https://www.outsideonline.com/culture/books-media/how-one-wolf-charmed-entire-town/
The people of Juneau had mixed feelings about having a wolf hanging around town, playing with their dogs. Why do you think some people enjoyed having the wolf nearby while others wanted it dead?
We have this schizophrenic relationship with wolves. Some people recoil and some people move toward them. I guess it’s a natural fear, since it seems to be somewhere deep in our being—you know, the Big Bad Wolf, the Three Little Pigs, Peter and the Wolf, Dr. Zhivago. Wolves are bad news. That’s the story we have in our heads. But what to do with a social wolf?
This was not the way it was supposed to go between big, wild things and us. Where you get to know an individual, and interact with them on a social level. Where it has no survival benefit for either party, but it’s obviously enjoyable for everyone. I mean, he’d come over to see me once he knew me. And, I mean, I didn’t feed him. And plenty of times, I went out without a dog, and he’d still come over to say hi. He clearly knew individuals. And it’s hard not to call that friendship. I think most people would agree, we can be friends with a dog. But say, well, ‘The wolf was my friend.’ People go, ‘Yeah, sure…’ Well, why not?
That’s what this whole thing was about. The way we relate to the wild. Even people you’d think would know better believed this to be an impossible situation. We’re talking about biologists, wildlife managers. They don’t want that to happen. It’s their worst nightmare. Because they want an animal to remain a faceless resource that can be managed—can be removed, can be shot, can have a radio collar put on, can be studied. They don’t want people to be friends with individual wildlife.
