All about wolves: Description, Habitat, Diet,...Are wolves dangerous? What is the most dangerous wolf?
The word wolf is used for animals from different parts of the world such as bears, dogs, and coyotes. It is known that in most countries of the world, the wolf is a pest animal because it is very dangerous and aggressive. But sometimes we are faced with the question: which is the most dangerous wolf? Some will say that the answer is the gray wolf, others, like me, will think that the red wolf is the most dangerous animal. One of the most dangerous wolves in the world is the gray wolf. Wolves are known for their very powerful jaws and ability to kill deer, even a person's dog. However, wolves also protect their young and never attack the smallest child.
Are wolves dangerous?
The wolf is a large wild animal. It is mainly found in mountainous regions, forests and snowy regions. The wolf is sometimes dangerous for the man. It is also very harmful to livestock and pets. It is the first in nature's food chain.
The wolf is nature's most feared animal. It is always ready to attack its prey. The biggest and strongest of all forest animals. He is also very intelligent, and cunning. The wolf has very sharp teeth. He is known to kill one of his own if in danger and he also attacks his own family if attacked.
The wolf is a predator, so it always wants to eat. However, the wolf is also a pack animal. The wolf is therefore not the most dangerous beast. The most dangerous animal is the lion. It can kill by goring its prey and tearing its prey. Additionally, wolves eat other animals like deer, sheep, and cattle.
If you live in the forests, the wolf can be one of the most dangerous animals. They are carnivorous animals and they are known to be one of the fiercest and most dangerous animals. A wolf can be more dangerous than a lion due to its size and strength, long canines and large, sharp claws. In addition, the wolf is very aggressive and is often seen attacking domestic animals.
Wolves in Eastern Europe
In Eastern Europe, wolves were never completely exterminated due to the region's contiguity with Asia and its vast forested areas. However, Eastern European wolf populations were reduced to very low numbers by the end of the 19th century.
Wolves were eradicated from Slovakia in the first decade of the 20th century, and by the middle of the 20th century they could only be found in a few forest areas in eastern Poland.
Eastern Balkan wolves have benefited from the region's adjacency to the former Soviet Union and large expanses of plains, mountains and farmland. Wolves are very territorial animals that often establish much larger territories than they need to survive in order to secure a steady supply of prey. Territory size is largely dependent on the amount of prey available and the age of the cubs in the pack, and it tends to increase in size in areas where the prey population is low or when the cubs reach the 6 months of age, and therefore have the same nutritional needs as adults.
Wolf packs are constantly on the move in search of prey and cover about 9% of their territory per day (25 km/d on average). The heart of their territory, where they spend half their time, is on average 35 km2.
The diet of wolves
Wolves have a carnivorous diet. Some wolves are equipped with GPS/GSM/VHF collars to understand by their movements how they select their wild prey. The species feeds on deer, poultry, foxes, wild boar, donkeys, reptiles, carrion… and overripe fruit (eg grapes). They may also occasionally hunt musk ox and moose.
In the Far North, wolves prefer to eat small rodents, lemmings, rather than reindeer, which are more fleshy. Wolves hunt rodents because they are proportionally much fatter than reindeer. This fat stored by the body of wolves protects them from the cold. Wolves are also fond of grapes, which provide them with sugar and vitamins.
The jaws of the gray wolf can exert a crushing pressure of around 10,340kPa compared to 5,200kPa for a German shepherd. This force is enough to break most bones. A study of a large sample of living predators and fossil mammals, adjusted for body mass, found in placental mammals that canine bite force (in Newtons/kilogram of body weight) was strongest in the formidable wolf (163), followed among existing canids by the four hypercarnivores which often attack animals larger than themselves: the lycaon (142), the gray wolf (136), the dhole (112) and the dingo (108).
The wolf in the world
In Eastern Europe, wolves were never completely exterminated due to the region's contiguity with Asia and its vast forested areas. However, Eastern European wolf populations were reduced to very low numbers by the end of the 19th century. Wolves were eradicated from Slovakia in the first decade of the 20th century, and by the middle of the 20th century they could only be found in a few forest areas in eastern Poland. Eastern Balkan wolves have benefited from the region's adjacency to the former Soviet Union and large expanses of plains, mountains and farmland.
The decline of North American wolf populations has coincided with increasing human populations and the expansion of agriculture. By the early 20th century, the species had nearly disappeared from the eastern United States except for parts of the Appalachian Mountains and the northwestern Great Lakes region.
In Canada, the Gray Wolf disappeared from New Brunswick and Nova Scotia between 1870 and 1921, and from Newfoundland around 1911. It disappeared from southern regions of Quebec and Ontario between 1850 and 1900. The decline of the gray wolf on the prairies began with the extermination of American bison and other ungulates in the 1860s and 1870s.
The fear of the wolf has been pervasive in many societies
Fear of the wolf has been pervasive in many societies, even though humans are not among its natural prey. The reaction of wolves to humans depends largely on their past experience with them: wolves that have never had a negative experience with humans, or that are conditioned by food, may show little fear.
Although wolves can be aggressive if provoked, possible attacks are most often limited to quick bites on the extremities, and attacks are not rushed. Wolves mainly attack livestock when wild prey is depleted (or herds are poorly protected): in Eurasia, much of the diet of some wolf populations consists of livestock, whereas this is rare in North America where healthy wild prey populations have been largely restored.
The majority of losses occur during the summer grazing period, with untended livestock in remote pastures being most vulnerable to predation by wolves. The animal species most frequently targeted are sheep (Europe), domestic reindeer (Northern Scandinavia), goats (India), horses (Mongolia), cattle and turkeys (North America).
Study: Wolf attacks in the Russian region
Estonian academics have studied wolf attacks in the European part of the Russian Empire, based in particular on the Journal of the Ministry of the Interior. In this area, they recorded 483 attacks between 1841 and 1861: 168 predatory wolves, 315 rabid wolves. 99% of the victims of predatory wolves were under the age of fifteen, the most affected provinces being those of Mogilev, Saint Petersburg and Podolsk. The months of July-August concentrate more than half of the predatory attacks, probably because this summer season sees the children go out to herd or pick fruits and mushrooms in the forest, and also because it is the time when the wolves must feed to raise their cubs.
Attacks by rabid wolves are always made by isolated animals. These attacks are brief but often injure several people in the arms or face, with some people dying instantly. Most died within weeks, before the rabies vaccine was developed. Some victims have died despite rabies treatment, especially those who were bitten on the head. Rabid wolves are considered very dangerous: in 1851, one of them traveled in seven hours about 45 km in the forest of Lorge, biting 41 people (10 men, 12 women and 19 children) and at least 76 animals servants.