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Chapter 10 Wolf Ethics Wolves (Canis lupus) stir up people more than most other animals. They are important for us because their health is mixed up with human health - physically and certainly morally. It is a myth that wolves go around killing people. Biologists tell us that many more people are killed by domestic dogs, horses (in riding accidents), elephants and lightning strike - and are we afraid of these? So wolf myth is worse than wolf bite and you have no need to be afraid of wolves, even if you live in wolf range. Wolves are not 'beasts of waste and desolation' but nor are they benevolent animals. Wolves are just wolves. They are just another species, but a species sometimes in conflict with human activities, like raising livestock and changing the landscape. People extirpated wolves from many parts of the world. But wolves, like people, are a part of our moral community, within the expanding circle of animals with moral standing to whom we owe our moral responsibility. How we share the world with wolves and what happens to them is important for humanity because wolves are a biting test of human morality and toleration for other beings. Wolves are applied ethics. Living with wolves in our backyard is a vital test to show how well humanity can learn to understand and live with other forms of life. On the small scale, wolves are important because each small point gained by tolerating, saving and respecting wolves contributes to understanding, protecting and honouring life as a whole. On the big scale, wolves occasionally conflict with fundamental human activities, like farming and walking in the wilderness. But if we cannot compromise and deliberately kill them off then we shall lose a major battle to live with animal life and nature. We shall be morally impoverished as a species and morally diminished as individuals. Our early gatherer-hunter ancestors reared tame wolves, the forebears of dogs. These wolf-dogs helped our species in the remote past to survive and prosper in a tough world. Now the time is here to pay back our debt to wolves by helping them survive in the face of direct human destruction of nature and direct hostility.
Further ReadingLinnell J D C et al (2002): The fear of wolves: a review of wolf attacks on humans.. NINA Oppdragsmelding, 731, 1 - 65. McNay M E (2002): A Case History of wolf-human encounters in Alaska and Canada. Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Wildlife Technical Bulletin 13. ›› To Entries & Home |