Wolves Killing People
3. The Linnell Report
Combined Efforts
To compile the Linnell Report (Linnell et al 2002), 18 researchers from several countries scoured documents from the 16th century to the start of the 21st century. The researchers also drew on unpublished word of mouth cases from numerous contacts with hunters, foresters and others around the world. Translations of foreign material were made into English from Spanish, French, German, Italian, Polish, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian and Russian.
However, before records could be interpreted there were several kinds of problem to overcome. The following examples demonstrate the complexity of correctly assessing records of wolf attacks.
Among the problems was whether people could correctly identify the species of attacking animal. People are not always able to identify species correctly and wolves can be mistaken for other creatures, especially domestic dogs (Canis lupus familiaris). Dog attacks on humans are much more common than wolf attacks. To entangle matters further, dogs hybridise with wolves. Are wolf-dog hybrids wolves or dogs, neither or both? Other confusions of identity can easily occur with animals like coyotes (Canis latrans) in America and jackals (Canis aurius) in Asia.
People go missing and their bodies are subsequently found partly consumed by animals. But were they killed by wolves or were their corpses discovered by wolves and then eaten?
John Millovich was a 60 year old trapper in Alaska. One day in 1933 his partly eaten body was found surrounded by wolf tracks in the snow outside his cabin in the woods. Was he attacked and killed by wolves or did he die a natural death, say a heart attack, and then fed on by wolves? (Linnell et al 2002:9)
What really happens to missing victims? A young woman in Communist Poland went missing and only her possessions were found, bitten through and covered in blood. The police concluded that since wolves lived in the area they must have killed her. Forty years later she returned to Poland. Her lover had smuggled her to the West and covered her trail so that her family would not be punished by the authorities for her defection. (Linnell et al 2002:9)
These were some of the problems faced by the researchers. Unless an incident is fully investigated at the time it happens and is accurately reported, it can be impossible to say just how true it is. Great care, therefore, had to be taken by the researchers when considering stories of wolf attack.
Three Kinds Of Wolf Attack
Another problem was to avoid subjective interpretation of what constitutes an attack. So the researchers defined an attack objectively as cases where victims were knocked over, scratched, bitten or killed. They then went on to identify three main categories of wolf attack.
- Rabid attacks: wolves gone mad because the rabies virus had infected their brains.
- Predatory attacks: unprovoked attacks in which wolves appeared to regard humans as prey.
- Defensive attacks: where wolves were provoked by people to attack. They also include investigative attacks, when a wolf is examining something and gets surprised.
Let us look at these categories in more detail.
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