Cliff - background on Trish Wyman's death in Ontario
chance wolf
Cliff and anyone else interested, here's an old e-mail concerning the
death of Trish Wyman. Apologies for the lousy formatting. Blame Bill
Gates.
________BEGIN QUOTED MATERIAL_____________________-
Subject: 2 Ontario Tragedies
From: Nancy
Date: 1996/04/22
Message-Id: <317B4E...@ilap.com>
Newsgroups: rec.animals.wildlife
[More Headers]
A pair of tragedies engulfed the Ontario, Canada region of the globe
just
prior to April 20 weekend.
The most tragic is termed "the first documented killing of a human by
timberwolves" in newspaper articles.
On April 18, near the end of her fourth work-day between 4:30 -
6:00pm,
24-year-old Tricia Wyman let herself into a locked, 6-hectare compound
[partitioned by 3-metre high fencing from Haliburton Forest, a 20,234
hectare, privately-owned reserve bordering Algonquin Park], containing
a
pack of 5 "unsocialized" wolves -- alone, and unbeknownst to her
colleagues. About 90 minutes later, 2 teen co-workers passing the
compound discovered her body.
The first officer at the scene tried to reclaim her mangled body by
firing a shot in the air, but wolves' aggressivenes forced 3 of them
to
be shot before officials could retrieve the body. The other 2 were
wounded, and later tracked down and shot.
Nobody as yet understands what led up to this tragedy. Nobody knows
what
motivated Ms. Wyman to enter the compound alone, although it has been
suggested she might have gone in to take photographs. The wolves had
been
fed Wednesday, and sloppy reporting doesn't establish whether the next
feeding schedule was Friday or Saturday.
However, the Alpha female was pregnant.
According to David Bishop, an education co-ordinator at the reserve,
and
Toby Styles, executive director of support services at the Metro Zoo
and
animal behavior expert, common sense dictates you never go in alone.
"They're a pack animal", says Styles, "They have a very strictly
defined
hierarchy, a well-defined social structure, and they have their own
rules. If you're going to work with them, you'd better know those
rules
... Keepers can be part of the group dynamics of a wolf pack, but that
can change very quickly, in an instant. Someone trips, someone gets
scared, and that can trigger all sorts of instinctive, natural
responses
-- including attack."
R.D. Lawrence, a Canadian wildlife expert and author who has studied
wolf
behavior for the past 40 years, and familiar with the Haliburton
Forest
pack, said something would have triggered the dominant female into
attacking Wyman. The pregnant female would have been especially quick
to
react to challenge, he said.
Tricia Wyman dreamed of owning her own zoo, and graduated last year
with
an honours degree in wildlife biology from U of Guelph, worked with
beavers and bats in the Biosphere at Science North in Sudbury, and
with
birds at U of Guelph's wild bird clinic.
Additional information is available in alt.wolves newsgroup, and
posted
to this newsgroup as well, under the heading "Woman Killed by Captive
Wolves", or check the listing through Alta Vista search engine for
anar...@odyssee.net, we have established that not everyone receives
all
posts to the newsgroups.
chance wolf
wrote:
>Why dose this keep coming up? These were not wolves living in the
>wild. They were CAPTIVE wolves, all bets off.
This one keeps coming up because the 'other side' feels it singularly
disproves "There has never been a documented killing of a human being
by a wild wolf in North America", despite the fact that they were, as
you say, captive animals. It's completely illogical/irrational, of
course, but unless you post all the pertinent information for them to
read, they'll keep on citing the example.
chance (still diggin' on the others...)
dw
Let's say WORST Case that 4 people a year and 1 die are attacked by Wild
wolves in NA. This is at least 10 times higher then known cases.
Deer (not counting car crashes) kill two people a year, Elk one person,
cougars one person and bears three on average. These are ones that people
tried to collect Insurance on.
We all know how many Dogs kill.
Should we even try to compare it with MAN, CIGS, DRIVING etc.
Domestic Cats are even responsible (cat scratch fever) for three a year.
Am I missing something or is the increased at worst case still nothing at
all . .
dw
Wayne wrote:
> What we need (and what I've been pushing for for years, much to peoples
> chagrin) is a new saying. The old sayings are being used against wolves,
> not to my surprise, since they arent true.
>
> Heres one : Wolf attacks on people are extremely rare, and incidents of
> wolves killing humans are even more rare. This is one that should stay
> perfectly true for decades to come, and has absolutely no adjectives or
> qualifiers that must be changed every few years. Equally important it
> admits that it does happen-rarely.
>
> Wayne
Wayne
chance wolf
>Heres one : Wolf attacks on people are extremely rare, and incidents of
>wolves killing humans are even more rare. This is one that should stay
>perfectly true for decades to come, and has absolutely no adjectives or
>qualifiers that must be changed every few years. Equally important it
>admits that it does happen-rarely.
That'd be a tough sell, but I think you're ultimately right. The
point will become moot soon anyway, as pressures on remaining
wild-lands increase with every SUV sold, and encounters of all kinds
are likely to increase accordingly.
Besides, I think some of the anti-wolf pages (like that
www.libertynet.screed one) get quite the mileage out of saying things
like "what wolf supporters don't want you to know", and a wider
acceptance of something like you suggest might remove that from their
arsenal.
chance (who doesn't much like getting bogged down defending
"healthy" and "wild" on a full-time basis either...)