# No wolf has ever attacked a human being... **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 14, 2000, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-wolf-has-ever-attacked-a-human-being/25600 "2000-07-14T20:58:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-wolf-has-ever-attacked-a-human-being/25600/41 "2012-05-30T20:49:29Z")
> [@Bytegeist](#): > > A wølf once bit my sister. Hell, \*I \* once bit your sister. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-wolf-has-ever-attacked-a-human-being/25600/42 "2012-05-30T20:53:26Z")
What if the USS Iowa was within ten miles of the zombie wolf? Who would win? ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-wolf-has-ever-attacked-a-human-being/25600/43 "2012-05-30T21:04:14Z")
> [@bup](#): > > [The flower, apparently, but the factoid is in doubt.](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=lupin) Well, I saw that, but I was not convinced. Even if the plant is harmful to soil, which seems questionable, it is scarcely going to ravage the land in anything like the sense that wolves might (rightly or wrongly) be thought to do so. So far as I am aware, wolves are not noted for being harmful to soil, and flowers are not noted for eating domesticated animals, etc. The etymology suggested there seems very implausible (not so much the suggestion that the flower name somehow derives from the Latin for wolf, but the particular connection that is drawn). ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-wolf-has-ever-attacked-a-human-being/25600/44 "2012-05-31T00:18:20Z")
> [@Dumb\_Ox](#): > > Finally, it is important to remember that wolves in India (_Canis lupus pallipes_) are a different subspecies from wolves in North America (_Canis lupus lupus_, _Canis lupus rufus_, and _Canis lupus mexicanus_). The European wolf is considerably more aggressive than the North American wolf, so some of the medieval stories about wolf attacks probably had some basis in fact. But when European settlers came to North America, they didn’t realize that they were dealing with a different subspecies, and transferred all their prejudices about the European wolf to the North American wolf. Many of our own stereotypes about the North American wolf descend from settler’s beliefs about the European wolf. (Yes I know this is a zombie) What I’ve heard in the past is that American wolves avoid humans, while Eurasian wolf species have historically been willing to prey on us. The reason I’ve seen hypothesized for this is that wolves over there co-evolved with humans, competing with and occasionally preying on humans for millennia. As humans got smarter and developed better tools, the wolves learned and evolved behaviors to deal with those advancements (up to a point). But when humans arrived in North America, they were already accomplished Stone Age hunters with human intelligence, not prehumans; the local wolves simply couldn’t compete. Pretty much every time they tried to prey on humans or got in their way they died, and there weren’t enough survivors for them to evolve better tactics the way Eurasian wolves had; they couldn’t match the millennia of evolution that Eurasian wolves had undergone to deal with humans in a single leap. Instead, they evolved avoidance of humans. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-wolf-has-ever-attacked-a-human-being/25600/45 "2012-05-31T04:35:25Z")
Interesting theory. May or may no be true but it does make sense. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-wolf-has-ever-attacked-a-human-being/25600/46 "2012-05-31T05:49:27Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > What I’ve heard in the past is that American wolves avoid humans, while Eurasian wolf species have historically been willing to prey on us. Maybe European people were just better to eat than early North Americans (or even modern North Americans for that matter). Those were the dumb European wolves anyway. The smarter ones just evolved into domestic dogs, who have been living easy ever since. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-wolf-has-ever-attacked-a-human-being/25600/47 "2012-05-31T05:54:58Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Maybe European people were just better to eat than early North Americans (or even modern North Americans for that matter). Nope. Modern Americans tend to have excess fat, which presumably makes them nice and tasty. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2012, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-wolf-has-ever-attacked-a-human-being/25600/48 "2012-05-31T06:00:35Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > If it is the flower, though, Denis Moore’s behavior becomes somewhat more understandable. I don’t have a dog in the wolf debate, but I want to defend lupines which come courtesy of the heroine in [a wonderful children’s story](http://www.amazon.com/Miss-Rumphius-Barbara-Cooney/dp/0670479586). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-wolf-has-ever-attacked-a-human-being/25600.md?page=2)