Wolf advocates who claim healthy wolves have never killed, or even attacked, a human in North America are wrong. Don't believe me? Do a Google search using the words "wolf attacks on humans" and read the articles that come up.
Perhaps the most significant is a study done in 2002 by the Alaska Department of Wildlife. It includes accounts of healthy wolves, unprovoked, attacking humans. One occurred in 2000 on Vargas Island, B.C., where an adult human was attacked while in his sleeping bag. He required 50 stitches to re-attach part of his scalp.
Another occurred in Algonquin Park, Ontario, in 1996 when a wolf bit into the face of a sleeping 12-year-old boy and dragged him over 2 meters before being driven off by the boy's father. The child required extensive reconstructive surgery. Both wolves were killed and autopsies showed them to be healthy.
In Icy Bay, Alaska, in 2000, a 6-year-old boy was attacked by a healthy wolf. The child suffered 19 lacerations and puncture wounds.
Most tragically, in early November, 2005, a 22-year-old man named Kenton Carnegie was attacked and killed by a pack of healthy wolves in northern Saskatchewan.
Finally, consider this observation by Dr. L. David Mech, founder of the non-profit International Wolf Center and a wolf biologist with the United States Geological Survey.
"Of the 27 documented wolf attacks in North America, all but five occurred between 1970 and the present. It is predictable. People and wolves are living closer together, and the number of wolf attacks is increasing accordingly.
Ironically, then, wolf advocates who believe wolves are harmless are perhaps most at risk of being attacked and bitten by a wolf, whereas wolf opponents are perhaps more at risk of being attacked and bitten by a wolf advocate.
Michael R. Banning
Sun Valley
