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Man who lives with wolves

Posted by 9jabook.com on September 12, 2009 at 7:53am
Shaun Ellis is an English animal researcher who is notable for living among wolves, and for adopting a pack of abandoned North American timber wolf cubs. He is the founder of Wolf Pack Management and is involved in a number of research projects in Poland and at Yellowstone National Park in the United States.[1] He has worked with wolves since 1990, and before that he studied the red fox in the UK, and then coyote in Canada. The Wolfman Ellis was the subject of a documentary, The Wolfman which first aired on Five in the UK as The Wolfman on 18 May 2007, and has also been shown on the National Geographic Channel in the United States, where it was titled A Man Among Wolves. The documentary shows how, by carefully mimicking wolf behaviour, Ellis was able to raise the three wolf cubs to maturity. It also shows how his expertise brought him to the attention of a Polish farmer, whose livestock had suffered wolf attacks. Since wolves are a protected species in Poland the farmer hoped that Ellis might be able to find some non-violent way to deter the marauding pack. Ellis travelled to Poland to study the local pack, bringing with him audio recordings of wolf howls. Ellis believed that if the local wolves heard howls coming from the farm they would believe another pack had already claimed it as their territory, and keep clear to avoid a conflict. In order for this to work Ellis had to determine the size of the pack and play back recordings of a similar-sized pack. Initial results were encouraging and in the first few weeks after the farmer began playing the recordings the farm suffered no further attacks. The documentary then shows Ellis returning to Devon, where he attempted to reintegrate himself with the three wolves. In his absence the wolves had established a new hierarchy, and though they recognised Ellis and welcomed him back he was now the pack's omega, relegated to a peace-keeping role between the new alpha and beta males.
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