding mine. This is the statement that I’ve heard distorted into “wolves never kill people.” Note, it’s healthy, wild wolves in North America. Overall, I’d say humans have nothing to fear from wolves around here, that’s safe to say.
I remember reading this “fact” in a book when I was a child. There was even a claim that a Canadian newspaper, based in Ontario (in Sault Ste Marie?) had had a longstanding reward on offer for proof of an attack by a wolf and had never had to pay out the reward.
The other thing about that qualified statement is, how do you prove the animal was healthy? If I came across a situation of a wolf attacking a human, I would at least assume that the wolf wasn’t entirely right in the head. Humans are (or can be) pretty dangerous animals, and wolves are smart enough to have learned that long ago. Absent any other evidence, I’d consider the attack itself a pretty good indicator that the wolf wasn’t healthy.
Experts always put in qualifier’s and hope people will assume that the statement is true for all cases, and it isn’t. Wolves kill and maim people all the time. The question wasn’t only about killing either. It was about attacking and they attack people way to many times, for people to not be wary in habitat with wolves or other carnivorous animals.
I’d like to see some unbiased cites for that claim, and also an explanation to “all the time”, which seems to me that you’re meaning it’s an everyday occurance. Of course, you could be meaning something else. If so, please clarify.
All the time to mean at any time they wish, since it’s up to them, so no time is to be excluded from when they are dangerous. There are alread links of attacks posted, so why would I bother to look for more, since they won’t apparently be from somebody you trust.
#1. Wolves are mammals.
#2. Wolves kill and maim people all the time!
#3. They better not go after my French Fries!
Yes you did. I checked those and you provided cites for two incidents, one were wolves were “suspected”. Further digging at the sites you linked to revealed some interesting pdf:s one which managed to find a grand dozen wolf attacks on humans (fatal and non fatal) during the 20th century in all of North America. The authour notes:
Remember this is your own cite.
Your broad brush statement “Wolves kill and maim humans all the time” then in fact meant (using your own cites and explanation about “all the time”):
Wolves kill and maim humans whenever it damn pleases them. In fact, it’s happened on average about once ever nine years in all of North America, during the 20th century".
Glad I got that cleared up.
Treadwell was clearly buggered in the head (not just from his advocacy of the gentleness of bears, but his other behavior as documented in Grizzly Man) but the fact is that the frequency and overall number of attacks by brown or grizzly bears (Ursus arctos and U. a. horribilis resepctively) are vastly less than most people would expect, and the significant per capita attacks by the North American Black Bear Ursus americanus) are negligable, particularly given suburban encroachment and the often close proximity of bears to human habitation. Wikipedia has a proportedly complete list of fatal bear attacks in the 20th and 21st century, but I haven’t backchecked this to confirm. Despite black bears living in more diverse environments and being vastly better represented across the North American continents, they don’t show proportionally more attacks than browns.
Wolves are pack animals that (generally) engage in cursorial hunting of herd prey. They are certainly physically capable of taking down a human being, but at least the wolf species of North America generally demonstrate extreme wariness toward any animal in an upright posture, probably due to evolutionary pressures to avoid encounters with much larger and more dangerous predators like the recently extinct big cats of genus smilodon and homotherium, the brown bear, and the Short-Faced Bear, all of which attack from an upright bipedal or leaping posture.
However, all of these animals are wild, and to paraphrase Charlotte Brontë, most things freeborn will submit to anything for food. If they’re hungry or injured, and the best source of food is one of those noisy hairless bear cubs, then they’ll attack and feed. But this seems to be an extreme of behavior that they don’t typically engage in.
Stranger
Or perhaps even due to evolutionary pressures to avoid us. We’ve been coexisting with wolves for a while now, and a human with a pointy stick is at least formidable enough to make a wolf pay dearly for its meal.
Yes, a wolf encounter should be considered a dangerous situation, but the key is that wolves don’t like those encounters either, and make a reasonable effort to avoid us whenever possible. And one statistic I’m absolutely certain of, is no human ever got attacked by a wolf that was a mile away at the time.