[DavidPastrnak]

> I am genuinely curious to hear what you think of an area inhabited by packs of wolves - would you engage in hiking/camping/recreation in that area after dark ?

My personal answer to this is yes - I have hiked / backcountry skied on multi-day tours in areas with active wolf populations. I also currently live in a small mountain town with an active mountain lion population that regularly makes its way through our roads and yards.

I am more concerned with people, moose, and avalanches than I am either of those two. Of course, not everyone is going to have those same views.

[captainclam]

Same here. The notion of wolves as a safety issue has literally not occurred to me until this person asked. I'm very alert to grizzly, moose, and mountain lions. Is there evidence that I should add wolves to that list?

[runsWphotons]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wolf_attacks

[DavidPastrnak]

For those that want to dig into these numbers more, there was a study completed by the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research on global wolf attacks between 2002–2020.

Here is an excerpt from the text regarding Yellowstone but there is a lot of good information so I suggest taking a peek if this interests you.

--- After many decades of absence wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park in 1995 and 1996. Wild Canadian wolves were used as the source, and animals were only exposed to minimal human contact before release. Since their release the population has rapidly expanded, and wolves have been surprisingly visible to tourists from the park’s road network. With over 4 million visitors a year the wolves of Yellowstone must be among the wolf populations in the world with the highest exposure to humans. Most wolves display a high degree of tolerance to humans, especially those on the road, but most do not approach people, and will keep a distance if people approach. Since reintroduction a total of 55 wolves have displayed behaviours that park authorities refer to as “habituated” (Anon 2003), implying that they approach people or do not move away when approached. Of these, 17 only displayed the behavior on a single occasion. 38 others were subject to hazing, or aversive conditioning, actions that ranged from loud noises to rubber bullets and cracker shells. In almost all cases this hazing changed the behavior of wolves such that problems ended. For two wolves however the park had to intervene and shoot them. Both appeared to have become food habituated, associating humans with food, with one wolf ripping open some hikers’ backpack to access food and another chasing a bicycle. Most of the wolves which needed hazing were yearlings, a life cycle stage when individuals are most prone to learning new habits. Despite the large wolf population and the huge numbers of visitors there have been no attacks on people (Smith et al. 2020). ---

REF: (PDF WARNING) https://y86aca.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/uploads/20...

If you'd like to look up the PDF on your own, the title is "Wolf attacks on humans: an update for 2002–2020"

[reactordev]

Attacks around the world: “Presumably a wolf ate a small boy, never to be seen from again”

Attacks in the US: “A wolf approached a hunter who shot it to death, no injuries.”

In all seriousness. I lived in Colorado for a long time as well. Up in the bowls of Silverthorne and Loveland. Boulder and the Estes Park region. Wolves will have the same safety precautions as bears, moose, and mountain lions. I’m more afraid of mountain lionesses than I am a wolf. At least with a wolf you’ll hear it coming.

[runsWphotons]

Wolves seem somewhat scary in a different way in that they can work together. I just posted that link since someone asked. I would be inclined to guess this won't be a big issue while the numbers are relatively small and there is plenty of non human food for them.