(fwd) The Wolf. 1/ 3 (fwd)
Norm Kerr (nkerr1@FREENET.EDMONTON.AB.CA)
Fri, 10 Feb 1995 19:06:25 -0700
I posted this b4 but somehow only 3/3 showed.
Newsgroups: can.scout-guide
Subject: The Wolf. 1/ 3
From: jim.speirs@canrem.com (Jim Speirs)
Path: news.sas.ab.ca!quartz.ucs.ualberta.ca!alberta!undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca!hookup!uunet.ca!uunet.ca!portnoy!canrem.com!jim.speirs
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <60.1332.6861.0N1CE246@canrem.com>
Date: Mon, 6 Feb 95 08:38:00 -0500
Organization: CRS Online (Toronto, Ontario)
Lines: 95
Article #C46.
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Canadian Wildlife Series - The Wolf
The Leader, January 1977
The Wolf is the first in a series of articles on the native
animals of Canada, presented at the request of a number of our
readers. You may wish to read the story to your boys and use it
as a starting point for further personal research by them into
Canadian flora and fauna.
The wolf is a much maligned animal. In the western world, man's
fear and hatred of wolves are reflected in stories such as Little
Red Riding Hood and The Boy Who Cried Wolf. In these popular
children's tales the wolf is made out to be a marauder, a killer
of beast and man.
There is some basis for The Boy Who Cried Wolf for wolves have
killed cattle and sheep. But what of Little Red Riding Hood?
There is no records of wolves killing humans in Canada or the
United States. Yet, when they are spotted near rural communities,
widespread fear may grip the populace--fear that is largely
unjustified, for scientists studying wolves have lived very close
to dens where there were pups without being attacked. They have
even taken the pups from a den without being molested. The
parents have usually run away, returning later only to take their
young to a more private den or rendezvous.
In areas where wolves are hunted or trapped they fear man and are
very wary. However, in remote places they show very little fear
and will often allow people to live near them.
Distribution and Classification
One hundred years ago wolves were more widely distributed than
any other mammal of historic times. They lived in large areas of
North America, Europe and Asia and were incapable of occupying
only deserts, tropical rain forests and peaks of the highest
mountain ranges.
Wolves still live in large areas of the northern hemisphere;
however, their primitive range is greatly reduced due to changes
in the habitat and man's efforts to exterminate them.
In North America, wolves have been completely exterminated in the
Atlantic Provinces, and almost so in Mexico, the United States
(except Minnesota and Alaska) and the heavily populated areas of
southern Canada. They are still quite common in lightly settled
portions of Canada from Labrador to British Columbia and in parts
of the Yukon and Northwest Territories.
The wolves of Europe and North America belong to the species grey
wolf (Canis lupus), except in the southeastern United States
where the red wolf (Canis rufus) was once plentiful. Three
subspecies of the latter have dwindled to a small number and
attempts are being made to protect them.
Twenty-three subspecies of the grey wolf exist in North America.
In Canada the Mackenzie Valley wolf (Canis lupus occidentalis) is
generally found in the Mackenzie District, Northwest Territories;
the eastern wolf (Canis lupus lycaon) in Ontario and Quebec (except
the northern part of that province), and the Hudson Bay wolf (Canis
lupus hudsonicus) on the mainland tundra. Many other less widely
distributed subspecies survive in remote parts of the country.
Physical Characteristics
"Oh, they look just like dogs," is an appropriate comment often
heard near wolf pens in a zoo, for dogs are partly descendants of
wolves and the husky has wolf blood.
It is virtually impossible to describe the typical appearance of
wolves. Wolves of many large Arctic islands and Greenland usually
appear snow white from a distance, but often reveal grey, black
or reddish shades closer up. Wolves of northern North America and
Eurasia vary in colour. A single pack may contain animals that
are black, shades of grey-brown and white. Timber wolves in the
heavily forested areas of eastern North America are more uniform
in colour. They are often a grizzled grey-brown like some German
shepherd dogs.
This colour variation is a good example of natural selection
which enables animals best suited to a particular environment to
survive. On the Arctic islands, where much of the ground is snow
covered for at least nine months of the year, being white is
quite a distinct advantage; so the near-white arctic wolf has
survived there. In the mottled grey, green, brown world of the
eastern forests the normal coat of the timber wolf is an
effective camouflage. As a wolf moves stealthily, or rests, it
Continued in next message.
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* Norman Kerr <nkerr1@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca> Edmonton, Alberta, Canada *
* "Opinions expressed are mine only" *
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