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Wolves are wonderful animals. I think they got a bad reputation because farmers really don’t like it when they kill off their livestock. But there are a bunch o

• sdwr 4y ago
  The wolf in that first video didn't sound happy to be there...
  • sillysaurusx 4y ago
    It’s why I hope they’ll be accepted back into society someday. The risks seem minimal with proper care, and right now their options are captivity or wilderness. But they’re where dogs came from; a few generations of selective breeding to reduce adrenaline response would do the trick. But the growls are kind of cute, and probably sound a lot more ominous than they are. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRv5LQGC/ https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRv5LQGC/
    • johndhi 4y ago
      What? Wolves have massively more powerful bites than dogs, right?
      • sillysaurusx 4y ago
        Humans have one of the most deadly bites too. Just because something is dangerous, it’s tempting to shun it. But the danger is relative to the frequency of problems. (If this is a “citation needed” situation: https://www.mayoclinic.org/first-aid/first-aid-human-bites/basics/art-20056633 https://www.mayoclinic.org/first-aid/first-aid-human-bites/b...)
      • pxc 4y ago
        Probably more worrisome to me is taking for granted the way we've bred dogs to be gentle, calm, good-natured, etc. Most people don't do much to train their pet dogs or even learn to communicate with them. We more or less get away with that, societally, because dogs are insanely good-natured. Dogs give us so much 'for free'. I think without that, like when people just keep wolves as pets, things look a LOT dicier.
    • copymoro 4y ago
      wilderness? there's no wilderness... it's all somebody's backyard.
      • sillysaurusx 4y ago
        True, but 28 years ago they were reintroduced into Yellowstone. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRv5NTNU/ https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRv5NTNU/
  • pxc 4y ago
    Some dogs, notably rottweilers, make similar vocalizations even when relaxed. Search for 'rottie rumble’ to find clips with examples. I don't know anything about wolves really, but with dogs, most individual components of body language are pretty ambiguous. For example, - many dogs will rapidly wag their tails just before getting into a vicious fight (it doesn't just mean 'happy') - dogs will generally bare teeth as a warning/threat, but some will also show their teeth as a greeting (Google 'heeler smile') - some stress/calming signals (e.g., pulling ears back or lowered tail) can occur as normal parts of safe, mutual play To get a sense of what a dog is feeling and how it might act, you really have to integrate all of its body language into a single context. All of that is to say that if someone who works at a respectable wolf habitat/rescue tells me that a growl-y vocalization from a wolf is not always aggressive, I don't have a hard time believing that. (I'd love to learn more about wolf body language and how it differs from that of domestic dogs!)
    • sdwr 4y ago
      Agree in theory, my read on that particular situation is that the human was shading arrogant/taunting, and the male was a bit jealous verging towards pissed. My dog has played a few times with a rescue mutt (bit of rottie in there?) who growls pretty loud in the heat of the moment. Was frightening to hear, but shes not aggressive at all.
• dkarl 4y ago
  That's a bizarre standard to judge an animal by. Do you think bears and moose, or wolves not habituated to humans, are less "wonderful" because you can't cuddle with them?
  • sillysaurusx 4y ago
    I think so. If you can’t cuddle with an animal then they’re significantly less wonderful. Majestic, perhaps, but there’s nothing like fluffy cuddles. Bears are sometimes pretty cool. There’s a lady on tiktok that scratches one behind the ears with a rake whenever it shows up. Which is apparently a frequent thing for her. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRv5qd55/ https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRv5qd55/ Somehow she trained it to sit… https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRv5yDQk/ https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRv5yDQk/ But I don’t think bears are domesticatable through selective breeding, whereas there’s some evidence that wolves are.
  • standardUser 4y ago
    Not all animals are able to be domesticated, right? Wolves are, so something must separate them from other un-domesticatable animals.
