"Sympatric"Sympatric is loosely defined as two species who share the same geographical territory without interbreeding. Wolves and humans have been sharing the same land globally for thousands of years. It is under these circumstances that the wolf has undergone many transformations in human cultures.In folklore, fables, myths and fairytales, the wolf has been subjected to the role of villain, often symbols for man's darkest side (werewolves, for example). Because of this, the wolf is negatively imbedded in human culture. Also considered varmints by ranchers, farmers, and cattlemen, and of course through the onslaught of human sprawl, the wolf was exterminated in most of North America and the rest of the world. And it wasn't done humanely. Popular methods of "control" included (and still include) strychnine and various brutal methods of killing. Farley Mowat has written: "up until four hundred years ago...wolf [and man] have enjoyed, worldwide, something approaching symbiosis, whereby the existence of each benefited the existence of the other." It was a fact that wolves would follow the hunting man and scavenge in the wake of a hunt. And your dog, who may sometimes seem to own you, claims the wolf as an ancestor, separated by only 1% in their mitochondrial DNA. Even though the reputation of wolves has evolved positively in the past 35 years, humans still have difficulty sharing territory with another top predator. One only has to look at the continuing battle between ranchers and biologists in Yellowstone, or the Palin-approved “wolf control” methods in Alaska, or simply look at the rest the world where wolves are nothing more than a character in folklores. |
 As a wild species, wolves live a life of uncertainty. Their life-span depends on the climate and seasons, on the migration routes and the danger levels of their prey, on disease, starvation, other territorial wolves from differing packs, and more. Humans make life for wild species that more difficult. Even the biologists who sedate, collar and tag wolves, take away from the wildness of a wolf's spirit. In honor of that spirit, each piece is titled in accordance with a factually-based bit of information that pertains to a wolf's weight, or territorial range, or amount of food it can eat annually. A slice of information that can give some weight to their lives as a wild species in an ever-shrinking wild land. Email Mikhyla click here |
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