Quote:

---

Luckily for Walter Eikrem, it does not appear Norwegian wolves care for Creed.

The 13-year-old was walking home from the school bus stop in the town of Rakkestdad this week when he noticed something on the hillside near his family’s farmhouse, according to Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine.

At first he thought they were dogs, but he soon realized they were wolves – four of them – the magazine said, citing Norway’s TV2.

The boy, remembering that his mother had told him never to run from wolves, pulled the headphones out of his mobile phone and cranked up the volume on the tiny speakers.

He was listening to “Overcome” by Creed, an arguably Christian rock band, and apparently, the wolves were not fans.

(Initial reports indicated Walter shooed the wolves away with a Megadeth song, but the blog at Gibson guitars cleared up the confusion.)

“They just turned around and simply trotted away,” he told the TV station, according to Der Spiegel. “The worst thing you can do is run away because doing so just invites the wolves to chase you down ... but I was so afraid that I couldn't even run away if I'd wanted to.”

To be fair, Walter was yelling at the top of his lungs and wildly flailing his arms, so it’s tough to say exactly what made the wolves decide the boy might not be delicious.

---

Quote:

---

A wolf attack is an attack on a human by a wolf or wolves. Under normal circumstances, wild wolves are generally timid around humans. Wolves usually try to avoid contact with people, to the point of even abandoning their kills when an approaching human is detected, though there are several reported circumstances in which wolves have been recorded to act aggressively toward humans.

Compared to other carnivorous mammals known to attack humans in general, the frequency with which wolves have been recorded to kill or prey on people. Man-eater is a colloquial term for an anmal that preys upon humans. This does not include scavenging. Although human beings can be attacked by many kinds of animals, man-eaters are those that have incorporated human flesh into their usual diet. Though potentially dangerous, wolves are among the least threatening for their size and predatory potential.

---

Quote:

---

There is only one case that has contemporary documentation. This concerns a 6-8-year-old girl who was killed in Sorum, Akershus County (southern Norway) on 28 December 1800. Records exist from local and national newspapers and from the parish register.

---

Quote:

---

For thousands of years, large numbers of wolves have roamed Norway. Today there are only between 8 and 15 left in the wilderness, and recently two of these few remaining wolves were shot by the authorities. One of the wolves had killed 16 sheep. By way of comparison, over 40 sheep die each hour during the summer season without any interference of predators. They die from reasons like parasites, flystrike, poisoned plants, illnesses and injuries. 130.000 sheep suffer and die every summer in the Norwegian wilderness, and only 3000-4000 of these can be documented killed by predators.

Still the sheep industry is about to cause the extermination of the wolves, and also the bears. In 2006 there were only 71 bears left in the Norwegian woods, and even this number is too high for the government and the sheep industry.

---

Quote:

---

In Ontario, Canada where thousands of people visit Algonquin Provincial Park-and many of them come to see or hear wolves-five people have been bit in the past twelve years. During August 1996, a wolf dragged 12-year-old Zachariah Delventhal from his sleeping bag. This particular wolf, prior to attacking Zachariah, had entered campsites and taken things such as a backpack, tennis shoe and other human items.

Habituation and food conditioning play major roles with the wolf attacks in Algonquin Provincial Park. The wolf that attacked Zachariah had frequented campsites and taken human items, it had clearly lost a fear of humans. Some wolf biologists felt that the wolf might have been interested only in the sleeping bag. This could have been the case to begin with-however, such an explanation falters at the point the wolf took Zachariah's head in its mouth. As wolf biologists Pat Tucker and Diane Boyd pointed out, "Wolves olfactory senses are beyond our imagining. Only a scent-impaired wolf would fail to differentiate between a sleeping bag from a human." Initially, the wolf may have been attracted by the sleeping bag and, grabbing for it, mistakenly got a hold of Zachariah and, instead of running away, decided to see what happened next. This seems to be a case of habituation giving rise to experimentation.

Like humans, wolves possess character traits that shape them into shy, bold, dominant, submissive, extroverted or introverted individuals. The word bold, when attributed to a wolf, sounds synonymous with aggressive, but that's not necessarily the case. Think of a bold wolf as an open-minded wolf. A bold wolf could be a subdominant animal forced to strike out on its own or a wolf with a genetic make-up that made it less timid or more curious. The main point here is that such a wolf would be inclined to experiment and, if rewarded with food procured from scavenging or direct feeding, it would grow habituated to humans and associate us with food. Once a wolf became food-habituated it could continue experimenting, pushing limits in search of new rewards. Such an animal could prove a threat to humans.

On September 25, 1998, another Algonquin wolf circled a little girl and despite blasts of pepper spray, didn't leave until the child entered a trailer. Two days after that, a nineteen-month-old boy sat playing in the middle of camp, with his parents twenty feet away. The father thought he saw a dog emerge from the brush. He turned away for a moment and when he looked back, he saw his son in the jaws of a wolf. The wolf held the boy for a moment and then tossed him three feet. A local newspaper quoted the parents, "It wasn't hit and run. He hit him [the infant] and then it was wait and see. He [the wolf] circled the picnic table a number of times before he was scared off enough to leave." The infant received two stitches for minor injuries.

On April 26, 2000, a six and nine year old boy cut down small trees as they played at being loggers on the outskirts of a logging camp near Yakutat in southeastern Alaska.

Upon seeing a wolf, the children fled. The wolf took down six-year-old John Stenglein and bit him on the back, legs and buttocks. The boy's cries brought adults who drove the wolf away. John received seven stitches and five surgical closure staples.

