by Udo Pollmer and Klaus Alfs
The number of wolf attacks is increasing dramatically. Cold-bloodedly, "wolf experts" try to gloss over the drama. Victims of their do-gooder activism are the animals in the care of humans. But also the people and their economic bases. Klaus Alfs and Udo Pollmer report from the bloody front of the ideologists.
The fascinating thing about the wolf is that...
...the fairy tales contain more truth than what wolf experts would have us believe. The once feared wolves have long since mutated into bears, which are all the more brazenly imposed on us the closer they get to us. Wherever concerns about the wolf are voiced, they are immediately followed by the ridicule that people probably believe in Little Red Riding Hood and the bad wolf. When in the seventeenth century the poet Charles Perrault was the first to write down this tradition from the French Alps,1 thousands of children were attacked and mauled by wolves in the area every year. The wolf usually does not kill its victims, it likes to eat them alive.
An inconsistency in the wolf tales such as Little Red Riding Hood or the Seven Little Goats shows us what it's all about: for the bad wolf is not "bad" at all, he approaches in a friendly manner, eats chalk, talks like Grandma. A clear indication of a very specific disease: rabies, also called Lyssa. It reverses the nature of otherwise cautious, shy animals: Infected wolves appear tame, seeking human proximity in broad daylight. Back after the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), they spread the disease rapidly. Rabid wolves were bitten by dogs, leaving livestock and humans injured with a plague against which doctors were powerless. Among domestic animals, hunting dogs were especially affected. They attacked their owners, who then died just as cruelly.2
Rabies
"The disease prevailed in Europe until the beginning of the 19th century at times as a violent enzootic disease," writes veterinarian Bernd Iben, "sometimes lasting several years both among domestic animals and among wolves and foxes, with humans also falling victim to it in large numbers. In Prussia, after the turmoil of the Napoleonic Wars in 1818-1819, 1053 people died of Lyssa alone."3 According to the WHO, the disease still claims the lives of about 60,000 people worldwide every year, half of the victims are children under the age of fifteen. The number of unreported cases is high, he said.4 Experts report an increasing trend in infections, and the virus is also spreading globally.5-8
Worldwide, about ten million people are treated, i.e. vaccinated, after a bite every year. In most cases, these are dog bites; in countries such as India or Iran, wolves usually act as the reservoir. In North America, bats are the most important vectors. There, skunks and raccoons are the main reservoirs.9 There are numerous genotypes of the rabies virus, which can cause a wide range of symptoms, but which are always fatal.10-12 After contact with a rabid animal, urgency is required. As soon as the first symptoms appear, the vaccination is ineffective. Even though there is an emergency vaccine reserve in Germany, there are regular supply shortages of rabies vaccine, according to the Hesse State Chamber of Pharmacists.13
Once rabies is present - regardless of whether it has been introduced or deliberately spread - a gruesome disease develops that often spreads unnoticed due to an incubation period of up to a year. Thus in former times after a "wolf visit" whole homesteads were delivered to the ruin.2 Wolf rabies is far more dangerous than fox rabies. The fox, for example, is loyal to its location, but a rabid wolf can migrate hundreds of kilometers in a short time and infect a large number of animals. Most dangerous are the deep bite wounds caused by wolves, which drastically increase the success of infection.2 When the fairy tale came into being, it was an imperative to warn unsuspecting children about seemingly tame specimens. Even the very youngest had to know: If a nice wolf approaches, then see to it that you win land!
In Wikipedia, the authors have no idea of the danger once posed by wolves. "The fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf can be interpreted," it says, "to warn young girls against assault by violent men."14 The 1697 original does indeed conclude with a moral1: girls who listen to strange whispers can easily be eaten by a wolf. But there would be very different kinds of wolves. Just the charming, the gentle ones are the most dangerous.
Wikipedia is trying professionals who are unfamiliar with the original message, the cruel reality behind the fairy tale: "According to the psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim, it is [...] about the contradiction between the pleasure and reality principle. Little Red Riding Hood, he says, is like a child who is already struggling with puberty problems but has not overcome the Oedipal conflicts."14 It continues in this tenor. In the comfortably warm cloud-cuckoo-home of psychoanalysis, life is quite uninhibited. Fairy tales for small children reflect their world of experience, their fears and wishes from the time of their creation. Those who, like Bettelheim, see menstrual blood in the red cap have a completely different problem.
Bon appétit
Wolves that approach "friendly" today are usually not infected with rabies. Since they are not persecuted in our country, they do not show fear and therefore appear tame. However, they do not want to be cuddled at all, they are just sizing up their potential prey. In the years 1500 to 1800, at least 10,000 people fell victim to wolves in France alone, despite hunting - although the number of unreported cases is many times higher.15,16 From the church books from Aue in the Erzgebirge it is to be inferred that around 1700 year for year over 200 humans were torn, mostly women and children, who herded the cattle. Unmoved wolf experts spread the message that the wolf has "never attacked humans in Europe".
