Historic Wolf Art

"The wolf exerts a powerful influence on the human imagination. It takes your stare and turns it back on you"

— Barry Lopez (Of Wolves and Men)

Why is the wolf, above all other species, including bears and mountain lions, so widely hated and feared?

“We frequently hear two explanations for why wolves are so feared, loathed and hated, one being the folklore and fairy tales (Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Little Pigs, etc.) that we inherited from Europe; and one being that wolves kill livestock and compete with humans for wild game.

The problem with these explanations is that they are only the tip of something deeper.  They don’t explain why wolves were singled out in the fairy tales in the first place.  Nor do they explain why wolves are feared and hated more than are other large carnivores, like bears and cougars, that compete with humans for wild game and occasionally prey on livestock.  So, while fairly tales and depredation might partly explain why many Europeans and Americans fear and hate wolves, a deeper explanation underlies the animosity.  (Also, Europeans seem to be further along on the learning curve than Americans in this respect, as wolves are being allowed to make a comeback in several European countries.)

My conjecture is that the deeper explanation has to do with the fact that wolves are in many ways more like human beings than are any other animal species that we have shared the landscape with – at least since modern humans left Africa”. - Kirk Robinson, The Psychology of Wolf Fear and Loathing (Read the rest of this article HERE)

NOTE: “There have been few documented and undocumented wolf attacks on humans in North America in comparison to wolf attacks in Eurasia, and few relative to attacks by other larger carnivores”.

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