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Thursday, March 18, 2010

Wolf Attack

Wow. The wolf experts are shocked. There's been a fatal wolf attack in Alaska.

They express surprise! "Wow," they say. "This is only the second documented fatality ever recorded!"

Yeah, ya think? Know why? Because it's hard to document something when you're dead and your intestines have taken up residence in a wolf's belly!

Only survivors have the chance to talk.

There are two reasons we're now hearing of these attacks. First, we have better modes of communication.

For instance, let's say a wolf attack happened in the 1800s. If there were any survivors, they might eventually get to "civilization" where they could tell the tale of the attack but there would be no real evidence, little interest in finding any, and the story would become "rumor". And how many average people wrote then, and if they could write, how many took the time to do so when there was a living to be made? And how much of their writing would survive to become "documentation"? Very little.

Secondly, our modern lives give us better reaction time and we have more ability to do research than ever before. Not only were the wolves that killed this woman tracked and killed, but they're also going to make sure that the right wolves were killed by matching their teeth to the bite marks. This concept would have been unheard of in the 1800s.

To sum it up: Wolf attacks are quite plausible. I have always been amused by how many "experts" maintain that wolves are lovable, harmless fuzzballs. Look at their teeth, for crying out loud! It's not like they chew cud.

5 comments:

Ed said...

Your link didn't take me to any article but I was able to Google up several. Not one of them said that she had positively been killed by wolves. All stated that the cause of death had not been ruled on yet and that bears which are in high density in that particular area haven't been ruled out. It seems a little early to implement legislation to kill all wolves.

Sure we can't document to the 1800's but we can certainly document accurately back to say the 1980's. How many people have lived and died since then? A half billion? We've had two recorded fatalities since then. Say that there were ten times that number that never made it back and we can bump that number up to 20 people. That means your chances of getting fatally attacked by a wolf are .000002%! I'm not going to lose any sleep over this anytime soon.

Saur said...

Ed, Oh no doubt, but our modern innovations/conveniences allow us to isolate ourselves from nature, as opposed to what our ancestors were able to do.

Scott said...

hehe I don't think anyone is saying that wolves are lovable furballs. They are definitely wild animals. I have spend many many nights in northern ontario where you can hear the wolves calling to one another, but I have only even seen them in the wild twice. They like to keep to themselves.
It is, however, not shocking that a wolf attack happens. In the big picture we are still just food to the big carnivores out there.

Three Score and Ten or more said...

In my lengthy life I have run across wolves, bears, coyotes, and cougars in the wild. One of the bears, I shot, the wolves I shot at (Not really, but in their direction because I was working at getting a deer loaded up. The coyotes I threw rocks at. If I ever see another cougar in the wild, I want to be in a car with the windows rolled up holding a large caliber weapon of some kind. Those critter give me (and gave me) the willies. Strangely enough, the most frightened I have been of a wild animal was of a moose that seemed to want the part of the river I was standing in while fly fishing. Have you ever tried to run in waist deep water while wearing waders. If the cotton pickin moose hadn't been downstream of me, coming up stream like a locomotive I would have just lifted up my feet and let the current carry me. I am still not sure how we got there but when I got my mind around it I was lying supine near the bank with my waders full of water with much of my fishing gear floating away and the moose had ceased to holler at me and was calmly munching moss off the bottom of the stream where I had been standing when he laid claim to that spot.

I don't need no cotton pickin wolves.

Bryan said...

It's those pesky sasquatches that scare me, not wolves. :)