• throwawaaarrgh 4y ago
  Wolves are significantly different from dogs. They don't form bonds with humans or other species, they aren't dependent on humans for food, they're true carnivores, they're better problem solvers than dogs, they have smaller litters once a year, their packs are more cohesive family units, they're shy, they don't play past the juvenile stage. Wolves and Dogs are like a Hell's Angel and an actor playing a Hell's Angel. You don't have to fear wolf attacks because we just aren't something they are familiar with, but if they're really hungry they'd have no qualms over turning a couple humans into lunch, and you can't just scare them off.
  • AlbertCory 4y ago
    There's a famous experiment I just saw on Nature again, where two puppies, one dog and one wolf, both raised identically around humans, are given a test: Find the treat that the human points at. The dog puppy follows the cue, while the wolf does not. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the wolf, but it's genetically less likely to defer and learn from the human.
    • pxc 4y ago
      I've seen similar research that shows the converse, as well: wolves are more likely than dogs to learn how to solve puzzles by watching other canines work the puzzles. It was in some dog documentary on Netflix. Wish I could remember the name! Anyway I think that tendency to attune to us, generalized to other contexts, is part of what makes dogs so wonderful. It's not just a matter of being able to direct them explicitly, but the fact that they're interested in what we're doing, how we're feeling, what we want, etc. All of that varies with each individual dog, of course. But it's obvious that generally, wolves and humans aren't as fit for each other as dogs and humans are.
      • AlbertCory 4y ago
        Yeah. I'd love to go on a wolf-watching trip, like I did a grizzly-watching trip on Kodiak Island. We made dogs out of wolves via selective breeding, albeit not always consciously.
• culi 4y ago
  One major criticism of invasion biology is that the definition of "invasive" is most often an assessment of impact on commercial interests rather than ecological impacts. There are many situations where these are actually diametrically opposed definitions. Dandelions for example are extremely "invasive" but actually benefit local ecosystems by loosening soils and reducing topsoil loss. Because our agricultural practices are dependent on sterilized, lifeless soils these soil protectors are then seen as pests. This is actually the case with many "weeds". The most damaging thing you could ever do to soil is expose it to direct sunlight. The whole point of annuals is that they come up to protect the soil from the harmful radiation that kills the soil ecosystems. That's why annuals seeds can survive in soils for sometimes even decades. They're not meant to displace anything. They're meant to be there when there's some sort of "disturbance" (in nature this could be a fire or a mudslide or a windstorm that knocks over some important shade-providing trees, but in Western agriculture this is basically all of our farming) and kickstart the process of ecological succession If you let your lawn get overgrown by weeds it might look terrible the first year (tho I personally think it looks much more beautiful than the green deserts we spend so much money trying to maintain). But the second year you'll start to get some perennials and a lot less of the weedy annuals. Maybe some grasses will start. Eventually the soils will have developed so that they transformed from bacteria-dominated to fungal dominated and mycorrhizal networks will allow much more hardy plants to grow including shrubs and eventually even trees. These advanced soils hold up to 50x as much water and plants who've made mycorrhizal associations are much more resistant to pests, droughts, freezes, etc and have access to a much larger network of nutrients. So that means you'll have to spend much less time maintaining, watering, fertilizing, etc. In fact fertilization with nitrogen impedes the formation of mycorrhizal associations so, if your goal is a long term garden, "leave it the fuck alone" is actually a very effective strategy. Those weedy annuals depend on nitrogen that comes in easy to access forms but fungal dominated soils tend to have nitrogen in harder to access forms like ammonium (mainly due to the advancement of the soil food web into more complex organisms) so that means that the "weeds" will eventually work themselves out of a job (or at least until the next major "disturbance"). It's really a problem that solves itself and the more you fight that harder you need to fight. I might've strayed from the original point but I think there's a similar lesson with wolves. Wolves drastically decrease the number of disease vectors (e.g. rats or deer with ticks) in an ecosystem and also balance out other predators that take their place like birds of prey. The more we fight them the more we have to come up with solutions for all the side effects of their absence (e.g. large deer populations leading to reduced vegetation that stabilizes river banks or the increase in diseases)
• AlbertCory 4y ago
  "farmers really don’t like it when they kill off their livestock." You say that like it's shameful for them to feel that way. Pet owners really don't like it when wolves kill off their dogs & cats, either.
