The three kingdoms – human, animal, and plant – share the same biosphere. Because humans possess the highest form of intelligence, they bear the greatest responsibility in caring for their environment. During the development of this stewardship, certain choices were made in order to ‘manage’ the environment. Through trial and error, the best choices became the norms of society and in order to protect those norms, laws were enacted. Localized cultures formed around these regional environmental practices and today, we have all grown up within certain cultural constraints that taught us how to live and ‘manage’ our personal universe for the good of all according to our entrenched world-view.
Examples can be seen from Cro-Magnon man’s management of personal society according to the migration patterns of Mammoth or Reindeer. Later, the further development of these management skills can be detected in the archaeological evidence of the domestication of goats and sheep as well as grains such as rye and barley; wheat and much later corn.
If local society is strengthened by the development of good farming techniques to herd sheep, for example, then it stands to reason that predators would be unwelcome. The fact that certain animals were domesticated implies they were made docile and defenseless from the wild they had once known. As a result, such tamed beasts would require protection by those who benefit most from their domestication.
Wolves have always been the enemy of sheep. Mankind has been herding sheep for over 20,000 years. Wolves are mentioned in the Bible as a personification of a ravenous beast that damages the herd by taking advantage of the stragglers, the wanderers, and the weak. The basic moral desire to protect the weak compels humankind to fend off predators.
This is basic economics. Supply and demand have constrained the development of humankind from the beginning. I find it illogical and irresponsible to demonize the killing of Wolves as the result of humanity’s fear and self-hatred. The wolf is ‘other’ because it does not provide a useful service to humans; the chief stewards of our world.
Having spent much time over the past two decades in a third-world country where animals WE consider household pets, are used for other purposes including food, security, and ritual, I would like to address the other side of this question. However, I may save that for a future post.
