Information on the Arctic Wolf

Perhaps no creature has been cast in such a negative light than the arctic wolf. Fairy tales world wide are abound with stories of wolf packs attacking the likes of small children and innocent villagers. Hollywood would have us believe that most treks into areas such as the Alaskan tundra would likely result in the blood bath that is a wolf attack.

Until 400 years ago, the wolf was second only to man as the most successful and widespread mammal in North America. An extensive amount of evidence would show that far from being an enmity. The wolf and hunting man world wide enjoyed something approaching symbiosis, where by the existence of each benefited of the other. As years past however, the heritage of the hunter would be replaced with that of the farmer and herdsman, thus losing the ancient empathy with the wolf. It would seem that so called civilized man eventually succeeded in masking the real wolf from his collective mind and substituting it for an image that generated pathological fear and hatred. This is evident by these facts: of twenty four wolf subspecies and races that inhibit North America, seven are now extinct and most of the remainder are on the endangered species list.

Then in the early sixties came the Lupine project. Its mission was to study the Arctic wolves to determine if they were destroying the vanishing herds of caribou deer. Accepting the assignment to investigate the wolves was naturalist Farley Mowat. Mowat's work on the Lupine Project would occur over two summers and a winter spent in the subarctic regions of Southern Keewatin Territory and Northern Manitoba. For the most part Farley Mowat was employed by the Canadian federal government as a biologist.

Mowat's original agenda was to cast the wolf in a rather minor role, and to use the time on the frozen tundra to write a satire about the curious mutation of the species known as the Bureaucrat. However, as time past the naturalist found himself losing intret in the buffoonery and increasingly engrossed in the second character: the wolf. The results of Mowat's research resulted in an engaging book: Never Cry Wolf. This book would shock the scientific world. Though it was true that arctic caribou were being attacked by the wolf, it was only the weakest of the herd. The wolves that Farley observed were only aiding the caribou herds themselves. Furthermore it was discovered that sports killers with the use of aircraft, snow mobiles and all terrain vehicles had penetrated the relatively inaccessible region dangerously depleting the wolves.

In 1983 Walt Disney productions loosely adapted Mowat's book into a film version also titled Never Cry Wolf. The film starred Charles Martin smith as Mowat, although the script took the liberty of changing his name from Farley to Tyler. The bulk of the story remains true to the projects research.

It is through Mowat's biological discoveries that the truth of the arctic wolf was finally exposed to both his government and the world. The bottom line results of the project: the wolf serves a role in maintaining the long term well being of its prey's species and that they are not a threat to human beings.