The morality of socialising captive wolves

Far from fearing humans, these young socialised wolves enjoy crowds of visitors

In common with most wild predators, wolves have been subjected to genetic selection by way of human persecution. Any wild wolf which permits itself to get anywhere near a human is very likely to become a dead wolf quite quickly. It does not take long for boldness or friendliness to humans to be selected out of a species by the simple expedient of killing any member of it which approaches us. In Europe, the species has been subjected to every form of abuse and slaughter for at least five thousand years and almost certainly much longer than that. Back, in fact, to the first human efforts at agriculture and livestock herding. In North America, the persecution has only been going on for a few hundred years, since the European settlers arrived. In both cases, human efforts have applied such relentless selection pressure that wild wolves are now instinctively fearful of us beyond reconciliation. We have, apparently, not only selected friendliness out, we have actively selected fear of humans in to the animals.

For this reason, it is almost impossible to persuade an adult, wild wolf to make friends with a human being. Adult wolves certainly can be socialised to a minimal extent in captivity but it takes a very long time and the process is only partially successful; it is also rather dangerous. The main drawback, apart from the sheer quantity of man-hours necessary to achieve it, is that the animal only becomes socialised to the person working with it and although it may show less fear to other people, it will still mostly avoid contact with anyone else.

It is also possible to partly socialise a wolf to human beings by having a human remain with the mother animal while she raises the pups. Ideally, this is the most desirable and humane method of socialising any kind of animal but where wolves are concerned, this method too can be hazardous and once again, tends to produce animals which are not fully socialised and are still highly fearful (Arctic wolves fare slightly better with this method).

The most certain way to bypass and disarm the animals' fear of most humans is to remove them from the den at an early age and raise them by hand.

There is a complicating factor which affects all the above methods and this a feature known as 'behavioural polymorphism'. Put simply, this refers to the fact that wolves have a much wider range of character variation than dogs of a given breed do. Within a single litter of wolves you may find temperaments varying from timid to bold, from submissive to highly dominant and from friendly to aloof. Given an animal with the right temperamental characteristics, sufficient work by any socialisation method will produce some degree of success whilst, on the other hand, there are animals which are scarcely amenable to any method. Hand raising pups achieves what is arguably the best all-round result available for any given temperament.

One of the reasons for socialising captive wolves to humans is to enable us to approach and handle them with a minimum of stress for both them and us.

The other reason for socialising has more to do with morality than practicality: When wild animals are held in captivity by us for whatever reason, we assume the moral responsibility for providing for their mental as well as physical well-being. For wolves, mental well-being includes being given social stimulation and variety to compensate for the other unavoidable restrictions of life in captivity. To deny captive animals which are socially and psychologically capable of enjoying a relationship with us - as wolves are - of the opportunity to do so is morally inexcusable and more the sort of practise one would associate with the welfare-indifferent attitudes of zoos of a bygone age.

There is a school of thought which holds that socialising wolves is itself immoral; that doing so somehow reduces their intrinsic worth or debases their nature. In fact, when we socialise wolves all we take away is their fear of us. A wolf is a wolf and nothing we can do, thank goodness, will change that by so much as one iota. It could be argued by non-intervention extremists that even taking away their fear, when it is such a radical characteristic, is still altering the animal unacceptably but this argument poses a disturbing moral question: Which do those people believe is more important - their own personal image of the animal or the animal's welfare ? - in this instance the two are mutually exclusive.

Morals can be a major cause of unnecessary suffering when they influence the keeping of wild animals. One has to remember that the whole point of morals is that they were invented to ensure the welfare of others, not the blamelessness self. Have a look at these two statements:

A) My method of keeping wolves is the most moral one. I will not permit an unwanted cub to go to someone who doesn't share my morals. It is better to have it put down. Proper morality is the most important thing in keeping wild animals.

B) I will adapt my method of keeping wolves until the animal shows the highest positive signs of happiness in captivity. If I have an unwanted cub then I will only let it go to someone who will also work this way.

Attitude A) has sent more animals to the vet's incinerators than anything else has - wasted lives sacrificed to human vanity and thoughtlessness. If you can't or won't adopt attitude B) then don't keep wolves or any other animal. What matters is not whether you think the animal is happy or being 'wild' but whether it is telling you that it is getting the most it can out of the life in captivity. Patting yourself on the back for being a MORAL person whilst ignoring what the animal is telling you is not good enough.

I have seen packs of under- or non- socialised wolves in various places. Mostly, they cower and lurk at the back of their pens shunning the tide of human visitors which daily ebbs and flows around them. So great is their fear and xenophobia that they are nearly incapable of habituating to human presence. For these animals, living permanently with such a mismatch between environmental expectation and reality is a recipe for distress. The keepers of these animals often boast arrogantly of how proud they are that their animals are 'wild'. The truth is that the animals are a) captive (Ie. Not wild and not capable of being released into the wild), b) fed by humans and c) afraid.

The situation seems to be a lot better in drive-through safari parks where the wolves quickly habituate to the traffic and are not directly exposed to humans. Wolves in these situations are clearly not distressed by the visitors and I am aware of one instance where their natural curiosity has obviously overcome their fear since they often approach closely and gaze in through the vehicle windows at the passengers inside.

Lastly, all this moralising is a uniquely human thing. Wolves are not dreary moralisers, they are happy, carefree and as untroubled by conscience and self-doubt as only a creature born with natures own license-to-kill can be. Countless fully socialised wolves around the world provide all the testimony that is needed to support the idea that, given the chance to do so, captive wolves enjoy socialising with us. If wolves could moralise they would probably come up with something like "it's a wicked world; so let's enjoy it".