Letter to the editor: Wolves not a threat to healthy humans

I am writing in response to the “Close Encounters” article in the Nov. 9 Methow Valley News. This article raises many issues about encountering wolves in the wild.

I grew up in central Alaska, in the bush, where wolves are common. My knowledge of wolves is also up-close-and-personal, and believe me when I say, all of Ms. Hirschberger’s yelling and rock throwing had little to do with why the wolves she encountered did not harm her.

No doubt Ms. Hirschberger was experiencing simulated attack behavior.

When she came upon their meat cache, they sent her a clear message: Get away from us and (probably) from our stored food.

The difference between real and simulated attack behavior is well documented by noted wolf biologists, L. David Mech and Luigi Boitanim, in one of their many studies, Wolves: Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation, and by Helen Thayer in Three Among the Wolves: A Couple and Their Dog Live a Year With Wolves in the Wild. The couple camped near a wolf pack which marked their territory and often warned the Thayers away from their food. As long as the couple kept a respectful distance, the wolves did not attack them.

In fact, there is no recorded incident in Alaska of a healthy wolf attacking a human unless that human is already injured and down. I imagine we have the same stats in Washington State.

I had an experience similar to Ms Hirschberger’s when I was 16.

In August of that year, the wolves came down into our valley. One afternoon three or four of them appeared in the brush beside me, then followed me closely for a few miles. I remember them as sleek and beautiful. I also remember that I was scared half to death. But I needn’t have been. As my dad had told me, and repeated that evening, wolves won’t hurt you unless you are down and injured.

They didn’t harm my mother either on the spring day she was following caribou out on the ice.  She was intent on taking a picture when she realized the grey shadows not far away were wolves, who were also intent on the deer, for dinner.

Like Ms. Hirschberger, my daughter also has a degree in forestry from the University of Washington. She says they didn’t cover predator-prey behavior. They didn’t discuss healthy wolf behavior in her forest management classes either.

We humans share the wilderness with many creatures – wolves, cougars, bears, deer. And yes, the wolf is a predictor, a prey animal. They compete with us for available food.

But judging from the hordes of starving deer roaming the Methow in winter, wolves have yet to decimate that population, nor do they pose a real threat to a healthy human who happens upon them.

Wolves are shy and reclusive by nature, and few of us will have the opportunity to meet them in their natural habitat. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could celebrate these rare up-close-and-personal moments for the amazing moments that they are?

Finally, I would ask the paper to avoid giving the exact location of the pack in the future, since doing so might enable more poaching of the few remaining members of this endangered species who keep our wilderness wild.

Julianne Seeman, a professional writer and creative writing teacher, lives in Lost River.