The wolf, also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of Canis lupus have been recognized, including the dog and dingo, though gray wolves, as popularly understood, only comprise naturally-occurring wild subspecies. The wolf is the largest extant member of the family Canidae, and is further distinguished from other Canis species by its less pointed ears and muzzle, as well as a shorter torso and a longer tail. The wolf is nonetheless related closely enough to smaller Canis species, such as the coyote and the golden jackal, to produce fertile hybrids with them. The wolf's fur is usually mottled white, brown, gray, and black, although subspecies in the arctic region may be nearly all white.
Farley McGill Mowat, was a Canadian writer and environmentalist. His works were translated into 52 languages, and he sold more than 17 million books. He achieved fame with the publication of his books on the Canadian north, such as People of the Deer (1952) and Never Cry Wolf (1963). The latter, an account of his experiences with wolves in the Arctic, was made into a film of the same name released in 1983. For his body of work as a writer he won the annual Vicky Metcalf Award for Children's Literature in 1970.
The Arctic wolf, also known as the white wolf, polar wolf, and the Arctic grey wolf, is a subspecies of grey wolf native to the High Arctic tundra of Canada's Queen Elizabeth Islands, from Melville Island to Ellesmere Island. Unlike some populations that move between tundra and forest regions, Arctic wolves spend their entire lives north of the northern treeline. Their distribution to south is limited to the northern fringes of the Middle Arctic tundra on the southern half of Prince of Wales and Somerset Islands. It is a medium-sized subspecies, distinguished from the northwestern wolf by its smaller size, its whiter colouration, its narrower braincase, and larger carnassials. Since 1930, there has been a progressive reduction in size in Arctic wolf skulls, which is likely the result of wolf-dog hybridization.
The Hokkaido wolf, also known as the Ezo wolf and in Russia as the Sakhalin wolf, is an extinct subspecies of gray wolf that once inhabited coastal northeast Asia. Its nearest relatives were the wolves of North America rather than Asia. It was exterminated in Hokkaido during the Meiji Restoration period, when American-style agricultural reforms incorporated the use of strychnine-laced baits to kill livestock predators. Some taxonomists believe that it survived up until 1945 on the island of Sakhalin. It was one of two subspecies that were once found in the Japanese archipelago, the other being the Japanese wolf.
Wolf hunting is the practice of hunting wolves. Wolves are mainly hunted for sport, for their skins, to protect livestock and, in some rare cases, to protect humans. Wolves have been actively hunted since 8,000 to 10,000 years ago, when they first began to pose a threat to livestock of Neolithic human communities. Historically, the hunting of wolves was a huge capital- and manpower-intensive operation. The threat wolves posed to both livestock and people was considered significant enough to warrant the conscription of whole villages under threat of punishment, despite the disruption of economic activities and reduced taxes. The hunting of gray wolves, while originally actively endorsed in many countries, has become a controversial issue across the globe. Most people see it as cruel, unnecessary and based on misconceptions, while proponents argue that it is vital for the conservation of game herds and as pest control.
The Eurasian wolf, also known as the common wolf, is a subspecies of grey wolf native to Europe and Asia. It was once widespread throughout Eurasia prior to the Middle Ages. Aside from an extensive paleontological record, Indo-European languages typically have several words for "wolf", thus attesting to the animal's abundance and cultural significance. It was held in high regard in Baltic, Celtic, Slavic, Turkic, ancient Greek, Roman, Dacian, and Thracian cultures, whilst having an ambivalent reputation in early Germanic cultures.
The Porcupine caribou(Rangifer tarandus groenlandicus) is a herd or ecotype of barren-ground caribou, the subspecies of the reindeer or caribou found in Alaska, United States, and Yukon and the Northwest Territories, Canada.
The northwestern wolf, also known as the Mackenzie Valley wolf, Alaskan timber wolf, or Canadian timber wolf, is a subspecies of gray wolf in western North America. Arguably the largest gray wolf subspecies in the world, it ranges from Alaska, the upper Mackenzie River Valley; southward throughout the western Canadian provinces, aside from prairie landscapes in its southern portions, as well as the Northwestern United States.
Never Cry Wolf is a 1983 American drama film directed by Carroll Ballard. The film is an adaptation of Farley Mowat's 1963 autobiography of the same name and stars Charles Martin Smith as a government biologist sent into the wilderness to study the caribou population, whose decline is believed to be caused by wolves, even though no one has seen a wolf kill a caribou. The film also features Brian Dennehy and Zachary Ittimangnaq. It was the first Disney film to be released by the studio under the renamed Walt Disney Pictures label. The film was released on October 7, 1983, for a limited distribution, and in the regular theaters on January 27, 1984.
The barren-ground caribou is a subspecies of the reindeer that is found in the Canadian territories of Nunavut and the Northwest Territories, in northern Alaska and in south-western, Greenland. It includes the Porcupine caribou of Yukon and Alaska. The barren-ground caribou is a medium-sized caribou, smaller and lighter-colored than the boreal woodland caribou, with the females weighing around 90 kg (200 lb) and the males around 150 kg (330 lb). However, on some of the smaller islands, the average weight may be less. The large migratory herds of barren-ground caribou take their names from the traditional calving grounds, such as the Ahiak herd, the Baffin Island herds, the Bathurst herd, the Beverly herd, the Bluenose East herd, the Bluenose West herd, the Porcupine herd and the Qamanirjuaq herd.
