The Green Planet We can Have

Wolves

Author's Note: I made the banner art myself, but you might notice that the wolf looks similar. That's because when I was looking for a wolf to draw on for the banner art, I found that it was hard for me to draw a regular wolf, so I drew an emoji wolf, otherwise known as 🐺. I drew it while looking at the picture of the wolf, which is why the results are similar. Now, enough about the banner art. Let's move on to wolves.

Wolves, bats, snakes. Those are the most common 'evil' animals. Bata are used resemble dark and ominous caves as well as friends of evil vampires. Snakes are used to compare evil characters, such as Voldemort (or shall I say You-Know-Who?) from Harry Potter to President Snow from the Hunger Games. Both are used to represent their slit like eyes and their evil personality. However, as much as I love Harry Potter and the Hunger Games (both are definitely in my Top 5 favorite books), the analogies aren't very true nor would snakes like the analogy. In reality, snakes have outstanding eyes and their scales are very beautiful. Wolves are very misunderstood. From the tales of Little Red Riding Hood, to the myths about werewolves, wolves are treated as if they're evil. In truth, they're not. In fact, wolves are curious or scared of us.

So, out of all of these animals, why have I chosen wolves to write a chapter about? It's not because they are my favorite animal (okay, maybe that fact made me very excited to write a chapter about them), but (mostly) because wolves are normally killed for these misrepresentations. Snakes aren't really killed for these misrepresentations, and the same with bats. But wolves... wolves are a different matter altogether.

So, let's start off with the story of a wolf known as Lobo. If you speak Spanish then you probably know that lobo is wolf in Spanish. Uf you are reading this paragraph and you don't like to hear about cruelty to animals, then I suggest to skip this paragraph and move onto the next one. So, let's continue. Lobo was a wolf who many hunters wanted to kill. A hunter named Seton had a plan to do it, involving using his mate as a bait. Seton captured his mate, who people called 'Blanca.' Seton and several other people tied Blanca on the neck with ropes (if you're reading this and are getting a queasy stomach, then skip the paragraph). Seton and the other were all on horses, and once the rope was around Blanca's head, they pulled the rope in different directions, giving Blanca the most painful and inhumane death as possible. Lobo died of a broken heart, and Seton realized what he had done, and he never killed a wolf again, instead writing books about protecting and helping wolves. So, now that you've read this paragraph, let's move onto other facts about wolves.

Wolves are also endangered and sometimes die in inhumane ways. Sometimes, people capture a baby wolf and then use them as a lure for the rest of the wolf pack to come. Then, they kill the whole family. Sometimes, people also cut off the jaw of a wolf and let them die of starvation. There are countless inhumane ways that wolves have been killed.

The main reason that wolves get killed is because that wolves eat cattle. Though they contribute to very little of cattle deaths, they are often used as scapegoats. Then, people come and then kill the wolves, thinking that they killed the cattle. (Sometimes they have killed the cattle, sometimes they didn't). Normally, this tends to make the situation worse. Since you're killing them from a helicopter, you don't know which wolf you're shooting. This can cause problems because you might be shooting the wrong wolf, or even worse. You might be shooting the alpha, the head of the pack.

If the alpha gets killed, then the problem is magnified, leaving the pack in fear and chaos. However, killing the wolf after they kill the cattle is very controversial. If you think about it in the farmer's perspective, they're just trying to make money to buy food and survive. This is not only a two way lane but a three way lane. Not only should we take in the perspective of the farmers and the environmentalists, we should also listen to the wolves. Though we can't interview a wolf because wolves speak a different language than us, we could try to empathize with them. So let's try that now.

Imagine that you're a wolf, and all the deer in your area has been killed by hunters. You wander around, looking for food, and you find some cows grazing. Starving, you take one down for you and your pack to eat. A month later, your fill pack has been gunned down and killed by a helicopter.

So now that we empathized with everyone, it'll make it easier to make an unbiased decision. So what do you think? Should we kill the wolves to stop them from eating the cattle, or should we find practices that will keep wolves away from the cattle. Or is neither the best decision? Please leave your response inside the comments so that others can reply to your ideas. Remember to keep the comments in control and avoid all hate messages.

Let's switch the topic from the controversy on wolves, and more to how wolves act in a pack.

Wolves are very social animals, and they live in a pack. Together, they hunt and get food. Each wolf has a different role in their pack. Some have the role of the alpha (the head of the pack). There is also omega, beta, and other wolf pack roles. The roles are not based on size. They are based on personality.

Though it might not seem that the omega (the lowest ranking wolf in the pack), helps the pack, the omega is just as important as the other roles. The omega is used as a scapegoat, and so when something goes wrong, the other wolves attack the omega. That might not seem very fair, but if the omega wasn't there, then the wolves would start fighting and killing each other. Wolves are like family members. When one dies, the whole pack is mournful. The wolves don't kill the omega, but the omega gets hurt a lot.

Wolves are amazing animals, and they're commonly misunderstood. There are also quite a few famous wolves such as 06 (a female alpha that was more agile and strategic than any otherwolf known in history). Unfortunately, 06 was killed by a trophy hunter.

Hopefully, trophy hunting isn't as controversial as wolves killing cows and then being shot from a helicopter as a result.

Now, let's switch topics and focus on the Fish and Wildlife services. They want to strip wolves off the endangered species list. This might seem like a good idea, because it involves the wolf population going up. But, in fact, it causes the opposite. Not catching my drift here? Basically removing wolves from the endangered species list regardless if their population is exploding a lot or decreasing rapidly isn't what I'm talking about. What I'm meaning to say is that if they're removed from the endangered species list, then the bans for hunting them will be stripped, meaning that they can be hunted freely. So, if you hear that wolves have been taken off the endangered species list, then it's not a good thing. It's a bad one.

Please vote this chapter if you want to help the wolves. Most of everything that I know about wolves is from a book called Wolf Nation. The information in this chapter has been written by me, though some of it has been paraphrased from Wolf Nation.