Wolves attack people

[Lan8r]

Reading this article brought to mind this video http://digitaljournal.com/article/322033 Woman's joyous reunion with Wolves. What could be the difference between the two scenarios.? We'll never know the interaction between the zoo keeper and the wolves in this article, but in the video we can see a person that respects the wolves and whom the wolves look to with respect as well. Or so it appears. And no doubt caging anyone up will disturb them. Maybe one difference could be treating a living being with the respect they deserve as apposed to caging them and then treating them as a 'caged animal'. Giving them their due according to who/what they are.

Gertrudes, thanks for your post. I just kindled the book you mention it sounds like an interesting read.

bngenoh, seeking pets doesn't necessarily equate to enslaving them to one's needs. There is a difference between domesticated animals and wild animals. Whether we should have 'domesticated' animals at all, well that's another question. But we have and now our pets are kinda stuck in limbo. They cannot go back to being wild, but certainly shouldn't be enslaved either. (Although when it comes to cats, I don't believe we ever domesticated them, it seems they have domesticated us!). It does seem that some animals have actually chosen to interact with humans over the course of our history. Some of us have taken advantage of that and enslaved them, some have enjoyed the companionship and have fostered mutually beneficial and benevolent relationships. I strive to be one of the latter, and I think I might be since my dog lets me have a small portion of the bed!!

 

[loreta]

Caging anyone up will disturb them

Definitely! A few months ago I read The Old Way: A story of the First People by Elizabeth M. Thomas. This is an account of an American woman who lived for a few years amongst the Bushmen, or Ju/wasi, in the Kalahari desert in the 50s. The Bushmen lived a peaceful life as hunter gatherers and had never been in contact with any type of civilization (if memory doesn't fail), until they met the author and her family. I recommend this book as an example of a culture that seemed to work very, very well until they were finally made "civilized" by foreigners. A social structure that was beautifully integrated with nature collapsed in a most horrendous way.

More to the point of this thread, Elizabeth Thomas describes how the Bushmen and the desert lions seemed to respect each other to a point that any encounters between them would rarely, if ever, result in a confrontation. More disfortunate events only resided in the far memory of older generations. However, within other more violent cultures where ownership of animals and more aggressive hunting methods was the norm, such as the Masai, encounters would invariably result in deaths. She described how in those lands lions were much more aggressive to any human, in almost direct opposition to the lions living on the Kalahari part of the desert where the Bushmen dwell. Here they were much less naturally aggressive.

The Bushmen's culture was torn apart with the land being taken over and "civilization" forced upon them, during those years Elizabeth Thomas lived in the states. When she returned, over 20 years after, she found not only grotesque traces of a culture that had once lived in perfect harmony with nature, but also nature itself having become grotesque. The lions were one example. Once respectful of human beings (in that part of the desert) they had, in a relatively short period of time and fruit of being gun chased by completely uneducated (in the laws of nature) white men, become highly aggressive and intolerant of any human form. Not surprisingly.

She has other very revealing examples throughout her book of how peaceful coexistence between humans and other species of animals seemed to have ingrained an almost genetic type of memory within the species itself, so much so that they behaved very differently from animals of the same species that cohabited land with bellicose humans.

We as a culture see nature and wild animals from our "civilized" man perspective, and when faced with them can only see wild beasts that need to be either killed or domesticated for our own use. "The Old Way" was populated with painful examples of the sheer ignorance of the new white landlords that found themselves entitled to not only the land itself, but to its animals and its people. The result? What can we expect, a complete collapse of what was once a peaceful coexistence now turned into an enslaving system of ownership imposed by violence and deaths, in short: a war field.

In light of the above I am not surprised that caged animals behave in ways that seem odd to 'civilized' men. Firstly, they are caged for god's sake, how can they behave normally?? It would be strange if they would, imo.
Secondly, our culture has an appallingly poor understanding of them and will tend to interpret their behavior with said civilized men's eyes, and I would go as far as to include many zoologists here.

