A hunter so strong that it can pull down prey 10 times its own
The howl of the wolf, the sound of the unknown, and yet wolves
Northern Canada in winter is a bleak and unpromising land for
Wolves for most of the time operate as a pack; they have such
The younger members learn from the older more experienced
In Europe when people settled down to farm, the image of the
It takes huge commitment and great dedication to study wolves;
weight, so intelligent and skilful that primitive man followed it
to scavenge from its kills. A hunter because of its very success
has now been banished by man to the most remote and barren
of wildernesses.
are more familiar to us than we might think! There are more
than 400 different breeds of dog in the world today, and
incredibly the common ancester of them all is the wolf. Stone
Age people over 10,000 years ago took their pups and trained
them. (It is likely that the dog was the first animal to be
domesticated.) Indeed the very characteristics we most
admire in our dogs', loyalty, intelligence and courage are
precisely the characters that the wolf has to have to survive
in the wild. and yet whereas the dog has become mans best
friend, the wolf has remained one of his most feared enemies.
Its time we saw the wolf for what he really is!
any hunter, but the wolf is indepacitable. Its sences are so
acute that it can interpret what is going on around it with a
degree of subtlety, which is beyond our imagining. It has a loose
limbered trot; it is so effective and economical of energy that
it can cover 50 miles in 24 hours, and do so for day after day
after day.
an extraordinary degree of intuition that their understanding
of one another's intentions often seems beyond normal
explanation. A typical feature of the wolf is their independance
When they grow up they are very sociable and strongly bonded
to each other. If it is feasible to go off alone they will do so
and maybe stay away for weeks or months before returning
to the pack, this is a common trait of the adult or the older
wolf; the younger ones always tend to stay together with the
pack.
ones so that the whole group operates as a unified and highly
skilled team. for all these reasons human hunters everywhere
have admired the wolf, even today the native people of the
north call it the teacher and honour it's powers with dances.
wolf changed from deity to devil and fertile imaginations
wove frightening legends around it. As farmers cleared the
forests the wolves developed a taste for livestock. The innocent
lamb and the savage wolf became powerful symbols, which the
church used to demonstrate the existance of Satan. so wolves
were hunted without mercy, eventually they were driven out
of most of Europe's forests, but an irrational fear of them has
remained.
it also takes a lot of air miles as a single pack may have a
vast range hundreds of miles across. The wolves are so illusive
and wary, even with collars fitted we might never know the full
truth of their lives in the wild.
Original wolf photos by Monty Sloan of Wolf Park. ©1998.
Background and bars by Destiny's Lady © 1998.
This site was created on August 1st 1998 by Storm Wolf
©Copyright 1998, Storm Wolf. All Rights Reserved.
No part of this site or any material within this site may be
used without the expressed written permission from the author.