Among the northern peoples of the world the wolf has become a legend and a symbol. In legend, he is assoctiated with strange acts such as the suckling of Romulus and Remus, were-wolf traditions, and other unusual traits of behaviour. He is a symbol of savagery, ferocity, and courage. There are in fact many subspecies and varieties of wolves, which live in different habitats, and betray different forms of behaviour. The wolf of tradition is the northern gey wolf, Canis lupus , the type species fo then genus, and his close cousin the timber wolf of North America. Throughout recorded history. Throughout recorded history, man's hand has been against the wolf. His very name arouses thoughts of war, of snowy wastes, of blood-curdling howls, and of packs of fierce animals that will attack adn devour defenceless wayfares. His name provokes thoughts of Napolepn's armies in retreat from Moscow, flanked and attacked by these outrageous beasts, the weak and wounded being torn to pieces. Perhaps we think of Hitler brooding in his Wolfschanze in the mountains of Bavaris, and plotting conquests and destruction of all mankind except his own particular thugs. We recall tales of Red Riding Hood and of the Big Bad Qolf. Predatory males are wolves, that prey on defenceless young women, and their hunting cry is the wolf whistle.
During recorded history, indeed, man and wolf have been antagonists and rivals. In Great Britian, the rivalry ended by the early 18th century in the extermination of the wolves. Throughout the rest of Europe and parts of Asia, they have been harried and driven from their haunts. In America, they have been unceasingly persecuted and to this day are hunted by helicopter and light aircraft, and ruthlessly hold on existence is precarious. Belatedly, scientists have begun to question the rationale for wolf-extermination and to study the true nature and habits of these animals. Whereas in days gone by the propriety of eliminating a large and supposedly dangerous predatory animal was not called in question, many scientists are now examining their consciences and there is a widespread movement, particularly in the United States and Canada, to promote the conservation of wolves. Indeed the subject has become highly emotive and in state legislatures tempers rise in exchanges between the protagonists of conservation and extermination. This is not surprising, since the true facts of wolf lore are so difficult to unravel from the numerous stories and tales that are told about wolves, from the deeply rooted prejudice of man against them, and because of the difficulty of making real studies of the hobits of so elusive and animal.
Both in Canada and in the United States, particularly in Alaska, properly controlled scientific studies of wolf habits have been mounted, from which much valuable information has emerged. Even so, such surveys are mostly confined to studies of wolves in a single, perhaps rather specialized habitat, and they give a single viewpoint. Their authors, in discussion of their results, mostly reject accounts of the experiences of the older hunters, who lived in close prximity to wolves, as anecdotal and unsoundly based. Such an attitude is unnecessary and pedantic, and in studying the wolf problem one should surely seek to appraise the experiences of early times and to glean from them such information as is of definite value. For example, the opportunity no longer exists to study the habits of the 'buffalo wolves' which preyed on the great herds of bison before they were virtually exterminated. For the wolf adapts his habits and ways of life according to the habitat in which he lives and according to the prey which is his source of food. A true picture of the wolf cannot, therefore, be obtained by a study of the species in one particular situation, and it is essential to use with discrimination all the records available.
The wolf's tragedy is essentially a matter of ecology. Wolves are animals of wide open spaces, evolved to hunt the great herds of grazing animals that during the Ice Ages migrated seasonally norht and south over the great snowscaps of the Arctic countries. In open country, prey cannot be captured by stealth, so that superior speed, or cunning and social organization, must be developed if success is to be achieved. However, no predator has developed speed superior to prey animals; evolution keeps the prey always one step ahead. Accordingly, the two great predators which emerge in ICe Age times, wolf and man, both developed a high degree of social organization and communication and greatly enhanced intellectual powers. Wolves can produce a useful turn of speed over relatively short distances; man on the other hand lacks these physical powers and became entirely dependent on his organizational ability.
In Ice Age times, however, man existed only in small nomadic bands and there was no scope for rivalry between man and wolf. Indeed, they may to some extent have complemented each other. Man, by cunning stratagems, would frequently kill great masses of animals, in pits or by driving herds over cliffs, acquiring far more food than he could use. Moreover, he would normally consume only the more tender and choicer portions of the carcass, since, without cooking, his teeth and masticatory apparatus could not cope with much that wolves could consume. It is therefor likely that some wolves relied for a part of their diet on man's leavings; they would trail along close to human hunting parties, just as they did in the days of the early buffalo-hunters in North America. There was evidently in those days a form of mutual respect between these two predatory animals, and man had not developed the feelings of fear and horrow which later beset him. The early buffalo-hunters had no fear of wolves, nor today in what remains of the Arctic wastes so the Eskimos fear wolf attacks. It is only in Eskimo country that the old relationship between man and wolf can still be studied; yet until very recently almost no attempt was made to elucidate Eskimo wolf lore. One fascinating recprd is that of Farley Mowat in his witty little book as largely fictional and valueless.
By 10,000 years ago, the ice had receded far to the north. It had formerly extended as far as the Thames and the Alps in Europe, to the Himalayas in Asia, and to Arizona in the New World. The land, which had formerly been open and suited to the hunting methods of man and wolf, became largely closed with dark, impenetrable forests, and both wolf and man were forced to adapt their ways of life to the new situation. The wolves took to the forests and preyed on forest animals, but food was always scanty for them and they were forced to make forays beyond the forest limits in order to obtain sufficient for their needs. Man, on the other hand, did not penetrate the forests, but lived on the forest fringes and along the seashores, from which he obtained shellfish and other fruits of the sea. Some 10,000 years ago, he began to domesticate animals. He took into captivity and bred the wild hairy sheep, the mountain goats, the wild boars of the forest, the reindeer of the Arctic North, and the giant forest ox. He also captures and tamed wild horses, which roamed European and Asian steppes in large numbers.