Edit: changed word

This is one of the most beautiful books I ever read in my life. I gave the book and lately I wanted to read it again, I forgot the title, thanks to remind me it!

Mrs. Marshall Thomas has written also two extraordinary books about cats and dogs, very very interesting: "The Hidden life of Dogs" and "The Tribe of the Tiger". For people who have cats and dogs like us to read these books give us a new look to our friends of 4 paws.

 

[Jones]

Reading this article brought to mind this video http://digitaljournal.com/article/322033 Woman's joyous reunion with Wolves. What could be the difference between the two scenarios.? We'll never know the interaction between the zoo keeper and the wolves in this article, but in the video we can see a person that respects the wolves and whom the wolves look to with respect as well. Or so it appears. And no doubt caging anyone up will disturb them. Maybe one difference could be treating a living being with the respect they deserve as apposed to caging them and then treating them as a 'caged animal'. Giving them their due according to who/what they are.

There was an article on SoTT about that here: http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245169-Woman-reunites-with-wild-wolves-she-socialized

I'm not so sure that there is just joy there. I think the wolves seem conflicted and uncertain. The wolves seem to start out showing generally submissive behaviours, but as time goes on in the video clip, their interaction becomes more antagonistic amongst themselves and also more dominating behaviours towards the woman. The first wolf in sits, and licks her face, but soon the wolves are going over the top of her. One wolf actually bites (even though it is gently) at her face. This can be a mild assertive act sometimes referred to as a 'boss grip' that dogs do to each other to assert them selves as being a higher pack member. That the wolf alternatively bites and licks to me seems like uncertainty. I'm inclined to think that something happened during the reunion that the wolves were not expecting. Can't be entirely sure though because it is difficult visually distinguish between each wolf and they often leave the shot. Could just be that they are conflicted about the fact that she has returned and they feel they need to reassert their pack positions.

I'm wondering if she actually socialised them when they were much younger and it was more likely that they'd accept her as the alpha. They would recognise her by smell when she returned, but her behaviours seem different to them. She is no longer alpha, she is down at eye level and she seems a little tense. This would have caused some conflict for the wolves so they seem to be reasserting their positions in the pack.

Big FWIW given the limits of the clip.

 

[bngenoh]

bngenoh, seeking pets doesn't necessarily equate to enslaving them to one's needs. There is a difference between domesticated animals and wild animals. Whether we should have 'domesticated' animals at all, well that's another question. But we have and now our pets are kinda stuck in limbo. They cannot go back to being wild, but certainly shouldn't be enslaved either. (Although when it comes to cats, I don't believe we ever domesticated them, it seems they have domesticated us!). It does seem that some animals have actually chosen to interact with humans over the course of our history. Some of us have taken advantage of that and enslaved them, some have enjoyed the companionship and have fostered mutually beneficial and benevolent relationships. I strive to be one of the latter, and I think I might be since my dog lets me have a small portion of the bed!!

Hi Freya (awesome name btw :D)

Pet:

1. Any domesticated or tamed animal that is kept as a companion and cared for affectionately.
2. A person especially cherished or indulged; favorite: He was the teacher's pet.
3. A thing particularly cherished.

Origin: 1500–10; (noun) perhaps back formation from pet lamb cade lamb, shortened variant of petty lamb little lamb ( see petty); (v.) derivative of the noun

Carrots & sticks is the method used to tame anything, and it has come full circle because that is the method people use to raise their children from my observations & experience. That being said, there is a big difference between teaching & taming, teaching merely gives the one who is taught the tools by which they can refine their raw potential by themselves, while taming is taking that raw potential and fashioning it to one's desire. In this view, the one who is taught comes of their own freewill, the one who is tamed is acquired.

Part of the horror of the situation is what we have done to our 2D cousins, it is very hard for them to free themselves from the dependency that has been bred into them, for and by humans, but not impossible, osit.

p.s. That's why I like cats, miniature lions. ;)