All of these things occur gradually at first; they may not become readily apparent even to a trained observer during their early manifestations, but as a population continues to grew, food and shelter decline proportionally and malnutrition intensifies. Stress levels rise and create physiological and emotional changes that seriously incapacitate many members of the population. At this stage, cooperative behaviour and intraspecific tolerance vanish because each individual becomes concerned solely for itself. The population is now near the crash point. If, at this stage, severe climatic changes occur in the habitat, these will almost certainly bring about a major die-off. All of these actions and reactions are common to prey and to predatory species alike, the essential difference between the two kinds of animals being that the prey crashes first and is later followed by the predators.
Invariably, because at such times animals are at low ebb, they are also highly susceptible to disease and parasitism and these, combining with malnutrition and stress-induced physiological dysfunctions, accelerate the decline of numbers. When man intrudes and alters habitat by logging, mining, exploration, and pollution, and then causes further havoc through hunting pressure, the result can be the extinction of species in large regions of wilderness. Ironically, humans then blame the predators, and especially the wolf, for the chaos.
The word stress has been given wide meaning in recent times and is often used outside of its natural context. For these reasons it is necessary to define the term, and if one is to understand the effects of stress, it is also necessary to know something about its biology.
Under normal conditions, stress is nothing more nor less than the wear and tear of living – the process of ageing. Abnormal stress results when an individual perceives threatening environmental conditions, but is unable to deal with them. If such conditions are of short duration, an animal quickly returns to normal emotional and physiological balance; but if the threat continues indefinitely and the individual is unable to counter it in any way, stress persists, intensifies, and produces emotional and physiological effects that can be extremely damaging. What occurs in such cases is that the endocrine system, a mechanism the main intent of which is to promote and coordinate physical functions, becomes upset by prolonged exposure to unnatural influences (unnatural in the sense that these do not normally occur in any habitat on a regular basis).
Things go awry, however, when animals not faced by a life-or-death situation must yet endure all the effects produced by over population. Such exposure prompts what is in effect a false endocrinological response when chronic worry sets in and is interpreted as fear. This causes the endocrine system to produce more hormones than are needed in the absence of a life-threatening situation, and although the animal will be restless, it does not engage in vigorous physical activity. For these reasons, the excess hormones are not “burned off”; they are excreted slowly, but at a rate slower than they are accumulated, if chronic worry persists. Studies of humans suffering from emotional distress of this kind have shown that when the cause of such distress is eliminated, endocrine levels drop off sharply; conversely, when the distress is not relieved, hormonal output continues to be high. These findings demonstrate that emotional distress in man is clearly associated with elevated blood and urinary levels of four series of adrenal hormones. A variety of illnesses are linked to emotional stress, including cancer, arthritis, high blood pressure, stomach ulcers, cardiac disease, diabetes (caused by excess blood sugar rather than by insufficient insulin), brain hemorrhages, blood clots, gout, colitis, hemorrhoids, bloating, diarrhea, obesity, anorexia, impotence in men, and inability to conceive in women, to name some.
In early 1984, after we returned from Michigan, and with events on Isle Royale much on my mind, I wrote a paper in which I summarized some of my thoughts on the effects of this kind of stress on animals and man. Later I sent a copy of this postulate to Allyn Roberts. His reply: “Let me share with you some thoughts from the psychologist’s perspective. First, you are absolutely on target with this hypothesis. The thinking you reflect is not only timely, but essential to prod us into the next step of evolving consciousness. I have been aware that statistics show an increase in many stress-related diseases – cancer, ulcers, etc. – as opposed to other disease categories. Your material offers some interesting possible explanations for these trends. . . .”
Allyn was, of course, referring to humans, whom I had linked with mammals in my paper. He concluded: “Yes! Poor diet is a factor of unnatural tension. You are correctly pointing out that while we need to be concerned about this external symbol, we need also to become aware of the internal, or psychological effects [of stress] .”
More recently, when I discussed my theories with Mike Collins, a retired biochemist who is my friend and neighbour, he drew my attention to two stress studies made on white mice, one conducted by the National Cancer Institute, in the United States, and the other by a Rockefeller grantee investigator. In both cases, the results were very similar.
The first study involved mice that were subjected to overpopulation stress for a long period. The second involved stress that was induced by frustration in solving maze pathways leading to food rewards. Their findings: Sexually, estrus was either retarded or stopped: in males there was considerable loss of libido. Physiologically, mice became anorexic; they also suffered from hemorrhages of the brain, of the gastrointestinal tract, and of the skin. In addition, they suffered from uncontrollable muscle spasms (epilepsy) and loss of digestive functions; they then became catatonic and died soon after. Social and psychological changes resulted in the spread of irrational violence, self-mutilation, killing of litters, cannibalism, withdrawal, and other conditions. Investigators noted that when stress was relieved in its early stages, recovery was rapid, but there was a point of no return after long exposure, at which time the mice could not recover.
