Talk:Faunus/@comment-24018437-20190603131842/@comment-24018437-20190603173906

Hmm...Yeah, I think the both of you are right. Wolves are extremely popular, and as a result, there are a lot of misconceptions about the animal. Hell, these are some I often come across.

Wolves can defeat every animal by working together or even alone!

A pack of wolves is indeed formideble. But sometimes, people take it to far as to what a wolf pack is capable off. Whenever the debate of animal vs animal is brought up, the argument 'the wolf will win because its a pack hunter!' is often brought up...except that in many cases, the animal they're pit against is also a social hunter, like a spotted hyena or lion. Then the odds quickly shift. And of course a pack of wolves will defeat a single leopard or cougar, nobody argues that.

However, the single wolf argument is retarded. I've met people who genuinely believe that a single wolf can defeat a lion, cougar, hyena or tiger on its own. There's a reason wolves hunt in packs, as Spirit pointed out.

The bear and lion may be bigger and stronger, but the wolf doesn't perform in a circus

First of all, they do. While rare, wolves can be trained to perform in a circus and have been known to be used in acts. The reason why they're not seen all that often is because dogs are an easy replacement for wolves. Why go through the trouble of taming and training a wolf, when you have an animal that can resemble one and can learn the tricks easier? Second, wolves are simply not considered exotic enough. Lions and tigers are used to give the sense that man is asserting its dominance over nature. We've already done that with wolves and now we have pugs.

''Wolves are so wise and kind! The weak one's decide the pace!''

There is this picture on the internet that when a wolf pack moves, the weakest wolves are in the front in order to decide how fast the pack moves, while the leader is in the back, overseeing everything. This...is not true and I don't know why people believe it. Wolf packs are not a happy, benevolent little community. They can and will turn on weaker members of the pack quite easily and the stronger wolves always get to eat first, as is the case with most social predators.

And speaking of families...

Alpha and Omega!

As I once told Glitchee, the Alpha and Omega system is a popular tribute often given to wolves. David Mech, the father of wolf science and by far the greatest expert on wolves in the field, is the one who came up with the theory...and he's also the one who took back his statement after more research. The Alpha and Omega system simply doesn't exist in the wild. Its usually a mother and father wolf and their pups. The Alpha and Omega system generally only happens in captivity, where large numbers of unrelated wolves tend to be found together, a situation rarely found in the wild. Alas, many people still believe this.

Wolves are extremely intelligent, one of the smartest animals alive!

Indeed, wolves are extremely intelligent and the smartest next to humans!

…

After primates, hyenas, raccoons, parrots, corvids, pigs, elephants, octopi, rats, foxes, bears, coyotes, dolphins, whales and goats.

Wolves are the best hunters ever!

Wolves are average, actually. Most predators are only succesfull in about 10% out of all their hunts, meaning they only succeed one out of ten times. The gray wolf has this number as well. Among carnivores (as in, the order of mammals that wolves are part of), only dholes, African wild dogs and spotted hyenas rise above this 10%. Its actually been theorized that the dragonfly is the most succesfull predator in general as it has a success rate of over 90%!

Wolves are in danger of extinction!

Not really. While certain subspecies and populations are endangered, from a global and biological point of view, the wolf does pretty well for itself. Its population has increased, its public image much more positive and there are stricter laws about hunting the species, leading to wolves being classified as Least Concern, the best classification an animal can get.

Wolf hunting is wrong!

This one is a bit of a gray area and it ultimately depends on wether you believe hunting is a good conservation tool or not. When natural predators or other factors that limit a population are absent, humans must take action I believe. Wolves, in some countries, have reached very large populations and not enough factors to keep them in check. As a result, they can cause major damage to the ecosystem they're in.

A lot of people aknowledge that hunting seasons for rabbits and deer are needed, so what makes wolves so different? People tend to claim that wolves are endangered (already debunked), that it is unnatural to hunt predators (debunked by nature itself, as wolves tend to kill foxes, wolverines, badgers, stoats, weasels, minks, coyotes, raccoons, cougars and bear cubs. All of which are predators to a certain degree.) or that they're to majestic or some bullshit.

