he reputation of wolves has undergone a curious evolution over time. In the old days they were dangerous, deadly, terrifying predators, ones that preyed on humans and ravaged the countryside. That image wasn't based in truth, but that's what people thought of them. They still might, in much of the world, but in the US since the 1990s, wolves have become safer as they've been absorbed by the new age ideas, and they are now seen as powerful spirit totem type animals, ones that can be dangerous but are more often romanticized as wild things we modern tame humans need to get more in touch with. There are wolf figurines, calendars, posters, and much more, all of them embracing a point of view about the animals that is not as misguided and inaccurate as the old "ravenous killer" myth, but isn't exactly true either.

I've blogged about the issue a few times, and those entries are collected here, in descending chronological order.

February 27, 2004

Wolves!

Traditionally, through human history, wolves were vicious, dangerous, rabies-carrying animals that preyed upon any human foolish enough to get caught out in the forest at night, or alone, or both, or neither, in times of famine. In actuality, wolves are pretty harmless to humans, only attacking if some very tempting opportunity presents itself, or the wolves are starving, or the human comes after them, etc. But in mythology, the wolf is almost always the bad guy, the dangerous monster, the beast that must be killed or fled.  See Little Red Riding Hood, Peter and the Wolf, The Three Pigs, and other fine literary sources.

Given that history, the transformation of wolves over the past couple of decades from ravening terrors to friendly, playful, intelligent, nature totem symbols is pretty surprising. People are generally less hostile towards most potentially dangerous animals in this day and age than they used to be.  A lot of that is due to increased knowledge and awareness; it's hard to stay too scared of "killer whales" when you see them begging for handfuls of mackerel after pulling some hippy chick in a wetsuit around a big aquarium.  And National Geographic specials on wolves and sharks and snakes and other such animals have dispelled most of the myths about them.

It's also due, in large part, to the fact that the vast majority of us live far from the wilderness or the jungle, and don't have to worry about coming face to face with an animal that is capable of running us down, killing us, and eating us.  At least if you don't count pet dogs, and they're generally pretty safe as well, especially if you stay away from the select breeds that have been trained to fight and kill.

Logic and reasons aside, my initial point was that wolves used to be dreadful symbols of terror, and are now playful, colorful, long-haired dogs who romp in the snow and have cute puppies. Examples here and here.

And they are cute and fluffy and playful and friendly and all of that.  Just so long as they're not wild, and hungry, and you're not easy prey. Here's less than half the page from the link above, and as you can see, they're intelligent and beautiful and noble and wild and all of the other nature things well-intentioned white people like to think of themselves as, when they get back to nature in their new SUV and hiking boots.  Nature that should be within a 15 minute drive from their suburb, since after all, the twins need to be picked up from soccer practice, and Jimmy has a piano lesson at 5.  And of course the "nature" near them would never ever have a wolf in it, since after all, it might be dangerous.

At some point, wolves became all nature spirit-y and nurturing and cute, as witnessed by the cute photo wall calendars below, and the figurines, stuffed animal toys, etc you see in every store. Here's a bunch of calendars.

Wolf - 2004 Deluxe Wall Calendar	Wolf - 2004 Wallet Calendar	Wolfsong - 2004 Mini Wall Calendar
Wolves by Lisa & Mike Husar - 2004 Wall Calendar	Wolves by Lisa & Mike Husar - 2004 Mini Wall Calendar	Wolfsong - 2004 Wall Calendar
Wolves / Loups - 2004 Wall Calendar	Wolves - 2004 Weekly Engagement Calendar	Wolves - 2004 Deluxe Wall Calendar

Notice one very famous part of the wolf that you never see in any of these photos?  Besides the tail, since that's just an accident of the close cropping in these cover shots, and it's visible in lots of other photos of wolves. And it's not a famous part.

Read on, I'll get to the point shortly.

I bring all of this up since I'm chaos, and Malaya often points out, and since I enjoy tweaking the "wolves are our friends" logic with mentions of how they are potentially man-eaters, how they were terrors of the forests in Europe during the famine days of the Dark Ages, etc.  I'm not saying they should be hunted down; I support them being reintroduced to wild areas in the US, mostly since I don't live in those wild areas.  I like the idea and don't have to deal with the reality.

But while I was surfing my beloved photo.net a few days ago, I saw this photo, of wolves in the wild, doing wild wolf things.  Click it so see it bigger.

I think it's a great photo, amazingly clear and a great frozen moment of action. Three members of a pack, ripping their caribou kill to shreads, feeding hungrily on the hot, bloody entrails, and turning to viciously warn off others who might try to take their kill.

And yet, somehow, this isn't an image I expect to see in one of those, "The wolf: our furry brother in nature."  type calendars.  Perhaps the problem is the focal length, since the other calendars above are almost all facial shots only.  Close ups, so you can see the soul and expression and tranquility on the faces of these noble beasts.

Let's try it, shall we?

Well, how about this double shot for January 2005, and the cover image.  Looks good to me!

The funny part is that if you did put a wolf calendar on the market with this type of image, you'd sell about 1/10000th as many as the cute friendly wolf calendars sell, and you'd probably get about 20 hate mails for every calendar you sold, from nature-loving people who were offended that you'd put such an unfair image of a wolf on the cover. An image clearly intended to provoke fear and anger and persecution of the wolf. 

I think you see my point, and if you're still wondering about the famous part of the wolf that you don't see in any of those calendars... it's the part that wolves use to eat you with.

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