never cry wolf

Never Cry Wolf is a book by Canadian author Farley Mowat, first published in 1963 by McClelland and Stewart. It was adapted into a moderately successful movie of the same name in 1983. It has been credited for dramatically changing the public image of the animal to a more positive one. It is presented as a first-person narrative of Mowat's research into the nature of the Arctic Wolf; however, there is some debate over how much of the book is indeed factual. Contents [hide] 1 Plot 2 Impact 3 Reception 3.1 Positive 3.2 Negative 4 References //

Plot

In 1948-1949, Canada's Dominion Wildlife Service assigns the author to investigate the cause of declining caribou populations and determine whether wolves are contributing to the shortage. Upon finding his quarry near Nueltin Lake, Mowat discovers that rather than being wanton killers of caribou, the wolves subsist quite heavily on small mammals such as rodents and hares, even choosing them over caribou when available. He concludes that "We have doomed the wolf not for what it is, but for what we deliberately and mistakenly perceive it to be -- the mythological epitome of a savage, ruthless killer -- which is, in reality, no more than the reflected image of ourself." Mowat comes to fear an onslaught of wolfers and government exterminators out to erase the wolves from the Arctic.

Impact

Never Cry Wolf was a commercial success in Canada. Shortly after its publication, the Canadian Wildlife Service received a deluge of letters from concerned citizens opposing the killing of wolves. Though generally well received by the public, Mowat's allusions of the Canadian Wildlife Service as an organisation set out to exterminate wolves was met with anger from Canadian biologists. CWS staff members argued that the agency had never demanded the extermination of the wolf, which was recognized as an integral part of the northern ecosystem. They further countered that Mowat's remit had not been to find justifications for wolf extermination, but to investigate the relationship between wolves and caribou.The locals were actually hunting the caribou, for a sport and a food source.[1]

Mowat’s book became a popular hit in the Russian SFSR. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union took advantage of the book's message that wolves were harmless mouse-eaters and prohibited all reports of wolves attacking, injuring or eating humans, keeping such records secret. It was revealed by biologist Mikhail P. Pavlov after the fall of the Soviet Union, that this was done in order to effectively confiscate firearms from rural citizens without any resistance, as it was not in the Communist Party's interest to