Hunting seasons are very well regulated nowadays. There is a limited number of animals that can be hunted by each individual hunter of a limited amount of species in a limited area. Should a hunter break these rules, make the process slow and painful for the wolf or hunt outside the season, then they're classified as poachers.

Wolf hunting leaves behind orphaned cubs!

Only very, very occasionally and its extremely rare. Wolf hunting generally takes place during the winter. And no matter what those sad images of wolf pups mourning their dead mother while its snowing tell you, wolf pups aren't present during the winter.

Wolves never attack people, unless provokd, starving or sick!

This one is actually true depending on how you look at things. In the New World, in recent years, there have only been around two or three unprovoked wolf attacks that were comitted by healthy wolves and ended in death. So this one is generally true.

...Unless you take into account that wolves also live in other parts of the world. A report from Japanese Korea in 1928 showed that wolves killed 48 people, which was more then the tiger, leopard, bear and wild boar attacks of that region combined at the time. Now let's look at some famous wolf attacks. The Wolves of Ashta were a pack of Indian wolves that, between the last quarter of 1985 to January 1986, killed 17 children in Ashta. The attacks continued untill the entire pack was culled, where the hunters and tribesmen confirmed the culprits had been Indian wolves. During the time they lived, villagers were so terrified that many refused to let their children go outside, yet the killing continued. I once heard that the Wolves of Ashta went as to far break into huts and drag their victims outside, but I have my doubts about that claim. It seems more like something a leopard would do.

In 1944–1954, the Kirov Wolf Attacks happened. These wolves weren't afraid of humans and killed around 22 children between age 3 and 17. During this period, wolves were the most common predators in Russia (They still are, infact) and were often regarded as dangerous pests. Which, by the way, they still are in Russia. While some of these attacks were comitted by rabid wolves, the vast majority were predatory attacks done by wolves that weren't afraid of humans and saw the people of that region, Kirov Oblast, as prey.

The Wolves of Hazaribagh killed 13 children aged from 4 to 10 years between February and August 1981. They had gotten the taste of human meat because they dug up corpses that were burried at a local morgue. This attracted pariah dogs, golden jackals, striped hyenas and also Indian wolves. The pack eventually started hunting live humans. In France, historical records compiled by rural historian Jean-Marc Moriceau indicate that during the period 1362–1918, nearly 7,600 people were killed by wolves, of whom 4,600 were killed by non-rabid wolves.

In Turku, Finland, the Wolves of Turku killed 22 children that were around 5 to 6 years old in the spam of one year, 1800-1801.

In Iran, 98 attacks were recorded in 1981. Records of wolf attacks in India began to be kept during the British colonial administration in the 19th century. In 1875, more people were killed by wolves than tigers, with the worst affected areas being the North West Provinces and Bihar. In the former area, 721 people were killed by wolves in 1876, while in Bihar, the majority of the 185 recorded deaths at the time occurred mostly in the Patna and Bghalpur Divisions. In the United Provinces, 624 people were killed by wolves in 1878, with 14 being killed during the same period in Bengal. In Hazaribagh, Bihar, 115 children were killed between 1910-1915, with 122 killed and 100 injured in the same area between 1980-1986. Between April 1989 to March 1995, wolves killed 92 people in southern Bihar, accounting for 23% of 390 large mammal attacks on humans in the area at that time. Research shows that wolves, out of all predatory mammals, are the second-most likely to become maneaters.

Wolves never kill for fun!

I'm not sure 'fun' is the correct term. But if you are talking about wolves killing more then they can eat and don't come back for it later, then no. They do that. But they're not the only one's, as every predatory species has been known to commit the act of surplus killing.

Native Americans worshipped wolves

Its actually a myth that wolves are sacred in native American religions. Many people forget that every tribe had its own culture, and each tribe therefore also had its own view of animals. Some, like the Blackfoot, did consider the wolf to be sacred. Other's, like the Navajo, hated wolves and associated them with evil, to the point killing a wolf was considered a rite of passage. The majority of the tribes were fairly neutral to wolves. They respected them, as they did with most animals, but weren't above hunting them if they needed to. Some tribes were quite good at hunting wolves and some tribes of the plains would hunt them if other game was scarce.

The dire wolf was one of the biggest and most powefull animals ever!