Instead of fairy tales, imaginative behavioral biologists like to tell saintly legends, like the "Miracle of Yellowstone."17 They say that the national park was transformed into an eco-paradise by the settlement of Canadian wolves. In reality, a hell was created for the prey animals. The imported wolves are larger and stronger than the subspecies that originally lived there. They multiplied greatly thanks to unsuspecting prey, introduced echinococcosis (a treacherous tapeworm disease that threatens humans and animals), and ate far more wapitis and elk than they "should".20
Since then, an "ecology of fear" has prevailed there.18 The wild animals driven from their grazing grounds are distraught and weakened. They die earlier, hardly produce any offspring and flee in the vicinity of humans. This in turn drives wolves unerringly toward farm animals and human dwellings. The supposed kingdom of heaven then becomes a nightmare for the inhabitants as well.20 The statement of cunning specialists intended for the sedation of the public, humans did not belong to the booty pattern of the wolves, is dangerous nonsense. Wolves have as food opportunists no booty pattern at all. (Food opportunist means that the hunting animal sticks to the prey that is easiest to catch, i.e. in the shortest time and with the least energy investment.)
Isegrim is by no means naturally shy, but only when intensively hunted. The emphasis is on the word intensive, because occasional "removals" do not scare the animals. In the Abruzzo region, when a wolf attacked livestock, farmers used to resort to the lupara, or wolf shotgun, but now vast tracts of land are free of grazing animals. The wolf has won the war for the pastures.
Finland is often cited as a role model. It is about the same size as Germany, but has a population density of only 16 inhabitants per square kilometer. Finland limits the number of wolves to 25 packs, i.e. 300 specimens if counted generously.30 In Germany, with 236 inhabitants per square kilometer, the wolves would have to be reduced to about twenty specimens according to the Finnish model. At present, however, there are already about 2,000 animals in our country, and they are multiplying rapidly.31
The wolf as a landscaper
If the wolves, as in Germany, face virtually no danger, they conquer the terrain step by step. The rarer and shyer their wild prey becomes, the more likely they are to turn to livestock. They don't have to hunt them to death like game, but get them ready to eat. They move closer and closer to settlements, villages, and cities, soon walking around in them as a matter of course, looking for food everywhere, until they finally judge people as prey by sight.20,26
In the meantime, wolves are not only devouring endangered animal species such as the wild sheep in the Lüneburg Heath;21 now the moorland sheep are also having their day. With them also the heath disappears. It is extensive husbandry that ensures the ecological balance in this country; without it, effective nature and landscape conservation is not possible. Wolf fences prevent the networking of habitats that is necessary for the preservation of many species. Only for wolves they are not a real obstacle.
Wolves can jump up to four meters high.25 What to make of experts who affirm that these predators do not "like" to leap over obstacles? This is often not even necessary, because they panic herds so that larger animals break through from the inside. "Protective fences" of 1.20 or 1.60 meters in height are as little of a problem for them as a curb is for a dachshund, despite electric charges. On the other hand, many wild animals get caught in the meshes and perish miserably.26 Fixed fences with a height of more than two meters with barbed wire and a secure protection against undermining are not approved. They would visually resemble the death strip of the GDR (East Germany) border to West Germany.
Experts are well aware that fences, guard dogs and the like have no significant overall effect against herds. Laurent Garde, Deputy Director of the French Research Institute for Pasture Management (CEPRAM), speaks plainly after thirty years of research. Everything that is said about their protective effect is - according to Garde - a big lie.24 With the ever "better" herd protection measures, the clever animals have de facto been trained, like rats in a labyrinth, to become ever more resourceful and to overcome every obstacle in order to finally reach their prey. The attacks now mostly occur during the day, and 95 percent of the cracks affect protected herds.23 Garde's demand literally, "Take rifles and shoot the wolves! We are finished."24
Once wolves have entered an enclosure, they live out their nature in surplus killing, called “Blutrausch” (bloodlust) in German.27 Then they tear many more animals, than they can eat. The countless pictures of torn open sheep, cattle, horses, dogs are heartrending, especially when it comes to young animals that limp helplessly on the pastures with their intestines hanging out and make pitiful sounds.28,29 This leaves our animal friends cold.
But as soon as they see a calf protected and well-fed in its shed at the farmer's, the tears roll. Nowhere is the heartlessness of these "protectors" clearer than here. It is not about the animal or animal suffering. It is about ego, about craving for recognition. Who brags with the noble, strong and clever wolf, compensates his/her feeling of inferiority. The wolf scares all other living beings. If the game is hunted to death or shepherds must look shocked at the bloodbath on their pasture, then this satisfies suppressed drives of many wolf friends. They like this feeling.
