Christine A. Elmore
Sadly, humans have a long history of eradicating wolves. According to Rebecca L. Grambo in her book
Wolf: Legend, Enemy, Icon
, throughout history "wolves have been hunted with a vengeance seldom seen against any other animal" (p. 138). Over the last few centuries almost every culture has hunted wolves to extinction. In the first written record of such actions, Solon of Athens in the 6
th
century BC encouraged widespread bounty hunting of wolves. In the 16
th
century the last wolf was killed in England under Henry VII. Throughout the 13
th
through 15
th
centuries wolf persecution continued unabated in Scotland and during James V's reign whole forests were burned down in an effort to wipe out wolves. Moving to the United States, by 1930, not a wolf was left in 48 contiguous states due to an unrestrained campaign to kill them. It is clear that many people became totally intolerant of carnivorous competitors like wolves.
Not all cultures regarded the wolf in such a negative light. Many Native Americans believed in and respected the wolf for its spirit and power as well as its prowess as a great hunter. The Cherokee did not hunt wolves because they believed its brothers would later exact revenge. Other tribes such as the Arikana, Mandan and Cheyenne would kill wolves for their warm pelts but seldom for food. According to Grambo, "… few killed it [the wolf] out of fear, and then usually because of apprehension about the wolf's power or spirit, rather than from dread of the animal itself" (p. 134).
In this section I plan to limit my discussion of the cultural history of wolves to western cultures because a wider study would require a much larger format than this unit allows.
For many thousands of years early humans and wolves hunted an abundance of wild animals without conflict. There was enough for everybody. With more dwindling supplies of large prey and man's domestication of both sheep and goats between 10,000 and 6,000 years ago, vicious competition arose between humans and wolves. The wolf was no longer a hunting rival but a thief. Farmers and herders viewed their livestock as valuable, heavily-invested-in property which they were bound to care for and protect. They were dependent on these animals for their economic well-being and any threat to them, either by humans or wild animals, was regarded as downright theft. Due to their vulnerability to wolf predations, pastoralists developed a very strong revulsion toward these carnivores who sought to take away their livelihood. As Garry Marvin maintains in his book,
Wolf
"Wolves became unwanted, often feared, intruders into human affairs" (p. 36).
The response to this growing fear and hatred of wolves, perceived as "an enemy of humankind" (Marvin, p. 81), was persecution and eradication. Through the unrestrained and systematic use of traps and bounties, wolf populations across Europe by the 19
th
century were obliterated or at least severely reduced.
In the 1500s European colonists brought their old-world myths, fears and hatred of wolves to the New World. The hostile relationship between human beings and wolves turned into an "all out war" (Marvin, p. 84) when English settlers came to North America. The domesticated livestock that they brought with them were foreign to this new land. Unknowingly, the settlers introduced a new prey into the landscape for wolves and other predators to attack (Marvin, p. 86). Early settlers in America killed wolves to protect their livestock but also out of fear and loathing for a species demonized for centuries in folklore. Granted, their views were shaped by immediate survival and, as has been established earlier, both their land and their animals were resources of economic benefit. The wolf was seen as just a useless and harmful intruder that needed to be destroyed.
The mentality of the settlers, unlike the indigenous peoples, was to forcibly take control of their new surroundings, tame it and exploit it. Hunters who made great profits from the sale of animal furs and hides saw themselves in direct competition with wolves. Wolves became reviled not only for their attacks on livestock but also for their intense rivalry with hunters.
Different from colonial times, the U.S. in the 19
th
century saw growing numbers of professional wolf hunters who systematically killed wolves through the use of poison, dogs and specially-designed traps. From the 1860s to the 1880s wolves themselves became a valuable commodity and were killed in large numbers for their fur. With the demise of the buffalo, wolf predation turned to cattle and ranchers were enraged and vowed to extirpate the wolf.