During the evening of July 1, 2000, on the shores of Vargas Island, British Columbia, a wolf entered the campsite of a kayaking group. They chased the wolf away. Members of the group also spotted another wolf that apparently hung back from the bolder wolf. At 2 a.m., 23-year-old Scott Langevin awoke with a small dark wolf tugging on his sleeping bag. "I yelled to try to spook it off, and I kicked at it," Scott said. "It backed up a bit, but then it just lunged on top of me, and it started biting away through my sleeping bag."

He rolled in an effort to situate the fire between him and the wolf, but the animal jumped on his back and bit him about the head. The noise woke his friends and they drove the wolf away. The wounds to Scott's head required 50 stitches.

Habituation and experimentation also seem to account for the Alaskan and Vargas Island wolf attacks. The Alaskan wolf had hung around camps for up to two years, been fed, and was clearly habituated to people as it had shown fearless behavior in the past. John Carnes, a University of Idaho biologist (with the Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources), pointed out an interesting fact, "The wolf bared its teeth and growled at the boys before attacking. This is more important than people realize. Wolves typically do not show aggressive behavior towards prey, usually only toward other wolves or dogs." He concluded "that this was a habituated wolf that was showing dominance/territorial behavior… the key factor is that the wolf was habituated to people."

As for the wolf that attacked kayaker, Scott Langevin-following the attack, numerous people reported that the wolves were being fed. Dan Dwyer, the Senior Conservation Officer for BC Environment said that there's been an escalating problem with campers feeding wolves. Wolves on Vargas Island, which is a popular kayak destination, were regularly visiting campsites and investigating fire pits. Again, a food-conditioned, habituated animal… behavior that may have started with experimentation and led to pushing the limits too far.

The number of humans continues to expand and wildlife habitat continues to shrink. Add to that, people who, believing wolves will sense their love and reciprocate, head into the woods hoping to lure their spirit animal closer with a sandwich. And then there are slobs who leave food and garbage where bold wolves will be rewarded for overcoming their inhibition of humans.

Wolves need to be treated like wild animals because, after all, that's what they are. If something is wild, you don't feed it, try to get close or expect it to return your warm fuzzy feelings. If you truly respect wildness, you honor it by leaving it alone. When in the company of wolves, accord them the care, caution, and respect that you would extend to a bear or mountain lion or any other wild animal.

For many people, the wolf is a construct of their imagination. Those who fear the wolf have conjured up a beast of death and desolation, a villain that should be killed before it kills us. This perception hasn't served wolves well. But the naïve perception of the wolf as a noble shepherd who eats only sick, weak mice doesn't serve wolves well either. When something is elevated upon a pedestal, there is only one way it can go from there-down. The portrayal of wolves as noble, beneficent animals places an unfair expectation on them, an expectation they can only fail to live up to. Many a saint has become a martyr at the hands of those who once adored him. When a North American wild wolf kills a human, as inevitably will happen, those who vilify wolves will feel all the more justified demanding their extermination as those who sanctified wolves stand bewildered, stunned, and gasping, "That wasn't suppose to happen. I thought that no healthy wild wolf has ever…"


With that said, bear in mind that the threat of wolves to humans is so nominal, it shouldn't even be a bleep on your radar screen. But your relative safety in the presence of wolves doesn't mean they like us. Wolves don't care if they're your totem animal. They don't care, much less know, about their bad-guy portrayal in Little Red Riding Hood. The perception of wolves as rapacious villains or a golden race reveals more about the beholder than it does about the creature of flesh and blood. Wolves are intelligent, social, adaptive, wild animals with character traits that vary from individual to individual.

---

Quote:

---

the coordinated attack of three dingoes for killing a large monitor lizard was observed

---

Quote:

---

Regional Manager, Ross Belcher, said although there were five in the pack, it was only one that became violent.

"The woman was bitten on the leg, hands and arms," he said.

She apparently followed safety advice and responded assertively towards the dingo, causing it to retreat.

She was treated at the scene and did not require hospital care.

---

Quote:

---

In fact, the attack on Berner was the first fatal wolf attack in Alaska, and only the second documented case of a wild wolf killing a human in North America. That might seem surprising considering there are more than 60,000 wolves in North America, and more than 7,000 in Alaska

---

Quote:

---

Roughly, about 250 wolves live in remote mountainous areas in Italy, and are officially protected.

---

Quote:

---

"Grupo Lobo" was founded in Spain and Portugal in 1985 in attempt to protect the wolves in the mountains on the Spain/Portugal border. There is an extremely small number of wolves in Sweden, regardless of protective legislation.

---

Quote:

---

The Gray Wolf, more specifically known as the Canis lupus, is located in countries such as Russia, Greenland, Spain, Turkey, Albania, and parts of Asia to name a few places.

---

Quote:

---

The Chrysocyon brachyurus, also known as the Maned Wolf, is found in South America. Specifically, they are found in Brazil, Paraguay, the north of Argentina, the east of Bolivia, and the north of the Andes.

---

Quote:

---

The Canis Simensis, also known as the Ethiopian wolf or the red jackal, or the Simien fox, is found in Africa. Specifically, you can find this wolf at altitudes greater than three thousand meters in the Afro-alpine regions of Ethiopia. It’s one of the tallest dogs in the world; they can grow up to one meter tall and weigh about fifty pounds

---

Quote:

---

The Canis Lupus Pallipes, also known as the Indian wolf or the Iranian wolf, is actually a subspecies of the above Gray Wolf. You can find this wolf throughout India, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the south of Israel.

---