Wolves are a natural and essential part of our world, but in some places they are becoming fewer and farther between. Wolves are naturally elusive animals. Human communities living in the heart of wolf country will likely only catch rare glimpses of these animals. While being shy and elusive helps to keep wild wolves safe from humans, it also leaves room for fear and misunderstanding to grow.
In western culture, dogs are treated as a part of people’s families, but wolves are seen as dangerous and overzealous predators, a nuisance, a threat to public safety, or a competitor for resources. This “big bad wolf” narrative has led to the wide-spread persecution of wolves and the systematic extermination of them from the landscape for hundreds of years across several continents. This thinking needs to change.
Wolves play a key role in maintaining a balanced and healthy ecosystem, and they have a right to live and exist on the landscape as much as we do. We need to learn how to coexist.
We have a responsibility to the natural world, spiritual world and all of its beings as much as they have a responsibility to us. So I don’t have the right to wipe out a wolf pack. I have a responsibility to understand that and maybe figure out how I’m relating to it in a way that is different than Western society.
– Tommy Happynook – Huu-ay-aht First Nations
This video explores four different perspectives on coexistence with wolves: Jonah Keim, a biologist and research scientist; Maja Tait, the mayor of Sooke, a municipality in B.C. home to hunters, farmers and wolves; Tommy Happynook, an assistant professor of anthropology at UVIC and member of the Huu-ay-aht First Nations; and Tom Henry, a sheep farmer in wolf country.
Wildlife photography: Ian McAllister
Cougar trail camera footage courtesy of: Gary Schroyen
In British Columbia, wolves are hunted and trapped for sport, not for meat. The provincial government estimates that about 1,200 wolves are killed each year for sport. In B.C. wolves are also killed by the hundreds each year in a government-funded culling program to attempt to preserve woodland caribou; however, caribou are endangered due to habitat loss, not wolf predation. To learn more visit:
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video transcript
00:00:03:08 – 00:00:26:03
Tommy Happynook, Anthropologist, University of Victoria
Nuu-Chah-Nulth, Huu-ay-aht First Nations
We have a responsibility to the natural world, spiritual world and all of its beings as much as they have a responsibility to us. So I don’t have the right to wipe out a wolf pack. I have a responsibility to understand that and maybe figure out how I’m relating to it in a way that is different than Western society.
00:00:26:05 – 00:00:38:20
Tom Henry, Rancher, Vancouver Island, B.C.
Time to time in the summer, if there’s not much wind, which is pretty rare, you can hear them howling and that is hauntingly beautiful.
00:00:38:22 – 00:01:22:00
Jonah Keim, Biologist and Research Scientist
We’re trying to find solutions, management solutions to help solve the balance of wolves, caribou and alternate prey species like moose and deer. Wolves were taking advantage of roads and access points and developments put in there by humans on the landscape. You can have immediate responses of restoration techniques, and our study showed that immediate responses, if we do things to remove the ability of animals to travel on these linear disturbances, hinging trees into roads and seismic lines or putting soil mounting things on it just making it tougher for an animal to move across these features.
We ended up having an 85% reduction in the encounter rates between wolves and caribou. It came out as very effective and the results were immediate.
00:01:34:06 – 00:01:53:07
Tom Henry, Rancher, Vancouver Island, B.C.
It’s a great privilege to live in the wilderness here and farm in this wilderness, and we have learned to work with or exist with cougars and bears and their predation on our livestock. Some wolves would be okay even if we lose some livestock, because that’s the trade off for living here. I mean, we live in this incredible wilderness, right?
So I’m arguing that and anticipating I will be able to live with wolves.
00:02:01:05 – 00:02:26:10
Tommy Happynook, Anthropologist, University of Victoria,
Nuu-Chah-Nulth, Huu-ay-aht First Nations
Where the government might say, oh, there’s too many wolves because they’re now encroaching on ranchers’ lands or they’re encroaching into cities. From my perspective, I’m going, well, your cows aren’t from here and your cities are actually encroaching on the places that they have walked and existed in long before contact. So as much as I say Nuu-chah-nulth people have been here for time immemorial, the wolf people have been here as long.
00:02:26:12 – 00:02:45:12
Maja Tait, Mayor, Sooke, B.C.
Over the years, we’ve learned that they are a significant keystone animal and that there’s ecosystems that rely on them. And so everything is connected and there’s much we can learn. And that’s why we need to save what we have, because gone is forever.
00:02:45:14 – 00:03:04:05
Jonah Keim, Biologist and Research Scientist
It’s really about trying to find the balance. And I think the way to do it is to become more educated on the topic, some more applied on the topic, and try to find tangible and practical solutions that can be applied to make a more sustainable system in the long run. I think that’s the key.
