Wolves & the
Reality Check
Most people think that wolves are cute, cuddly and powerful
symbols of mother nature. Most peoples
experience of wolves is summed up by movies like Dances with Wolves and Never
Cry Wolf. Perhaps they’ve been to a
howling park and communed with wolves from the safety of a trail head with a
pack of curious humans surrounding them.
My first encounter with Red Wolves (Canis rufus) was
sometime between 2011 and December 2012.
I had taken a long walk, perhaps between 3-4 miles back into the
uninhabited woodlands on the outskirts of North
Raleigh, North Carolina. The Red Wolves were being reintroduced into
the wild by a gang of government funded politically correct mean wells, whose
chief’s license plate read SEAWOLF.
Fortunately the reintroduction project has been disbanded (thank you
TEAM).
The funniest thing about the reintroduction project was that
while it kept the public updated and used the media to keep the surrounding
farmers running for cover – it always published the same information “about 100
Red wolves have been released.” It said
this in 2009, 2010, 2011…. Right through
closing… They never disclosed the actual
numbers – it was as though they released 100 and then nothing for 5 years.
A Red Wolf (probably much like it’s fellow Grey Wolf) has a
hundred mile range that it will travel to place distance between itself and
another pair of wolves. Red wolves work
in pairs with their nearest neighbors being ear shot away incase additional
“support” is necessary.
Any hows… There I was
some two miles back in a woods that is otherwise safe but for a few
snakes. I had seated myself on a fallen
log overlooking an all but dry river bed with dramatic 8-12 cliff like
edges. As I sat there sipping a glass of
a respectable vintage and pondering the completion of a book I’ve no small
interest in publishing – a sharp but slight sound emerged across the gulch and
slightly to my right. In recollection it
was made from the same vocal cords that emit that howl which is respectively
earmarked for a wolf. A sound which
means so many things of butterflies and bliss until you hear it alone in the
woods and you know it’s about a menu selection…. No one can tell you these things – it’s
something you know.
Moments later the sound which was at once a high pitch and
yet a sly sound – so unlike another sound that you’d guess you hadn’t heard it – but for another matching sound in
response to the first. Minutes before
these two ‘calls of the wild’ were heard I’d had that little warning voice in
my head… ‘You should go now… It’s time to head back, why you could work on
your book right now…’ But I’d decided to
dilly dally and ignore the voice of concerned warning. It seemed like un-necessary pressure and
anyway what could happen out here??
Within second of the second call my hair was up on the back
of my neck and I’d already judged that it was a trianglization call out. Basically, that means one wolf was saying to
the other ‘do you see what I see???’ A
human alone in the woods is fair game if they ‘never come here’ – heck who
would miss’m?
I got to my feet, internal calculator whirring – “Don’t
run!” ran the internal log on what to do when in the presence of a predator
such as a wolf or bear. I walked with
reasonable swiftness some 20 yards. I
didn’t look back but glanced from side to side.
Images of wolves flanking me sprang to mind as a lurched for a decent
stick with which to “walk” (defend).
Seconds felt like minutes as I recalculated the situation. I wanted as much distance between myself and
that pair as possible – but to run? I
decided a jog was only reasonable, anything less was giving them time to
consider a stalking… I jogged and up a
ridge and down a valley I went. Finally
some time later I found the bob-wire fence that edged the forest, still some
miles from civilization but “human” territory never the less (it’s about
confidence and it comes in small things like a pasture sometimes).
As I stepped over the fence I got that silly feeling like
‘what a foolish thing to have thought, it might have only been the shadows of
the forest… Perhaps an owl?’ Then, there on the ground not six feet away
was the head of an adult deer. Antlers
gone skull massively decayed. Not by sun
or age but you gnawing… Nearly every
square inch of that skull had deep canine bite marks in it. I picked it up, I photographed it and I
looked in wonder at the woods from which I’d emerged.
I felt safe, the “game” was over – whatever those wolves
thought it was, it was over – I’d escaped.
I headed back over the fields and reached another boundary marker. This one lead out of the farmer’s field and
onto the 2 mile loop trail that went back to my Audubon sanctioned community (a
new concept in North Carolina). I crossed the gate and onto the main track, a
silence fell. A quiet unlike any other
quiet you will (ever) hear in the woods.
Deep thick dead silence – the kind that you notice because you’ve never
heard it before. I noticed it and held
my walking stick with the awareness of a weapon. I paused to consider this meaning – the
meaning of no sound. A moment passed and
then a tiny chickadee sounded in the brush – a spiritual tension had broken and
I knew it meant I was safe. I stepped
out toward freedom and had not gone but a few paces when I heard the sound of
fierce fighting between the pair. In my
mind a simple explanation played out without request or explanation. ‘You fool said the male wolf’s emotion –
you’ve exposed us to a human! Coward
said the female, you could have had him!’
I walked on, thankful for the little things like the black
capped chickadee (the soldiers bird) and emerged with a totally renewed sense
of the dangers of the woods alone. It
would not be my last encounter with these two…
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