Wolves

I met Bob Brotzman in Columbus, Ohio, in the mid-‘60s while working on my Ph.D. degree. Bob helped me understand computer power and we co-authored a paper on population estimation.

Bob knew I had struggled to gain competence in the Russian language to meet a degree requirement. Several years ago he suggested me to his hunting friend, Will Graves, a Russian language translator. Graves had written a draft of Wolves in Russia: Anxiety Through the Ages

He had been collecting information on and preparing a book on the Wolves of Russia. Bob said that I, a professor of wildlife management, might be interested. I had known Graves's editor, Dr. Geist, from my teaching years at the University of Idaho. I agreed to read the draft.

In Wolves in Russia: Anxiety Through the Ages, Graves recounts records of wolf attacks, bounties, and related laws and regulations.

The book is important broadly because wolves have been re-introduced into the USA and are increasing at a surprising rate and spreading.  “Wolves have never attacked humans” is the mantra of the preservationists and people interested in restoring conditions of more natural ecosystems.

Graves has abundant records of such human attacks. He found that when guns were outlawed in Russia for political reasons, attacks increased.  When guns were permitted, attacks were very low.  Wolves learned readily and somehow transmited a "people with guns are dangerous" knowledge to their young.  

Now people in the forests and fields of the United States do not carry rifles (except for brief periods). The conditions are similar to those in Russia, when guns were illegal, so that learning “people are bad for wolves” among re-introduced families of wolves may take a long time.  Human attacks and deaths from wolves seem likely now. Attacks on recreationists have increased from cougars, known as "mountain lions" in the West.

Populations of animals do “learn” or duplicate behaviors over short periods. On one military reservation where hunting is allowed from tree stands, I learned that the deer are now clearly continually looking into the trees--where there are new predators.

Robert H. Giles, Jr. writes High Five for Handshake 2.0, a technology business news and business blog service venture of Handshake Media, Incorporated, a member company of business acceleration center VT KnowledgeWorks.