This sentence made me laugh:
"I have so far been able to teach a pack of captive wolves to behave more
naturally and instinctively."
Behaving instinctively is what animals do, you don't have to teach them. It is interesting to know that captive wolves learn how to hunt large prey succesfully within weeks after release, without having ever done so before. Instincts just are there, it is the stuff that is not learned, per definition.
I might be in the minority but the feeling I get from this little interview with the guy is that he is extremely pretentious. Teaching animals how to behave instinctively, indeed
Mind you, I do not doubt that the wolves, as habituated as they are to him, would definitely act more relaxed and natural around him than around other people, but I question his assumption that they would treat him as a real wolf. He certainly doesn't have the scent of a wolf, he doesn't have the same chemical secretions, he has no tail to raise above those of the wolves, no ears that he can move around properly... his claimed 'alpha' status among the pack is very doubtful, I think.
What he does definitely touches the imagination of the people. You can easily tell that from the tons of positive responses that article has genrated. The idea of being part of a pack of wolves is indeed something that appeals to imaginative people, and people who like wolves are usually imaginative. However, I think what he is doing is more similar to keeping a wolf as apet than anything else. He is trying to put the wolf into a mold of his liking. Notice how he made himself the 'alpha' of the pack... I get the feeling that this whole thing is a juvenile, well-intentioned but misguided practice, fueled by an inherent feel that humans are 'superior' to wolves (again, pointing back to his claim of teaching wolves how to behave instinctively). It is indeed 'cool', just like the idea of having a pet wolf is 'cool' (who among us didn't wish they could, at one point, just like we all probably wished we could be in a wolf pack, at one wistful moment or other). Cool, yes, smart, no. Good for the wolves? I doubt it. True, people have learned about wolves from pet wolves, but they also learned that this was not the best way to treat a wolf, neither the best way to learn from it. Jim Dutcher also lived with wolves, but at least he only claimed it was to make wolves habituated to him so that he wasn't influencing their behaviour to a high extend. In comparison, this guys attempt strikes me as a throwback, rather than a step forward in interacting with wolves.
I think we as people who like wolves have to come to a realization (different from the realizations that people who hate wolves have to come to). WE ARE NOT WOLVES . We are humans, we were molded from clay, descended from Adam and Eve, evolved from apes, pick your own belief, but we are not wolves. Whatever we do, we won't ever be wolves, however close we might be feeling to them spiritually or not. Keeping a pet wolf doesn't make the keepers closer to a wolf, and neither does becoming a self-claimed 'alpha' of a captive wolf pack. Admiring, respecting and wanting to learn fromand about wolves is great, but I think we should do it as observers.
Sorry, I am rambling, no offense intended to anyone who disagrees (or agrees, for that matter
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