Dog life and bird death
Guard dogs, if sharp enough, can keep individual wolves away for a while. Against whole packs they are not able to do anything in the long run.20,26 The wolves are smart enough to split up, keeping the dogs busy in one place and tearing up livestock in another. Dog fights are forbidden as animal cruelty, but animal owners should send their darlings gladly into bloody and deadly bite fights. Against packs, groups of guard dogs would have to go to a real war. In 2020, 59 valuable guard dogs were torn by wolves in the Alpine region.23
What other herd protection animals are offered against predators, such as donkeys, mules, alpacas or llamas, but also goats, peacocks and - as a tip from Bioland - guinea fowl,34 resembles the story of the Bremen Town Musicians. The only thing missing from the colorful bunch is Alfred Brehm's fighting hamster: "At the slightest cause, he defiantly puts up a fight, growls deep and hollow inside, gnashes his teeth, and bangs them together immensely fast and violently. Just as great as his anger is his courage. He fights back against any animal that attacks him, and for as long as he can."37
All kidding aside. In addition to the shock of seeing the massacre, the livestock farmers also have a lot of costs that they are not or only reluctantly reimbursed for. Why should they still report wolf attacks if they have to fill out mountains of forms and appoint experts, only to be stuck with the bills because they only receive a negative decision? Money is only given if the cattle were killed by pure-bred wolves. Local wolves usually still contain a few genes of mutants, because they do not pay attention to the pedigree during reproduction. Wolf lovers use the ridiculous payments to livestock owners as proof that the wolf killings would be exaggerated beyond measure.
In the Austrian Tyrol, mountain farmers are giving up their farms because the packs are thwarting traditional alpine farming. Hard-won cultivated land is going to the dogs. This is only the beginning. If the sheep disappear from the dikes on the coast, the dikes are no longer trampled. If this leads to breaches and flooding, it was the climate change, the "man-made" one. This does not harm the NABU or BUND (German nature conservation organizations) as well as the attached wolf cuddle industry. On the contrary. In the end, it is always the human beings who are to blame, which can be compensated only by still more donations and land donations.
Little Red Riding Hood pulls money out of grandmother's pocket
If farmers keep their livestock indoors, Animal rights activists can agitate all the more vigorously against "factory farming”. Then the slurry is blamed for the loss of species, which in reality is only the result of the bush encroachment on unused pastures. If there is no more pasture management, many meadow breeders disappear. Then conservationists complain about the "death of birds" and moan about pesticides and monocultures. A perfect circle.
But it's not just the landscape that's being hit hard, it's also the recreation in the great outdoors that we enjoyed in blissful times without the packs.26 Forest kindergartens that have to close are just the beginning. Camping in the great outdoors is being abandoned, children can no longer cycle unaccompanied outside settlements. And wolf lovers terrorize citizens from ambush: after a mother reported that her daughter's pony had been torn, she was threatened by phone and her cat disappeared. She was told that if the wolf was shot by her report, her daughter should not only be afraid of wolves when she goes out on the street in the evening.
Thanks to decadent propaganda, some now actually confuse the wolf with their own grandmother. They open their wallets to take on "wolf sponsorships" and provide moral succor by cheering the return of the wolf in their city homes. Meanwhile, wolves walk unabashedly through our cities. If you Google "wolf" and "inner city" you'll find plenty of video footage.
Came to stay
"Experts" interpret the wolves' interest in urban culture as an indication of "frightened young wolves" that had strayed while passing through. In the case of wolf sightings, it is reflexively claimed that the area is only a "wolf transit area", that this is not "wolf country". The predators would simply disappear again, if one would only let them. The question is, where do they disappear to? To Lummerland, the fictional island in German children's books? Into the mists of Avalon? In reality they are looking for food and a new territory. On their way, they look out for sheep, cattle and horses in the pastures. In the villages they quickly learn that there is hardly any danger for them, but a solid offer of mated cats and dogs as a warm snack invites them to stay. They quickly feel at home there.
Dicey encounters between wolves and humans are now numerous. However, these are publicly neutralized with the subtext that wolves are harmless in themselves and only want to play. However, the following applies here too:
If you get bitten, it's your own fault. Here is a newspaper report: 24-year old woman cyclist of three wolves pursued. According to the Berliner Zeitung35 the lady should not have fled with her bike, because that would have awakened the wolves' hunting instinct in the first place.
Canis lupus does not need Germany, it is not threatened as a species. Germany does not need the wolf to preserve her landscape including the nature reserves. For us he it is as valuable as crabs and bed bugs. These can also claim the same rights for themselves as they are already granted to the wolf.
References
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Copyright: EU.L.E. e.V.
Originally published in March 2023 => Pollmers Mahlzeit: Wölfe - Der macht nix, der will nur spielen!
English editor: Josef Hueber, Eichstätt
