Shaun Ellis - The Man Who Lives with Wolves

I was helping out at a wildlife center in Hertfordshire, one of the home counties, just north of London. A man appeared outside the wolf enclosure one day, pushing a child in an old-fashioned wheelchair that looked almost Victorian, with a large rectangular tray on the front of it. I was immediately struck by how out of place it looked. He told me that he and his son, who may have been thirteen or fourteen and who, I could see at a glance, was severely disabled, had driven all the way from Scotland, a distance of around five hundred miles. He had heard that we allowed members of the public to interact with the wolves and he wanted his son to meet one.

I was surprised that this man had gone to such lengths to show his son a wolf. The child didnt look as though he would get anything out of the encounter. He sat immobile, silent, staring into space, and I doubted that he would even be able to stroke the animals fur. Normally, I loved this part of the job. Children arrived with such preconceptions. They pulled back and screamed when the wolf came near, convinced by all the stories theyd read and the cartoons theyd watched, that wolves were sly, vicious creatures that ate grand mothers, blew down the houses of little pigs, and ripped the throats out of little girls. I had grown up with exactly the same terror. It had taken me many years to discover that wolves are actually shy, intelligent animals with a very sophisticated social structure, whose bloodthirsty reputation is not deserved. I found nothing more gratifying than watching children touch the wolves and listen to what I had to tell them about these animals, and watch their prejudice and ignorance fade away.

I felt almost evangelical about this. I thought that if children could feel their coats and look them in the eye, they could make up their own minds about them so that in time, future generations will perhaps be ready to give back to wolves the place in our world that is rightfully theirs.

Once upon a time wolves and men lived alongside one another, each respecting and benefiting from the others way of life. Sadly, those days are gone and I believe that we are the poorer for that. The natural balance in nature that they promoted has been whittled away and several species, including our own, have been allowed to go unchecked and become diseasedin the truest sense of the word.

This may be a little fanciful but I believe that as well as healing the natural world and restoring its balance, human society could benefit from having wolves roaming the forests once more. We could learn a lot from the loyalty they display to family members, the way they educate and discipline their young, the way they look after their own, and the circumstances in which they use their considerable weaponry to kill. The world is not yet ready for that but I like to think that in some small way my work of the last twenty years might have begun the process.

Whenever I introduced a child to the wolves, it was vital that the child did not become frightened. I had to watch their reaction carefully so that I didnt do more harm with this exercise than good.

This boy didnt speak. His disabilities were clearly mental as well as physical and I guessed he might have been autistic. I could immediately see there would be a problem and asked the father, as tactfully as I could, whether the child would be able to indicate when he no longer wanted to be near the wolf, explaining how important this was. He wont be able to, said the man, bluntly. He has never spoken, and never reacted in any way to anything. And he has never expressed an emotion in his life.

Common sense was screaming at me to tell this man to turn around, to take his poor child all the way back to Scotland, but for reasons I cant explain, and a few I can, I agreed to go ahead.

There was a young wolf called Zarnesti in the enclosure that had been handled a lot in his first few months of life and was perfect, therefore, for introducing to children. His mother had stood on him or rolled on him soon after birth, crushing his jaw. As a result he had been hand reared and was not as nervous around humans as most wolves. I loved him; he had the most wonderful character, but he looked a bit like Goofy, the dog in the Mickey Mouse cartoons.

Questioning my sanity, I went into the enclosure and came out carrying Zarnesti. He was then about three months old, the size of a spaniel and a wriggling, struggling bundle of energy. It was all I could do to hold him; he was almost flying out of my arms as I put him down onto the tray on this old-fashioned wheelchair, in front of the boy. I had the pup in a viselike grip, but something miraculous happened. The moment Zarnesti saw the child he became still. He looked into the boys eyes and they stared at each other. Then the pup settled down with his back legs tucked under him and his front legs stretched out in front. I took one hand off him and I realized very quickly that I could take the other hand away, too. After a few moments, still looking into his eyes, the cub reached forward and started to lick the boys face. I lunged to intercept him, terrified that Zarnesti would nip the boys mouth with his needle-sharp teeth, which is what cubs do to adult wolves when they want them to regurgitate food. But Zarnesti didnt nip; he just licked, very gently.