Thanks for posting,
I also was in contact with the Terrace conservational officer this morning.
We had a good talk regarding the wolves and the human problem. If you have any questions regarding wolves they are the people to contact.
What was basically said in the Daily News and we talked about this morning is that the people of prince Rupert are ultimately to blame for the wolves coming into town, something I have been saying since the beginning.
I said back in the summer I was working on the reason why, here below is my findings all sources can be found online.
Wolves living near humans.
In BC Canada we have an estimated 8000 thousand wolves; wolves by nature are timid animals and are very rarely seen in the wilds. Wolves don’t like people, and tend to stay away. When we look at the Pack that live on Kaien Island, we see that wolves frequent town for a variety of reasons and if you ask people on the street what they think; you will get a thousand different answers to why they think the wolves are coming in and what should be done with them.
Why do wolves come into town?
There are a few reasons wolves come into town.
- Deer, Prince Rupert has a lot of deer in the city.
- We have lots of green space or micro forests. (plenty area to hide in)
- Garbage, Prince Rupert is a dirty town. Wantage road near the golf course is littered with garbage and people dump out there deer, moose and elk remains giving the wolves a reason to come closer to town.
- People feeding wolves, wolves are still being hand fed by people in town.
Some wolves have become habituated to humans.
Wild wolves that have attacked people tend to be wolves that have become accustom to human through different types of interactions. When we look at wolf attacks we noticed that wolf attacks happened where humans and wolves frequent the same areas such as Parks Canada and the outside of towns and rural areas. When you look at all the attacks that have happened in the past in BC it becomes clear that the wolves were conditioned to people or habituated to humans through direct contact through feeding.
So with that, let’s look at the behavior we are seeing with the wolves and who is really at fault. Wolves can become conditioned to humans; we are seeing some wolves that come into town following the deer, when their in town, wolves find there is easer food choices for them, garbage and other smaller animals. Wolves are smart animals and will feed of the leftover’s of humanity. We also have stupid human’s who feed the wolves thinking their doing that animal a favor, feeding wolves is against the law don’t do it. you’re not doing that animal a favor you are putting it into danger and other humans who may come in contact with that wolf.
Once a wolf sees humans as a food option they will connect humans too food and come looking all the time expecting the human too throw food at them.; And if the human has no food to throw at the wolf the wolf may become more aggressive. There are few wolves with this pack that are highly habituated to humans.
If we learned anything about wild animals is that wild animals can become dependent on humans. And the end result will be a
conflict with people or pets. Both of which can be avoided.
- Don’t dump garbage and animal remains outside of town.
- Don’t feed wild animals, deer, wolves, or stay domesticated animals.
- Don’t feed pets outdoors.
- Put all garbage into proper garbage cans with lids on them.
- If you see a wolf in town through rocks, stick, yell and wave your arms around.
Wolves need to know they are not welcome in town, that people are something to be afraid of. Wolves will get the message and stay away. But if we keep doing the above we will always have a conflict and someone will get hurt.
Wolves by nature have different personalities like humans, some wolves are shy some wolves may be bolder. While environment and life experiences modify genetic behavior, evidence is mounting that individuals are born with innate tendencies toward boldness or shyness.
From the website;Learn more about wolves.
Evolutionary psychologists theorize that a diversity of reactions to strange stimuli are retained in populations rather than one behavior being selected for and the other totally weeded out because environments change constantly. Individuals with one behavior may survive and reproduce better for awhile. But by the time a few more generations roll by, environmental conditions usually change enough so that individuals born with a different reaction to a novel opportunity survive better and live to pass on their genes.
It’s interesting to theorize how differing innate wolf personality types may be selected for or against by humans. Throughout most of North America, for at least the last century, humans heavily persecuted wolves. Wolves were shot on sight. Any individuals who did not retreat and stay out of sight of humans were killed before they were able to pass on the genetics of “boldnessâ€