The crash of moose and wolf populations on Isle Royale and the events preceding and following the declines of each species are of exceptional interest to all those who study the relationships of prey and predatory animals because they represent events occurring naturally in a wild habitat that is in no way disturbed by man and is, additionally, as close to the primal condition as can now be found on our continent. For these reasons alone, long-term, well-funded studies should be conducted if mankind ever hopes to understand the complex forces that govern the affairs of nature and, consequently, those of our own species. But Isle Royale, by virtue of being cut off from mainland influences, is also a unique habitat in which it may even be possible in the future actually to trace the processes by which evolution brings about natural selection not only in mammals, but in plants and insects as well.
The fact that Isle Royale wolves literally went to war in response to the stress created by their overpopulation, which is something that these animals have never been known to do before, is in itself of the greatest interest and importance to all those who are concerned about man’s penchant for killing his own kind. It causes me to ask: Is it possible that the wolves of Isle Royale can teach us why we are continuing to kill each other and how it was that man began to make war in the first place? I believe that these questions may yield answers if major research can be developed on the island. It is already known that stress causes violent manifestations in humans, just as it causes disease. Now, for the first time, we find that a highly intelligent animal that may well, at one time, have taught man how to organize his own family units, has, because of being confined on an island, resorted to internecine combat to settle its differences. When Desmond Morris noted that if one could find an animal that made war, it would be more accurate to say that it was behaving like man, he little dreamed that one day we would, indeed, find such an animal.
There is no doubt at all in my mind that the Isle Royale wolves warred on each other because of overpopulation, food shortages, stress, and their inability to disperse, as their kind will do in mainland habitats when faced by the same problems. It is tr
ue, of course, that even mainland wolves become casualties when prey species crash and overpopulation in their own ranks causes them to suffer malnutrition, illness, and emotional upsets, but the majority set off to seek new territories, leaving the strongest packs in possession of the old habitat, although the fate of the migrants is by no means certain; they may or may not make it outside of their native range, for their success or failure will depend upon a variety of factors such as availability of suitable territories not occupied by other wolves, competition from neighbouring packs, and, of course, the numbers and kinds of prey animals that are encountered. Nevertheless, if given an option, the wolves will choose migration over war, and it may well be that our early ancestors made the same choice when populations grew too large for their home territories and stress began to be felt, when groups left as a matter of course until overall human numbers multiplied to the point where few suitable habitats were vacant. War may then have appeared to be the only viable alternative to the population problem. In this context it should be noted that during prehistoric times the majority of the world’s habitats were probably incapable of sustaining early hominids who, primitive and relatively defenceless against such predators as lions, panthers, and other big cats, were forced into savanna-type niches on the edges of which lapped the great primal forests. There, these hunter-gatherers sustained themselves in part by using the leftovers of kills made by the far more efficient natural predators.
Isolated as they are, the wolves of Isle Royale can be compared to today’s humans who, because of over-population, find themselves closely confined within the boundaries of their nations. They need more food and room to expand, but they have nowhere to go short of invading a neighbouring country that, in all probability, is equally stuffed full of people.
Within the human experience, under such conditions trouble inevitably develops, just as it did among the packs of Isle Royale.
*Because the natural world is always in a state of flux-as it has been since the beginning of life-normalcy is really impossible to measure. I use the term here for convenience, in order to describe a state midway between population highs and lows, when all species are relatively prosperous, yet experience some hardships and fluctuation of numbers.
In a manner of speaking, ecosystems are what
you get by mixing naturalist’s things in the tourist’s places
and letting them cook for several millennia . .
Environmentalists try to preserve these ecosystems through
political action. Yet no law will succeed in preserving
something that people know only from a distance or
do not understand at close range.
Richard and Jacob Rabkin, Nature in the West
9
The knowledge that we had travelled only one hundred miles and that there were still 3,100 more to go before we arrived home did nothing to allay our anxiety as I pulled the car over on the shoulder of the road so that we could attend to the two howling wolf puppies. The wolf-lings were just twenty-three days old, yet their reedy howls of hunger were strong and continuous as they scrabbled inside the cardboard box that housed them.
While I was guiding the car off the Alaska Highway, Sharon busily prepared two disposable diapers and unscrewed the top of the vacuum flask we had filled with blood-temperature formula before leaving Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon Territory, where we had been staying until that morning. It was May 1984, and we were returning home two weeks earlier than I had planned, because of the need to care for the wolf pups that had quite unexpectedly come into our care.
