Possibly, but considering the amount of damage a single wolf, much less a pack fo them, could do to even a person armed with an edged melee weapon, I’d guess that they had a prior inclination to avoid people, similar to the big cats that live reclusive lives in remote areas; they generally avoid people even though they could pose a serious threat to even a man armed with a firearm. Of course, even a larger, stealthy predator doesn’t want to risk injury if easier prey is available, but I doubt that many animals unfamiliar with humans would understand the function of a rifle or the threat it poses.
There are other reasons wolves might be reclusive and avoidant, particularly in response to human encroachment, including erosion of habitat, reduction of prey species, and the threat of injury or death from automobiles. This is a population-level effect, however, and probably hasn’t made any signficant instinctual or genetic impact so far.
Couple of points if I may - this only applies to my experiences growing up in Montana, so YMMV
Bears only attack people in four instances:
1 - Person gets between bear and food (espec animal kill
2 - Person surprises bear
3 - Person gets between mother and cub
4 - Bear is sick / injured
Otherwise bears tend to avoid people. Probably learned behaviour - we are the biggest baddest predators around, after all, and every time a bear’s scrapped with a person in the last 25-odd years, the bear has been destroyed. Their sense of smell and hearing is several times better than ours; my most frequent experience with grizzlies has been them going the other way whenever they spotted or smelled me, or in very rare instances bears (mostly blacks or browns) coming into our camp because we were cooking meat of some kind. In all instances, the bear was driven off very very quickly by shouting and making threatening gestures with a stick (from a safe distance, of course, and with a .44 magnum and pepper spray as backup :)) - my mom has a hell of a good story about driving a brown bear out of our camp by smashing a rotten log and sending a huge cloud of splinters into his face.
As for mountain lions, they will track and attack people. They don’t have an instinctive fear of people, and I have both personal and anecdotal experience of this - I’ve been tracked by a lion while hunting deer with my father. We circled the mountain top, saw lion tracks, said ‘how cool’ until we realized lion was following us, and got the heck off the hill. There are also numerous instances of lions attacking people, usually when human habitation encroaches on lion habitats. Recent incidents have been reported in Washington State, near Seattle. Warning: Gross Photo Another in Northern California
Finally, wolves - wolves are incredibly timid towards humans. Every piece of evidence provided thus far proves that attacks on humans are extremely rare unless the human is doing something stupid - feeding the wolves, associating themselves with a food source (i.e. leaving garbage around a camp) or else the wolf is sick or injured.
All wild animals are dangerous, especially key predators, but some more than others. So I wouldn’t worry about wolves or bears nearly as much as mountain lions when hiking or biking around the wild country
With a name like wolf_meister, I felt it mandatory to enter this discussion.
I also appreciate those posters who have already expressed their “pro-wolf” sentiments.
This is a slight hijack but I think a bit of perspective should be interjected here.
Rubystreak posted this statstic:
My God that is almost 18 deaths per year !!! :eek: When will we start addressing the canine menace stalking the populace?
When the movie “Jaws” was released, just about everyone that lived near an ocean became fearful that a shark would attack and swallow them. Actually, more people are killed by lightning than by sharks.
When you consider the chances of your life being shortened by your fellow humans (drunk drivers, murders, drive by shootings, mindless shooting sprees, etc), the number of folks attacked by wolves sort of pales in comaprison doesn’t it?
Again, this was a hijack and I don’t think wolf attacks was the #1 concern of Jinx. (More a matter of intellectual curiosity I’d say). Still, a bit of perspective does put things in order doesn’t it?
I can only offer a perspective of someone who lives in the subject state. In the 20 years I spent growing up here and in the nine years I’ve been back, I’ve never heard of, nor read of, a wolf attack on a human. Can’t speak for the 30 years in between. Wolves don’t just live in the wild; there is at least one pack that hunts in Eagle River, which is part of the municipality. I have a friend who sees them quite often. Other than the occasional missing dog, wolves pretty much avoid human contact. The statement that “wolves kill and maim people all the time” is total unsubstantiated hogwash.
Jinx, I think what your coworker meant was that wolves had never been known to attack a person on a business trip. Wolves apparently demonstrate extreme wariness toward any animal in an upright posture and carrying a laptop, probably due to evolutionary pressures to avoid encounters with PowerPoint.
Also, because they have no doubt played Half Life (like everyone else in North America), and associate suits and briefcases with semi-villanous guys who can NOT be killed.
I think I get what you’re saying. We should be afraid of sharks who can control the weather, right?
From what I remember of the line about wolf attacks, it included the caveats “documented cases of American citizens” being killed. I always wondered how the wolves would know that I was an American, and not say Slovakian and therefore presumably fair game.
A wolf attacked a family who were camping in Lake Superior Provincial Park last fall: Ontario News | The Spec
That being said, wolf attacks are so few and far between that they are not worth worrying about. I’ve come across wolves many times, and have never had any problems. Once one trotted beside me for half an hour while I was skiing, but the wolf was curious rather than sizing me up for dinner.
Attacks on dogs by wolves is another matter. For example, when my cousin lived in Cambridge Bay, she said the town had a problem with a wolf pack that would run a female through town so as to attract the male dogs. When the dogs ran out of the town following the female, the pack would kill one of the dogs.
On the other hand, we spent a long weekend at the Winterlake Lodge a few weeks ago, which is about 200 miles northwest of Anchorage on the Iditarod Trail. They have recreational sled dogs there (about 20 dogs). I asked them about problems with wolves and they said zero in all the years they’ve been there.
This was said to be a common tactic used by coyotes for isolating dogs when I lived in Nevada, too. If true, that seems remarkably intelligent to use a female for bait like that! I’d be interested in reading about what’s actually known about this particular behavior.
