Somewhere in the North Devon countryside, a wolf howls. The sound, not heard since the seventeenth century in this country, when the last of Britain’s wild wolves were hunted to extinction, still retains an amazing power to inspire feelings of fear, and send a slight shiver down the spine of even the most steely-hearted. Perhaps it’s the result of thousands of years of evolution- or perhaps the fact that many of our fairy-tales involve Big Bad Wolves. Whilst the werewolf myths, the Three Little Pigs, Red Riding Hood, and even verses from the Bible have contributed to the bad reputation of the wolf, that alone is not enough to explain the primal fear that the wolf still inspires in many. However, on this occasion, the howl is emanating not from a wolf, but from a man- animal researcher, Shaun Ellis, who has made the study of wolves and their behaviours his life’s work.
Shaun’s uncanny ability to impersonate the wolf’s howl is only the tip of the iceberg where this remarkable man is concerned, because Shaun Ellis does not simply impersonate wolves. He’s actually a member of an eight-strong pack of captive wolves at Combe Martin Wildlife Park, in North Devon, three of which he raised from being pups, something he was only able to do by living with them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This kind of dedication to the study of one animal raises many questions, the first and foremost being simply- why?
When I ask Ellis why he feels it necessary to not simply study wolves, but to actually live with them, as one of them- something he has done full time for several years on and off- his response is remarkably sensible. “I found that there was a missing area of wolf research- wild wolf research was done from a distance, in a very un-intrusive manner, or in a captive environment that seemed vastly removed from the wild reality of their natural world.”
A former marine, Shaun met a Native American biologist at a wolf seminar, and from there ended up in Idaho, living with the Nez Perce Native Americans for the next seven years whilst volunteering on a project to study wolves at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. During this time, astonishingly, he was able to get in amongst a wolf pack and live with them.
Although his methods may be unorthodox, Shaun is extremely eloquent, and when I ask what it was like for him living amongst the wolves in Idaho, he conjures up images of the wolves’ ‘daily battle for survival’, their ‘feast and famine diet which could mean going without food for up to a week at a time, sometimes longer’, but also the simplicity of a life where ‘we lived by nature’s law, which comprises of trust, balance, respect and need’.
Although Shaun is at great pains to emphasise that wolves care little for ‘the emotional side of our human nature’, he does allow that ‘cold was combated by other wolves huddling with you and keeping you warm, almost sensing my vulnerability as a human’. As Shaun describes this life, I can’t help but think of some of the stories that paint wolves in a better light- the myth of Romulus and Remus who were suckled by a she-wolf, and of course, Mowgli of the Jungle Book, who was raised by a pack of wolves like one of their own, and begin to wonder if ‘friendly’ is an adjective that can ever be applied to a wolf.
There is no escaping the fact that wolf attacks on humans do happen, notably in the winter of 1450 when forty people were killed in Paris by a pack, the 1880s when 22 children were killed in Turku, Finland and in Bihar, India in the 1990s when 60 children were killed by wolves. Attacks have grown rarer in recent years, however, and most wolf attacks are now believed to be by rabid wolves, and many others have occurred during especially harsh winters.
Nevertheless, when I ask Ellis whether he has had any ‘sticky moments’ where he has feared for his life, he is quick to say that my phraseology is ‘not really a fair reflection of this amazing creature’. He does admit, however, that there have been occasions where ‘there were warnings if I stepped out of line or failed to respect, or adhere to family rules- discipline for myself as well as other wolves took place around the face and throat areas- natural disciplinary areas for a wolf. To have your entire face in the mouth of an adult wolf with 1500 pounds of pressure per square inch is quite a scary moment.’
Whilst Shaun is still in one piece, others like him have not been so fortunate. Timothy Treadwell, the American bear enthusiast and environmentalist, lived alone with grizzly bears for thirteen summers in the Katmai National Park, Alaska, filming himself and them. Treadwell believed that the bears were his friends, and his footage makes for frequently uncomfortable viewing, suggesting a dangerous lack of respect for what are wild, and essentially deadly animals.
The difference between Treadwell and Ellis lies primarily in the fact that whilst Treadwell interacted with the bears as a human, Ellis is completely immersed in wolf behaviours and methods of communication. When I ask Ellis what he makes of Treadwell, and his tragic death in 2003, when he and his girlfriend were killed and eaten by the bears, he suggests that ‘anyone who tries to speak for animals that they clearly feel a great affinity with should be commended… I never lose sight of the great honour that has been bestowed upon me, to be able to live among my wolf family.’ He mentions the late Steve Irwin as another example of someone who, in his opinion, should be remembered for ‘what they were saying, not dwelling on how or why their life ended.’
Despite his refusal to condemn Treadwell and Irwin, Ellis does not seem blinded by his love of the wolves- he is well aware of the negative associations that wolves have for many people, and takes a very analytical view; ‘wolves are the most maligned creatures’ he tells me, ‘My own theory is that people fear the mere idea of wolves, where they live and how they hunt. They can see in the dark, and we fear it. They live in the forest, and again, this conjures up all sorts of negative misconceptions. They feed not only on the meat of an animal they kill, but also the animal’s emotions prior to death… All of these things fuel our negative imagination’.
For Shaun, however, these animals are his family. At the moment, he lives just outside the wolf enclosure at Combe Martin Wildlife Park, where he spends a substantial amount of time each day with his pack of eight wolves. He holds the rank of ‘omega’ within the pack- something he describes as a ‘diffuser’, or a peace keeper. He has previously lived with the pack full time for thirteen months, and before that, three years.
In order to maintain his position in the wolf pack, it is necessary for Ellis to eat lunch with them each day. As wolves eat different parts of the animal according to their status, Ellis has his portion ‘slightly cooked’ and placed in a canvas bag inside the carcass of the animal , and then, like the wolves ‘is forced to defend’ his lunch. Having raised three male wolf pups- Yana, Tamaska and Matsi- in the past he has also had to feed them chewed up meat from his own mouth, as their mothers would in the wild. An uneviable task by anyone’s standards, though for Shaun, ‘living with and being able to take responsibility for these three wolves to adulthood, to see them grow and take their rightful place in the natural world filled me with an immense pride, that would be very hard to rival.’
Before we end our interview, I go back to my first question- why? But more specifically- why does living with the wolves inspire such passion in him. His answer is suitably profound for a man who lives with one of the world’s most mysterious and misunderstood animals- living with the wolves ‘is one of the last places on earth where people are not in charge’.