This morning, I was struck by this almost one hundred year old news story. It is a horrific story that brings together our worst anxieties about wilderness, animals, and our human frailty and vulnerability. Yet, I think the story's horror is only matched by it's strangeness and extraordinariness in that wolves rarely attack humans and when they do, it is most often because of the intensive stress on their communities due to human activity. Exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis? (i.e. "the exception confirms the rule in cases not excepted"?).WOLVES KILL BRIDAL PARTY: Only Two Escape Out of 120 in Asiatic Russia (The New York Times, March 19, 1911)
ST. PETERSBURG, March 8. -- Tragic details of the fate of a wedding party attacked by wolves in Asiatic Russia while driving on sledges to the bride's house, where a banquet was to have taken place, are now at hand, and in their ghastly reality surpass almost anything ever imagined by a fiction writer. (Full article can be downloaded here or click on image).
Interestingly, a similar story as that described in the article above, makes an appearance in several works of fiction (just two examples are Willa Cather's My Ántonia and Gene Wolfe's Tracking Song).
As I wrote this, I kept reminding myself that wolves used to roam free over much of the land that humans now consider 'their own'; the privatization of land and the exploitation of its resources being alien to these ancient animals. Conservationists and writers like Farley Mowat have been able to fight the demonizing of wolves (Never Cry Wolf (1963) remains a favorite book of mine) and wolves are finally being reintroduced to their former homelands.
European contact and colonization brought an aggressive and antagonistic relationship with American wildlife (not to mention the gruesome atrocities committed against indigenous peoples). Settlers began a long and harrowing battle to get rid of all the deer, elk, bison, turkeys, pigeons, etc - all in the name of Progress, Manifest Destiny, and to serve the gods of Agriculture, Settlement (i.e. Real Estate development), and Industry - in other words, modern industrial globalized capitalism. In such a climate, wild animals were left less and less land on which to live, eat, and survive, and often full-fledged extermination followed suit. So, the bears, wolves, and coyotes found themselves as 'trespassers' on land that was previously common, wild, and open. Populations of wolves were pushed into more and more marginal areas. With nothing else left to eat, the animals attacked livestock, and sometimes people. Settlers targeted these predatory animals and the federal government even employed trappers who spent years hunting down the last wolf and killing it. The last wolves were actually killed by the U.S. Biological Survey, which is the agency that transformed itself into the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that is now responsible for wolf restoration!
So for years, wolves were poisoned, shot, and beaten. When dens were found, the wolf pups were beaten to death and then the adults who returned to the den were shot. But it was poison that probably killed the greatest number of wild animals, wolves included. The poisoning campaign continued on up until the '70s, when poison baits were still being used throughout the western United State, even on public lands by federal agencies.
It is amazing to think that while the wolf population was systematically extinguished, the number of domesticated dogs continued to rise ever steeply in the US. According to the Human Society, there are approximately 77.5 million owned dogs in the US alone, with 39% of U.S. households own at least one dog. (This number does not include the large number of homeless or feral dogs). The DNA of a wolf and any domesticated dog are practically indistinguishable, yet their fates have been so wildly different. I think of the forests that have been destroyed, while houseplants, pesticide-ridden flower farms, and floral prints on tablecloths, bedspreads, and summer dresses continues to rise. Thoughtless destruction, lust for power and control, pathetic substitution, and short-sightedness seem to be a pattern that is hard for our species to avoid.
More on captive wolf reintroduction and captive breeding programs here. And a brief fact sheet on the wolf population in the USA, here.
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