From Little Red Riding Hood to present day, the wolf is often given an image that is not even close to factual. Hollywood continues to portray wolves as human killers (eg. the latest Jason Bourne film) and groups advocate for open hunting seasons because they feel the wolf is killing all their deer or free ranging livestock. On the other extreme are the advocates that think wolves can do no harm. As usual, somewhere in between these two extremes is where the wolf belongs. Here, one sits down in a field of daisies just long enough for me to snap off a few pictures before rejoining the pack.
Owen Slater Photography 
Humans are prone to judging animals based on their looks. Lions are noble. Gorillas are ferocious. And so on…..
Male lions actually do very little except sleep for the most part of the day and rarely take part in hunts. Male lions will kills babies of previous males when they take over a new group.
Silverback Gorillas on the other hand, actively lead their groups and will even die to defend their group. Baby gorillas in the group enjoy a very close relationship with the Silverbacks.
Part of the blame should be placed on movie studios that finance movies such as The Lion King and King Kong that perpetuate such myths. And people need to stop indulging in Anthropomorphism….
*** End of Rant ****
Great pic, Owen 🙂
Hey Arun,
Sadly it seems like many people rely on movies to provide them with an ‘education’ on the natural world rather than getting out and experiencing it for themselves.
I agree that lions are given a lot more favourable press than others, but I must comment a bit on lions. Males that have taken over a pride will sometime kill the young in the pride as a way of bringing the females back into heat so that he can reproduce. From an evolutionary perspective that makes sense, since the male will want to produce as many offspring as possible in the few years that he is in charge of the pride. Male lions rarely hunt because their manes give them away much more easily than females. The manes protect them when fighting off other males, which they will do to the death. The young of the males will also develop close relationships to the ‘king’ but just like with gorillas, when the males reach sexual maturity they are driven out.
Glad you like the pic!
Thanks Owen for replying.
I was just giving an example of how people tend to glorify certain species based on superficial factors like physical appearance and/or myth propagated by movies. I totally agree with you about the points you have made.
Have you had the chance to observe Bonobos or Baboons in the wild.
Cheers!
I have yet to see wild bonobos, but hopefully one day! I have seen lots of wild olive baboons, sometimes a little too close for comfort! You know baboons deserve respect when leopards don’t even want to mess with them!
There is still the nagging question about why the wolves were tracking him, because he poses the question when sitting at the table talking to his peer. The best I could find on Google was apparently because they did not see him as being human (due to the super-human traits imparted by his med’s). If that is true, then it may be that in this instance Hollywood was actually acknowledging wolves do not hunt humans. If that’s the case, then indeed it is a first for Hollywood. I also noted how well fed (as in overweight?) the commercial wolves appeared to be, they may as well have used a bunch of Malamutes and hardly anyone would notice withal.
I wonder if Ben Johnson or Lance Armstrong had wolves stalking them at night when they were performing super-human feats? Maybe that is why they ran/biked so much faster than anyone else in their time! 😉
Hey, that’s pretty good! As the Brit’s would say, ‘how very droll!’. Speaking of animals stalking humans, just watched ‘Beasts of the Southern Wild’, and while this film may not redeem Hollywood, it might restore your faith in film makers.
If you like baboons, I would recommend the book A Primate’s Memoir by Dr Robert Sapolsky.
The book is as much about baboons as about Africa herself.
Cheers!