Perverted Perspectives of Humans in Parks Canada Approach to Wolves
by Susanne Lawson
October 24, 2017
Image: Raincoast Conservation
A so-called "attack" on Vargas Island recently was provoked by Parks encouraging and getting funding from public use on the beaches there, where wolves have existed as long as we have lived here (over 50 years) and long before that.
The Klukwana, or wolf ceremony of the coastal chefs here has been enacted for centuries. The wolves on Vargas, which are now reduced to two out of a once healthy family, were not fed, other than a whale that washed ashore on an outlying island and was towed to Vargas to feed the wolf family there. No one fed them whale blubber, they chewed it off themselves.
They would feed on feces and scraps left by the more than 1000 visitors to the island every year...some beaches having more than 200 people on it at a time. The students that were camping on Vargas were drunk and throwing bear bangers at the wolves according to a nearby, older and more respectful, group of kaykers. The wolf [deemed a threat and later destroyed] could have killed the drunken, passed out person sleeping on the beach in a minute, but it was surprised and shocked and defending itself after being kicked.
It was the traditional approach with Indigenous People here...in the words of Tlaoquiaht grand matron, Nellie Frank, mother of Chief Wickaninnish, that...if you see a wolf, speak softly to it, treat it with respect, if you don't harm it, it won't harm you.
First Nations Chiefs and their families were connected to the wolf families in their territories...the more wolves one had in that territory, the healthier and more balanced their territory would be. If anything happened to those families, it would reverberate within the Chiefs family. It was taboo and still is, to kill a wolf and anyone doing so was in deep trouble, spiritually, physically and mentally. (I remember a man from Tofino who shot two wolves and threw their bodies in a dumpster...he ended up shooting himself).
Wolves are not afraid of us. They are pathfinders and can teach us so much. It is a privilege to learn from them. They also protect from cougars.
It is the antithesis to the approach by Parks, where their brochures state "...throw rocks, throw sticks, wave your arms....or they shoot them with rubber bullets or shoot them and kill them." It is a wonder that the wolves show such restraint in the face of uniformed parks employees. That kind of conditioning is endangering us all.
There is much more I have learned from them: I never feed them, they eat a lot of voles, mice and rats, and keep rodent populations in check. They get rid of diseases but don't eliminate species, as some people think, and they eat the sick and can tolerate that.
By getting rid of wolves, people in Caribou country are condemning the caribou to death by disease, particularly bot flies that go up ungulates nostrils and come out in sores on their bodies, a horrible disease that can affect all ungulates.
These are a few of the things I have learned living on the coast and I am learning daily. It is time to get rid of dogs in the parks and get their population under control.
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