The Better To Eat You With, My Dear

Here's a fascinating and important piece on wolf ecology. As some of you know, I went canvassing door-to-door through the hellish depths of a Pittsburgh winter in order to save the last remaining wolf habitat in this country and create a little more, if possible. Inevitably, I remember the conversations in people's living rooms would turn into a kind of fairytale face-off over this mysterious woodland monster. People knew the wolf as a real living animal almost not at all, and guiding them out of their archtypal forests of childhood fears into a place of politics and ecology with regard to this not-so-distant cousin of their own fuzzy lap-dogs was always a weird and wonderful experience for me.

As I explained back then, there's never been a single verified attack on a human being on this continent by a healthy wild wolf. I've since learned, however, that my myth-busting factoid was itself a myth, as you'll see here. I've had to unlearn more than a few enviro-myths since those days-- a commonly tripped snare born of mixing politics with science on the job-- but it must be admitted that incidences of wolf attack are still historically remarkably rare in the States. Regardless, wilderness here takes the lives of campers and hikers in one way or another all the time-- that's what makes it wild. And though you wouldn't know it from the way they whine and rage, a fund has been set up by The Defenders of Wildlife to compensate ranchers completely for any cattle lost to wolves in the U.S.-- their complaint is null and void. In my opinion, the wolf is the critical missing natural predator in this country's natural places, and, as much safety may allow, every effort should be made to care for the animal, preserve its home, and promote its return there.

Alright-- enviro-tirade over for now. Thanks for listening in.