By: Elin Barton
Wildlife Waystation director Martine Colette made her point with great conviction. "Wild animals do not make good pets," she insisted, "and wolves make terrible, terrible pets."
Case in point is Navarre, a 12-year-old wolf who came to the Waystation as a 10-week-old pup. He was bought as a pet, but his owners gave up on him after one month. Colette explained that although there are many reasons that wolves should not be living in suburbia, the main one is that they are meant to be part of a highly structured society called a pack. Humans can never satisfactorily recreate the pack structure, and this results in myriad behavioral problems ranging from high aggression to severe shyness.
Colette encourages people to get a dog, not a wolf. "Puppies are destructive enough," she said, "but a wolf will chew all the legs right off a chair in a matter of hours." Colette explained that wolves are able to move at a ground-covering trot over many tens of miles in one day. Keeping these animals confined to a yard is cruel, according to Colette, and goes against the very nature of the animal.
"Don’t mistake love for possession," she warned. "If you love animals, then help to preserve their natural habitat. Once the wilderness and wild animals are gone, then we’re next, so it’s for everyone’s well-being that we protect these animals."
Source: Foothill Sentinel
