Wolves Killing People
1. Introduction
Exceedingly few people have ever seen a wolf and fewer have encountered a wild one. Yet people have a notion that wolves are dangerous. Wolves certainly bring down speedy, massive creatures like bison and musk oxen, so toppling a human would be easy. Wolves are celebrated for assailing people in Hollywood films and onslaught by blood-lusting howling wolves is well established in tradition:
the traveller hurrying homeward in his sleigh one black night on the snowbound steppes is surrounded and attacked by ravenous wolves...
the little child gathering kindling in the wood one evening is confronted by an enormous snarling wolf...only blood stained rags were ever found...
To what extent do wolves really attack and kill people - and why? Let's find some answers.
© Wolf Trust 2004. All rights reserved.