The Indian wolf is a subspecies of gray wolf that ranges from Southwest Asia to the Indian subcontinent. It is intermediate in size between the Himalayan wolf and the Arabian wolf, and lacks the former's luxuriant winter coat due to it living in warmer conditions. Within this subspecies, the "Indian plains wolf" is genetically basal to all other extant Canis lupus apart from the older-lineage Himalayan wolf, with both proposed as separate species. The Indian wolf travels in smaller packs and is less vocal than other variants of the gray wolf, and has a reputation for being cunning. The Indian wolf is one of the most endangered populations of gray wolf in the world.
Dubawnt Lake is a lake in the Kivalliq Region, Nunavut, Canada. It is 3,630 km2 (1,400 sq mi) in size and has several islands. It is about 320 km (200 mi) north of the Four Corners, about 480 km (300 mi) west of Hudson Bay and about 400 km (250 mi) south of the Arctic Circle. To the northwest is the Thelon Wildlife Sanctuary. Its main inlet and outlet is the north-flowing Dubawnt River which joins the Thelon River at Beverly Lake. The Thelon flows east to Hudson Bay at Chesterfield Inlet. It is on the line of contact between the Sayisi Dene band of Eastern Caribou-Eater Chipewyan people and the Harvaqtuurmiut and Ihalmiut bands of Caribou Inuit. The first recorded European to reach the lake was Samuel Hearne in 1770, but it remained largely unknown to outsiders until it was explored by Joseph Tyrrell in 1893. There are no permanent settlements but there are fly-in fish camps where large lake trout can be caught during the two month ice-free season.
Wolf attacks are injuries to humans or their property by any subspecies of wolf. Their frequency varies with geographical location and historical period, but overall gray wolf attacks are rare. Wolves today tend to live mostly far from people or have developed the tendency and ability to avoid them. The country with the most extensive historical records is France, where nearly 7,600 fatal attacks were documented from 1200 to 1920. There are few historical records or modern cases of wolf attacks in North America. In the half-century up to 2002, there were eight fatal attacks in Europe and Russia, three in North America, and more than 200 in south Asia. Experts categorize wolf attacks into various types, including rabies-infected, predatory, agonistic, and defensive.
Bernard's wolf, also known as the Banks Island wolf or the Banks Island tundra wolf, is an extinct subspecies of the gray wolf that was limited to Banks and Victoria Island of the Arctic Archipelago.
The Greenland wolf is a subspecies of gray wolf that is native to Greenland. Historically, it was heavily persecuted, but today it is fully protected and about 90% of the wolf's range falls within the boundaries of the Northeast Greenland National Park.
Finding Farley is a 2009 documentary directed by Leanne Allison as she and her husband Karsten Heuer travel across Canada in the literary footsteps of the Canadian writer Farley Mowat.
The Interior Alaskan wolf, also known as the Yukon wolf, is a subspecies of gray wolf native to parts of British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, Interior Alaska and Yukon.
Ludwig "Lu" Norbert Carbyn is an internationally recognized expert on wolf biology, a research scientist emeritus at the Canadian Wildlife Service, and an adjunct professor at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta. He has studied wolf ecology and behaviour in Canada since 1970, including pioneering research into the ecological role of wolves as predators in the Canadian Rocky Mountains and great plains as well as the wolf-bison ecosystem of Wood Buffalo National Park. On a Canadian Wildlife Service assignment in Jasper National Park, he became the first human to study wild wolves from within a wolf pack using habituation, a method of gaining insights into the biology of wolves portrayed in fiction by Farley Mowat's popular book and film, Never Cry Wolf.
Single wolves or mated pairs typically have higher success rates in hunting than do large packs; single wolves have occasionally been observed to kill large prey such as moose, bison and muskoxen unaided. This contrasts with the commonly held belief that larger packs benefit from cooperative hunting to bring down large game. The size of a wolf hunting pack is related to the number of pups that survived the previous winter, adult survival, and the rate of dispersing wolves leaving the pack. The optimal pack size for hunting elk is four wolves, and for bison a large pack size is more successful.
Wolf distribution is the species distribution of the wolf. Originally, wolves occurred in Eurasia above the 12th parallel north and in North America above the 15th parallel north. However, deliberate human persecution has reduced the species' range to about one-third, because of livestock predation and fear of wolf attacks on humans. The species is now extirpated in much of Western Europe, Mexico, and the contiguous United States, and completely from the British Isles and the Japanese archipelago. In modern history, the gray wolf occurs mostly in wilderness and remote areas, particularly in Canada, Alaska, the Northern United States, Europe and Asia from about the 75th parallel north to the 12th parallel north. Wolf population declines have been arrested since the 1970s, and have fostered recolonization and reintroduction in parts of its former range, due to legal protection, changes in land-use and rural human population shifts to cities. Competition with humans for livestock and game species, concerns over the danger posed by wolves to people, and habitat fragmentation pose a continued threat to the species. Despite these threats, because of the gray wolf's relatively widespread range and stable population, it is classified as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List. In Africa the population of wolves is limited to the northern regions with the African golden wolf north of the Sahara and the Ethiopian wolf in Ethiopia.