  • taco_philips 4y ago
    I don't see anything in what you quoted about how the farmer should be ashamed to feel that way. I didn't read it that way at all.
    • sillysaurusx 4y ago
      Yeah. It’s always interesting to see how people fill in the blanks.
    • vehementi 4y ago
      It's because the person went out of their way to say that the bad reputation is because of the farmers' feelings, rather than just the fact that wolves kill the livestock. Compare: > He went to jail for hitting her > He went to jail because she didn't like that he hit her This makes it sound like she would or should sometimes like to be hit, rather than being straightforwardly the victim of a crime, or straightforwardly because the person committed a crime
    • AlbertCory 4y ago
      You don't? How about "I think they got a bad reputation because farmers really don’t like it when they kill off their livestock." so, "bad reputation" is unfortunate, X caused it, but it's unwarranted to read that as "X is unfortunate"? It seems like a reasonable inference.
  • pxc 4y ago
    > Pet owners really don't like it when wolves kill off their dogs & cats, either. Right. I have some affection for wolves and coyotes because of their resemblance and relatiom to domestic dogs... but I also don't want them near my home any more than they have to be, and I avoid them at parks, because they will 100% kill and eat dogs like mine. They do it all the time.
• NegativeK 4y ago
  I'm usually more measured in my comments here, but oh well. This is horse shit. Do NOT interact with wolves. They're beautiful and majestic. They also absolutely don't deserve the damage that can come from food from humans or habituation, and you don't deserve the risk (from attack, from disease, from a park ranger who's pissed that yet ANOTHER tourist is ignoring all of the postings to leave wild animals alone.) Bison near you? Get the fuck away. Wolf? Get the fuck away. Chipmunk? Seriously, stop interacting with wildlife. If you feed wildlife, you're an asshole. If wildlife is put down because a TikTok video got you attacked, you're an asshole. If yet another bear is relocated because you helped habituate it, you're an asshole. (And if you're wondering, there are usually a lot of laws around how people shouldn't interact with wildlife. For good reason.) Leave no trace. Let wildlife be wild. Leave it the fuck alone.
  • aziaziazi 4y ago
    Well said but another statement is missing : Move to a new house near wild fauna and flora ? You’re an asshole, leave it the fuck alone. Expending suburbs and creating new one is taking over some life territory.
  • sillysaurusx 4y ago
    You set up a straw man and berated it about a bunch of things I didn’t say, just so you know. Can you find a quote you disagree with, and then explain why you disagree with it? That usually clarifies situations like this. For example, the “when cared for” is an important qualifier in my statement.
    • elcomet 4y ago
      The TikToks you linked are examples of what the parent comment is talking about: people interacting with wild animals as if they were pets.
      • sillysaurusx 4y ago
        He runs a wildlife sanctuary. The video takes place within that context. I should probably have clarified that bit, but I thought the fences made it clear.
• throwaway675309 4y ago
  I'm sorry but they're demonstrably not, there have been numerous studies that show domesticated dogs and wolves have significant evolutionary divergence. Even wolves that have been crossbred over several generations with dogs to get a more wolflike appearance tend to be exceptionally difficult to manage, have been well-known to attack other pets, can be very destructive, and ultimately most people want them because of how they look. People who believe that wolves will reciprocate human affection and somehow magically ignore all of their instincts are people who tend to overly anthropomorphize what are at heart wild animals.
• kayodelycaon 4y ago
  I volunteered at a wolf sanctuary for a while. Do not make the mistake of thinking the tame ones are dogs. You can’t train them like dogs. They do not respect human authority. They are extremely strong and bite hard. They are incredibly dangerous if cornered, scared, or pissed off. In general, unless you know what you’re doing, just don’t. Most of the time, you’re just fine handling a tame wolf if trained properly. It’s that time you make the mistake of thinking you can ignore what they want that will get you hurt.