Valva - I think you make a very valid point, there is likely to be a difference between people who live in a city and who never get close to a wolf, and those who know the wolf is stalking in their back yard.
If you are interested in protecting wolves that is a prime thing to understand - you don't have to sell the idea of protecting wolves to people who live away from them - you have to convice those people living next to them that it is possible to live with them and to explain the rules on how that can happen in a way that is favourable to most people (it will unfortunately never be favourable to all people)
(Incidentally Valva - good luck with your pup!)
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Originally Posted by Joswolf
In France and Spain live thousends of wolves.
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Actually France doesn't have thousands of wolves - though no one can put an exact figure to it, there are probably less then a hundred. The first thing you need if you are going to argue in favour of wolf preservation is credibility - and one of the fastests way to lose credibility is to get basic facts like that one wrong.
Having said that - the issue of co-existance with wolves has nothing to do with the risk which the wolves poses to humans - It has to do with two very different things:
First it has to do with the damage which wolves can cause to rural areas - and yes wolves can and will kill livestock. This has to be somehow managed. Compensation schemes for the loss of livestock, schemes to decrease the likelyhood of attacks to cattle and funds for preventive measures (such as building enclosures or fences, or obtaining and training good sheep dogs whatever) are the key. These measures not only have to be effective - people have to believe that they are effective.
However - that's the easy bit. The hard step is managing the fear which the wolf creates in people. I'm still not sure why but I can tell you - some people are positively horrified of wolves.
I never realised that this could be such a strong feeling until I had a chance to watch people around me as I walk around with my wolf-looking CSVs. Some people's reactions are
extreme. For instance I've had a woman jump away from the pavement and right into the path of a car just at looking at my dogs! I've had people who have picked up their kids and run over to the other side of the street - I've seen people who literaly hide from the wolfdogs (we are not talking children here) and even people who mutter curses and seem to cast charms every time we go past them with a wolfdog. That is the problem - the fact that the rejection of wolves by a great number of people is not based on any rational argument but on irrational fears and apprehensions. You can try to present all the rational arguments in the world to those people - it doesn't matter because the basis of their behaviour is not rational to start with. Somehow you need to find a way to address fears and to make them understand that living with a wolf as a neighbour is not something to be afraid of.
Honestly I do not yet know how to go about that - I'm not sure anyone does. But I firmly believe that is the main problem, and it is one which needs to be addressed.
(Oh incidentally - yes there are thousands of wolves in Spain, roughly 2000, and another 400 in Portugal, but you have to know that they are of a particular sub-species of wolves which is only present in the iberian peninsula, so even though there are significant numbers of wolves by european standards, they still are definately an endangered group)