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“According to the textbooks, a wolf is a hunter, an animal of prey. But the Inuit, the people of the North, take a different view of it. They have their own idea of why the wolf was created. In the beginning – so the legend says – there was a man and a woman, nothing else on the Earth walked or swam or flew. And so the woman dug a big hole in the ground and she started fishing in it. And she pulled out all of the animals. The last animal she pulled out was the caribou. The woman set the caribou free and ordered it to multiply. And soon the land was full of them. And the people lived well and they were happy. But the hunters only killed those caribou that were big and strong. And soon all that was left were the weak and the sick. And the people began to starve. And so the woman had to make magic again, and this time she called Amorak, the spirit of the wolf, to winnow out the weak and the sick, so that the herd would once again be strong. The people realized that the caribou and the wolf were one, for although the caribou feeds the wolf, it is the wolf that keeps the caribou strong.†http://www.polarlife.ca/Traditional/myth/wolf.htm
For over 10,000 years, indigenous North American tribes have lived in ecological harmony with nature. The reason for their success can be discovered by examining Chief Seattle’s philosophy: “The Great Spirit created the web of life. Man did not weave the web he is merely one strand in it.”
In 1800, Alexander von Humboldt hiked 1700 miles in South America collecting specimens and data that contributed to the emergence of the holistic science of ecology. In the mid-1800s, naturalist Louis Agassiz became a widely acclaimed expert on zoology and paleontology. Agassiz was a creationist who believed nature had order because God had created it. He viewed his career in science as a search for ideas in the mind of The Creator as expressed through His creation. The thought of being an “evangelist†probably never entered his mind because he was teaching at a time when students were encouraged to explore the physical, mental and spiritual aspects of the natural sciences.Only a few years later, John Muir began to write and “preach†about the “healing power†of nature and “unity and beauty of God’s creation.†He wrote: “Everything is so inseparably united. As soon as one begins to describe a flower or a tree or a storm…up jumps the whole heavens and Earth and God himself, in one inseparable glory.â€
The cause of the degradation of the Yellowstone wilderness area can be directly traced to the invasion of Caucasians to the area. The systematic eradication of wolves throughout the west and northwestern United States was caused by three factors.
1. As large predatory animals, wolves suffer from “The Big Bad Wolf†stereotype that is not entirely justified. During the time period from 1952—2002 only three wolf-induced human fatalities were recorded in North America. Wolves are typically fearful of humans and often move away from human populations.
2. Perhaps the larger problem was the fact that white pioneers brought their domesticated animals with them as they moved into wolf habitat. Cattle, sheep and goats were easy prey for the untamed wolves and thus threatened the survival of the immigrants.
3. The third factor involved the latent “killer instinct.†For many males (and some females) there is a deeply embedded primal “thrill-of-the-kill†induced by an adrenaline rush. This surge prepares and motivates people kill other living beings (including other humans) and is done for food, territorial imperative, or for sport.
I have personal knowledge about the latent killer instinct. At the age of 10, my father gave me a B-B gun which I used to senselessly kill defenseless songbirds. From the age of 12, he took me on hunting trips. We hunted for ducks, geese, pheasants, quail, doves, and deer; the bigger the game, the bigger the thrill. Just prior to the first (and only) shot I got at a deer, I had a major case of “buck fever.†It is caused by an adrenaline rush that can overpower normal fine-motor skills. I was shaking in my boots. I got the shot off, but aimed high and only snapped one of the buck’s antler tines off. The animal was momentarily stunned, but escaped. I think I was partially relieved. My father died when I was19 and I never went hunting again. Instead, I bought a camera and began photographing nature. I discovered it wasn’t the hunting (or killing) that I enjoyed but the quality time in nature that I got to share with my dad.
The Yellowstone success story has become a bittersweet event. The wolves have recovered so well that they are expanding their hunting range outside the Park boundaries. This has renewed the territorial battles with ranchers and farmers who depend on livestock for their survival. The best solution may be to hope that the wolves will learn where the Park boundaries are and live within the protected nature sanctuary.
Although it has been a fascinating process of unraveling (and correcting) the damage white men have inflicted on the Yellowstone wilderness, it has been enlightening to discover and humbly acknowledge the wisdom of indigenous tribes who discovered that, “The Wolf and Caribou Are One,†thousands of years before white men arrived.