Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
18
Bad Guy/Good Guy: The Timber Wolf
MYTHS
Wolves are a threat to humans.
Wolves are “good guys” that kill only the old, the weak, and the sick.
Wolves are “bad guys”—cruel, wanton killers of everything in sight.
Wolves are in danger of extinction.
Wolves are nearly always gray.
Wolves live mainly on mice in the summer.
Wolves howl at the moon.
Wolves always mate for life.
ALTHOUGH THE COYOTE IS HIGHLY CONTROVERSIAL, IT HAS TO PLAY SECOND
FIDDLE IN THAT REGARD TO ITS BIG COUSIN, THE WOLF. Of all the animals on the North
American continent, the timber wolf, also called the gray wolf
(Canis lupus),
has unquestionably been
the most hated, feared, reviled, and relentlessly persecuted. Europeans who settled the continent re-
garded their new home as a howling wilderness, and sought to tame it by making it as much as possible
like the “civilized” landscape that they had left behind. Predators, especially large ones, were regarded
as a major component of that wilderness; accordingly, the colonists despised them and sought to elim-
inate them as an important part of wilderness taming. Still, they reserved a special brand of hatred for
the wolf.
The reasons for this fear and hatred are complex and not entirely clear, but a major one was the at-
titude that the settlers brought with them from Europe. The wolf is cast as the Bad Guy in numerous
fairy tales—“Little Red Riding Hood,” “The Three Little Pigs,” and “Peter and the Wolf”—and even in
songs, such as “Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?”