We had undertaken such a long and trying journey from our home in Ontario as a result of my concern over the wolf killings that were taking place in British Columbia and the Yukon. Because of the very subjective reports that had filtered through the media, and also because information that I had gathered by telephone invariably reflected the partisan views and emotions of both the proponents and the opponents of the wolf kills, I felt that I should go to the locales and conduct my own investigation. At first, because the Alaska Highway presents some horrendous difficulties in the spring of the year, I had intended to go on my own, meaning to spare Sharon the discomforts of such a journey. But Sharon elected to join me, although she knew from past experience that our journey would involve driving some 1,500 miles of gruelling roadway “paved” with gravel and heavy clay, which begins at Dawson Creek, British Columbia, and ends in Fairbanks, Alaska. Because our time was limited, we drove nonstop through Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, entered British Columbia, and over-nighted at Dawson Creek (not to be confused with Dawson City, Yukon), a trip of somewhat more than two thousand miles. In the morning, tired but determined to reach the first wolf-kill area as soon as possible, we set off early, plodding northward through a vast and thawing wilderness until we reached Fort Nelson, the “capital” of the wolf killers. Here we spent three days gathering information and speaking to those on both sides of the issue.
Horrified by what the government of British Columbia was doing to its wolves in the name of conservation, we left Fort Nelson on day four en route to Whitehorse, with 635 miles of the Alaska Highway still to negotiate, a journey that we completed in stages as we stopped along the route to visit friends whom we had not seen since 1978. In this way, it took us three days to reach the Yukon’s capital, where we settled into a hotel in the centre of that city of twelve thousand people.
The next day, I went to the government building and sought some of the biologists whom I had known in the past, but we didn’t seek to survey the local people until that evening, when we both went down to the bar after dinner. Soon we got into conversation with several people sitting at adjoining tables. One of them, a young man who was slightly inebriated, was loudly critical of the Yukon’s program of wolf control.
Since he appeared to be most interested in wolves and exceptionally concerned over the government’s plans to kill them, I asked him to join us at our table, little realizing as I did so that by morning we were to become the guardians of two wolf puppies whose needs would cause us to abandon any further research and to make for home the next day, immediately after breakfast.
The tipsy young man introduced himself as Pete King and told us that he had spent three years in the Yukon and northern British Columbia, working at whatever jobs he could find, at times labouring in mining camps, on other occasions as a logger or in lumber mills. He was between jobs when we met him, but was due to start work the next week in a mining town north of Whitehorse. Having explained these things to us, he leaned toward me suddenly, lowered his voice, and told me that he had “a real bad problem.” Now, when a stranger whom I have just met in a bar tells me that he has a problem, I always expect him to ‘ask me for a “loan” to enable him to buy a few more rounds of drinks; for that reason, I do not usually ask the nature of the problem, knowing that if my surmise is correct, I will be told in any event.
Pete turned out to be the exception. His problem, as he related it to us in a near whisper, involved a female wolf.
“I got this bitch wolf, you know. Had her for more’n three years now an’ she’s just great, follows me everywhere and don’t chew up much stuff, you know . . . but last February. . . I was livin’ in Carcross . . . Elsa-that’s her name-she was tied out at night an’ I guess she made out with a wolf. I’d heard ‘em howlin’ near the shack I live in, an’ come mornin’ I saw all the big tracks, one set right around Elsa’s place. But I didn’t think nothin’ then, figurin’ mebbe the wolves’d just come in to visit . . . they’ll do that somesimes, you know. . .”
It turned out that one wolf had done more than visit, for Elsa had become pregnant and had produced six pups on April 27, a circumstance that created some real problems for Pete, who, migrating from job to job and often having to stay in motels and cheap hotels, had problems enough with one wolf. Suddenly he had seven of them!
The young man was evidently v
ery fond of Elsa and had a great admiration for wolves in general. He knew something about their general habits, but little about their biology, for, as he told us, he had left school at sixteen and had not gone beyond the eighth grade. But he was inherently attuned to nature and he was a kind person. He had never hunted or fished and disapproved of those who did, although, because he was of mild disposition, he did not often voice his disapproval. But when the government of the Yukon announced its plans to shoot and poison wolves, Pete became angry. He protested by writing letters to the government and to local newspapers; and he got into many arguments with those who favoured the wolf slaughter. He had even been involved in several fistfights.
When Elsa gave birth, he realized that he could not keep the wolf pups and he tried to give them away, a tactical mistake in an anti-wolf country where news travels fast. Hitherto, he had claimed that Elsa was a German shepherd dog, but now it became generally known that he had a wolf. Threats were made. He disregarded them, thinking that no one would dare hurt Elsa. But when the puppies were seventeen days old, and while the wolf was taking a rest outside Pete’s little rented cabin, a pickup truck drew up on the gravel road in front of the building and a man sitting in the passenger seat of the vehicle rolled down the window and fired at Elsa with a shotgun. Most of the pellets hit her right thigh, but a number of them glanced off and lodged in her belly, injuring her teats. The wolf was not mortally wounded, but she could no longer nurse the pups.
Pete did his best to bottle-feed the six cubs, but four of them died. Elsa, meanwhile, became seriously ill, for Pete did not have enough money to take her to a veterinarian. Depressed, he had decided to “get me a few drinks,” and had thus been in the hotel bar when we entered it. When he finished his story, he looked at us and asked,”You guys wouldn’t want to take them pups, would you?”
In Praise of Wolves Page 17