Wolf at the door again

Press, 8 April 1978, Page 14

Wolf at the door again

By

MICHAEL BINYON

of “The Times.” through NZPA

Once again the cry "Wolf” is echoing through Soviet forests and villages. The peasants’ traditional enemy is back in force, attacking sheep, dogs, and even people in alarming numbers.

“My legs are weak, otherwise 1 would have shown him.” an old peasant from Kirov said. “I was watching television, and heard someone knocking, then a dog’s yelp. I went out, and a wolf had its teeth in my dog’s leg. 1 pulled one way, the wolf pulled the other. The dog got away, but it lost a leg."

Other dogs have been less fortunate. Last winter wolves killed 30 of them in the K'rov region, northeast of Moscow, and countless huskies were attacked. Wolves even ventured into the city, and a few kilometres from Kirov a large pack was discovered.

All over the country, it seems, the wolf population has been increasing. In the Russian federation there were an estimated 2500 wolves in 1960. Now there are about 12,000 The same is true of Byelorussia, the Ukraine, and the Baltic Republics.

Wolves are particularly numerous in the steppes. In Kazakstan. Soviet Central Asia, there are an estimated 30,000, and they have recently reappeared on the outskirts of Moscow.

According to Mr Vasy Peskov, a well-known naturalist, the animals cause considerable damage. In Perm, in the Urals, they killed at least 2000 elk and 633 sheep and goats in 1976. Attacks on deer and horses in the far east cost about $2.6M. Attacks on people have also increased, especially on those trying to protect their animals. In Kirov there were 21 cases last year. Children are particularly at risk.

Wolves do not attack in the hungry winter months but in summer, when they have cubs to feed. In one bizarre incident a wolf rushed into a peasant’s

house in Byelorussia and started eating up pillows, carpets and boots. The woman managed to barricade herself in the kitchen.

After W’orld War II wolves were numerous, but they were then hunted, trapped, poisoned, and even shot from aircraft until they seemed to present no danger. The hunters put down their guns but the remaining wolves survived and adapted.

Mr Peskov believes that the wolf has also benefited from a mistaken modem sympathy for it, especially in Western Europe and America. He blames Canadian and American studies that depicted the wolf as a useful scavenger, cleaning up the forest. This concept led to an idealisation of the wolf.

This picture caught on in Russia, where conditions are different. Mr Peskov says that the wolf is vicious and dangerous, killing for the sake of killing. Its scavenging consists of attacks on the easiest prey — new-born or pregnant animals. The naturalist is calling for a revival of the traditional wolf hunt, using dogs. This has died out recently, as the State bounty of $4 on each wolf skin is too low’ to encourage hunters, who find it more profitable to go after elk and wild boar, often ignoring wolves lurking nearby.

Hunting wolves. Mr Peskov says, is a dangerous and often unprofitable sport. But it is the only way to keep the numbers down. Poisoning is too indiscriminate and pursuit by air too expensive. A good hunt needs a master huntsman to lead it, and such a figure is rare now. In the old days grateful peasants gave the hunter a pig or sheep, but today the State ought to increase the bounty to $4O.

Only in this way, Mr Peskov believes, can the Soviet Union deal with the big bad wolf.