At the beginning of the 20
th
century, national preserves for livestock to graze on were established for which owners paid government fees. In return the government was bound to protect their livestock from predators like wolves. With the government involved, wolf management became a pressing societal issue. A relentless campaign against wolves ensued. The result of this predator control initiative was that park rangers "poisoned, trapped or shot almost every wolf from all the national parks in the contiguous USA" (Marvin, p. 117). An estimated one to two million wolves were killed.
This merciless 'wolf hunt' went on unabated until the 1930s when scientists, through their studies of wolves' relationship with their prey, arrived at a more informed understanding of the important ecological niche that wolves played in the balance of nature that keeps both the predator and the prey healthy. They learned that wolves have a very dynamic relationship and influence on their prey. Their removing unhealthy, aging and post-reproductive prey from the population results in availability of more forage for the young and healthy members.
The image of the wolf as a scheming predator with an insatiable hunger changed as a result of scientific studies of wolves done beginning in the mid-20th century. Drawing on the factual information gleaned about wolves, writers of informational texts began to describe a wolf's diet, habitat, physical characteristics and the delicate position this vulnerable carnivore is now in as it hunts to survive. In 1963 there were two publications that came out that presented a more informed and positive view of wolves and helped foster a greater appreciation for them. One was an article in the
National Geographic
on a study of wolf-moose predation on Isle Royale written by Durward Allen and David Mech. The second was Farley Mowat's book,
Never Cry Wolf
. In this account the famous naturalist described his experiences living with wolves while on assignment by the Canadian Wildlife Service to study wolf-caribou predation in Manitoba. Results of his study showed that the diet of the wolves consisted primarily of small rodents rather than large prey animals. Such pro-wolf publications based on scientific research have helped to "diminish the threat posed by this species while directly and indirectly deconstructing the wolf of traditional European and Euro-American narratives" (Mitts-Smith, p. 27). The wolf as predator is now presented in a more benign and objective way.
In 1973 at a meeting in Stockholm of the Wolf Specialist Group of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources people rallied on behalf of the wolf, calling for peaceful coexistence of all living creatures with man. It was at this point that re-evaluation of the wolf began. In 1974 the grey wolf was included in The Endangered Species Act and federal agencies as well as individuals could no longer carry out destructive activities against wolves. Instead their responsibilities included working to conserve wolf populations.
Although gray wolves were protected under the Endangered Species Act in the lower 48 states for decades, they have recently been stripped of their federal protection in the Northern Rocky Mountains and Western Great Lakes, This has left wolf management in the hands of individual states in these areas, resulting in many cases in the start of wolf hunting seasons. Many argue that because wolf populations are still recovering, state management of wolves could be disastrous.
Now that we have gained some historical perspective on the treatment of wolves, let us examine some of the traditional folklore that so highly influenced people's negative view of wolves. We will also look at revisions and fractured fairy tales which have served to rehabilitate and reinvent the wolf's image.
I plan to help my young earners gain some historical perspective on the treatment of wolves over time in North America by using Meish Goldish's book,
Gray Wolves: Return to Yellowstone
. As I read the simplified account given on pages four to eleven of this book I will mark the following time periods on a large timeline displayed on the wall:
-- Before the 1600s – 2 million wolves roamed freely and the Native Americans respected them as mighty hunters.
-- 1600s – European settlers came to North America and brought their fear and hatred of wolves with them. Farmers, eager to protect their livestock, began killing wolves and then hunters were hired to kill them too.
-- 1800s – Pioneers built homes and ranches on the land and began using traps to kill wolves.
-- 1850-1900 – About 1 million wolves had been killed.
-- 1900s – Nearly all of the wolves in North American were gone.
-- 1930 – Scientists began to write about the importance of wolves to our ecosystem and people began to think differently about wolves.
-- 1944 – Aldo Leopold, a scientist, devised a plan to bring wolves back to Yellowstone.
-- 1995 – Wolves were released into Yellowstone.
I am confident that this activity will lead to rich discussions among my students about the treatment of wolves over time.