Close-up portrait of the wolf

The Wisdom of Wolves
OUR FRIEND THE WOLF? / Several hypotheses suggest that wolves and humans lived close together and perhaps even hunted together between 15 and 000 thousand years ago.




(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)

A lamp falls in my head, and I lie for months with a ban on reading books or using objects with a screen. The rescue becomes audiobooks. The days are spent in bed – in a woolly, sleep-like state – while various stories slide in and out of the ear. The stories are sometimes difficult to distinguish from each other, but I stick to one book; it's about wolves. A male voice and a female voice alternate between reading. The book is captivating, and I think I need to read this properly, not just hear half-fragmented and filtered through the concussion. Several times the book reaches me through the fog, and I think: Oi, it is such wolves are?

At last I recover. I can finally read myself again and order the book The Wisdom of Wolves, written by Jim and Jamie Dutcher, a documentary film couple who lived for six years with the wolves in the wilderness of Idaho in the 1990s. They sit on empirical knowledge that is well worth listening to. The authors want to replace outdated wolf myths with new and truer stories about what kind of qualities and qualities this distinctive animal has.

The book is written in a simple but thoughtful and engaging language. The authors have divided the book between them, and in every other chapter their different voices give us insight into respective memories and experiences of living among wolves. It works well. The Wisdom of Wolves provides a fascinating glimpse into the life and being of wolves.

Lonely wolves?

One of the things that makes the most impact in the book is how the authors portray the emotional characteristics of the wolf without resorting to anthropomorphism. We are shown that wolves can understand how their behavior is perceived by others. How it shows the capacity for compassion and can have the ability to forgive and encourage. We also learn how essential play is for wolves of all ages and that it mourns their dead. It is also thought-provoking to learn how different personalities the wolves have. They appear as distinct individuals.

The authors of The Wisdom of Wolves want to replace outdated myths about the wolf.

Wolves cooperate closely. They need each other, both conveniently when hunting and emotionally as a family. The various chapters describe many moving situations that give us insight into how strongly the wolf is linked to his flock, to his family. Grandparents in a wolf flock are not uncommon, and they are happy to adopt puppies from other flocks. The term "lone wolf" is often used for a person who seeks and is satisfied with loneliness. This is completely wrong, according to the authors: It is rare to find lone wolves, and if they are, they are extremely sad. Yes, there are roommates, but they are almost always solely on the move to find a family or someone to make family with. Above all, a lone wolf wants to put an end to loneliness. A wolf wants to belong.

Jim and Jamie Dutcher

The authors emphasize the many similarities between humans and wolves. Like our ancestors, the wolf lacks the speed and strength to hunt alone. That is why wolves, like our ancestors, cooperate when hunting. Several hypotheses suggest that wolves and humans lived close together and perhaps even hunted together between 15 and 000 thousand years ago. That the dog's pedigree was a wolf is well known, but that we possibly lived so close together is a new insight for me.

Yet the wolf is associated – albeit unconsciously – with "the ugly itself", a beast, the devil, or with other negatively charged expressions. The mythology associated with the wolf is still largely demonic. The Wisdom of Wolves, which insightfully depicts close and lasting relationships in a pack of wolves, may help to change this.

Konflikt

In his existence among the wolves was Dutcher-the couple did not spare conflict: They experienced both problems with the authorities, which would put down their project, and threats from private individuals who wanted to get rid of both them and the wolves.

Like humans, the wolf is a wanderer. Throughout its long walks, it has spread across almost the globe. But unlike us, the wolf has not learned to respect national borders. In the United States, the wolf is relatively safe within the boundaries of a national park, such as Yellowstone. The areas outside the national parks, on the other hand, are not as safe; they are divided into state Wolf Management Units with their own quota in the wolf hunt – or "wolf harvesting", as they call it. How can we harvest animals as we harvest blueberries?

Above all, a lone wolf wants to stop being lonely.

In the book, a lot of space is devoted to explaining the consequences of the liquidation of wolves. According to the authors and wolf research, the killing of one wolf can destroy the entire herd's dynamics and store of knowledge: Alpha wolves and older wolves are carriers of crucial knowledge, if one is killed, they lose a kind of stability in the herd – just what could make our coexistence possible. A fragmented and traumatized small wolf pack has much greater problems obtaining food and thus attacks attacks on sheep, for example. A large stable herd is thus better for a local area than a fragmented group of young wolves because it is more predictable. This should be of interest to all authorities in countries with wolves.

When I read about how important the older wolves are to the herd and how humbly they are treated, it is obvious to reflect on the extent to which we marginalize our elderly: We stow them away in old age homes and forget the knowledge they have acquired through a long life. Maybe we should learn from the wolf, who, after all, values ​​and respects his elderly?

The foggy and slightly distorted perception I got of the concussion, is perhaps a not so different parallel to the situation that prevails between wolf fighters and wolf opponents? Because the fronts are so steep, it can be a good idea to gain more knowledge about the wolf's uniqueness, for example by reading books like this.

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