BY JOAN KLUCHA, SPECIAL TO NORTH SHORE NEWS
THERE are few people who are not emotionally moved when they hear the sound of a wolf howling.
The beauty and grace of these majestic creatures stirs those dormant instinctual parts of our souls that are still connected to the wildness within a wolf and to nature itself.
They are gentle, peaceful creatures – nothing like the fearsome savages Hollywood makes them out to be. They are devoted to the raising of their family; loyal, lifetime companions to their mate and they live by the laws of pure nature, void of the ego and all the fear-based emotions and behaviours that accompany it.
As dog owners we owe a big debt of gratitude to the wolf. If it were not for the wolf we would not have our faithful and loyal companion, the dog. More than 20,000 years ago a wolf decided humans were kinda cool and chose to peacefully cohabitate with them. In return for the wolves’ faithful protection and for alerting them to potential danger, humans fed and gave wolves shelter and a bond would develop that would result in thousands of years of domestication through selective breeding to create the dog as we know it today.
Yet oddly enough these canine cousins have been scorned for centuries by people who fear them, misunderstand them or don’t respect them for the creatures that they are. In many parts of the USA wolves had been killed off completely by cattlemen afraid of losing the profit from a side of beef due to a wolf kill. And it was only through the generosity of Canada that wolves were re-introduced to areas of the USA once it was realized how important wolves are to the ecological integrity of an environment. And now, ironically the wolf’s fate is being determined and in jeopardy in Canada, specifically in Northern Alberta in a political battle for oil.
Not long ago I ventured into the area of the Alberta oil sands. The destruction of our environment is unfathomable, and unless you witness it yourself you can never understand or appreciate the desecration of the earth. I was so taken back that I actually wept at the sight of it.
Not only is the destruction of the earth unbelievable but animal habitats are being destroyed, for good. One of those habitats belongs to the wilderness caribou. This animal that has been on earth for over a million years, is on its way to extinction, thanks to habitat destruction from tar sands development.
This may not seem like a big issue to many and you probably don’t understand why I am writing about it. But maybe this might shed some significance on the subject. In an effort to prevent the caribou from becoming extinct the government has decided to cull the wolves in the area.
You all remember the dogs in Whistler being culled? Ironically the story is in the news again after tougher animal welfare regulations have been brought forward by the SPCA. We all remember hearing about how the dogs were killed yet none of us could understand why.
Well in essence, the same thing is happening to the wolves in Northern Alberta. In typical backwards government logic, they find it more cost effective to kill the wolves which prey on caribou, than to preserve the natural habitat of the caribou.
For more information, visit the National Wildlife Federation’s www.nwf.org/ NewsandMagazines/MediaCenter/News-by-Topic/ Wildlife/2012/020612TarSandsDevelopmenttoLead-to-Poisoning-of-Wolves. aspx.
So wolves will be hunted, chased down and shot from a helicopter as well as poisoned with strychnine. I’m not usually one to share my views on government practices, but killing wolves in an attempt to save another species that is dying due to humans’ destruction of their natural habitat is just asininebackwards.
As I said before, every dog owner owes a debt of gratitude to wolves for giving us the dog. The least we can do is to help them by finding a way to prevent their unnecessary and barbaric destruction.