oks and behaviors. They will attack other large animals; then wolves might, in some situations, attack humans. They have a very vicious appearance when angry or put on the defense; their long fangs are a characteristic nearly everyone finds threatening. Since the 1800's, wolves have been the center of hatred for many reasons. One man said, "We humans fear the beast within the wolf because we do not understand the beast within ourselves."12 Many old paintings show wolves as very mean and fierce animals. Some Christian beliefs demonstrate hatred for wolves. An example would be stories in which God's followers are described as sheep. Since the wolf is known for eating sheep, the devil's work is compared to being the wolf.13 Another place from which this fear and hatred developed was early European fairy tales such as "The Three Pigs," "Peter and the Wolf," and "Little Red Riding Hood."14 These stories told of wolves eating innocent pigs, tricking a little boy into being eaten by a wolf, and seducing little girls. Along with these fairy tales came tall tales about of wedding parties of several hundred people being eaten by very large numbers of wolves. There were no books or research about wolves when these fairy and tall tales were being created, so people did not question the tales.15Various reasons to justify killing wolves do exist. Since the wolf is generally seen as being dangerous, they were removed to make tourists more attracted to a safe place to visit. In Alaska, people wanted to get rid of wolves so humans could have more caribou and moose. With the wolves gone, the people thought that the remaining caribou and moose would give the people more animals to hunt and eat. They also encouraged killing wolves as a tourist attraction, with the tourists as both hunters and spectators. Hunters were attracted when award money was given to people that brought the skins of wolves to the rangers. To attract even more people,...
