What to do if you see a wolf in the wild? What if it seems aggressive?
If you encounter a wolf in the wild that is acting agressive towards you and is not scared of approaching you, the following is best to do: don’t run or turn your back on them. Instead, stand your ground, make yourself as big and tall as possible and make as much noise as you can - scream, turn up loud music on your phone, anything. Throw stuff at them if possible. If they don’t go away, back away slowly. This goes for encountering a pack of wolves as well. If they attack and you can, climb into a tree. Otherwise curl up on the ground and cover your face and neck.
In case you’re in an enclosure and a wolf is seemingly agressive: stand with your back to the fence, and move to the exit while keeping your back to the fence. Make sure you don’t trip.
The above situation of wild wolves being agressive and unafraid towards humans is an unlikely one. During most wild wolf encounters, the wolf will flee once it becomes aware of your presence, or will curiously observe you from a safe distance for a while without you even being aware of it, to then most likely loose interest and proceed doing whatever it was doing.
Encounters with wild wolves are rare, because wolves are shy animals. Over time, wolves learned to see us as dangerous, and will typically avoid us. If you spot a wolf in the wild, it is most likely not aware of your presence or has decided you’re not a threat. Most of the time they are aware of our presence first, instead of the other way around.
When a human enters a place where wild wolves live who aren’t familiar with humans (and so haven’t learned yet that we are dangerous to them), there is a chance they will come and check you out when they feel you are not a threat (which would most likely only be the case when you’re not moving and are sitting or lying down). In this case I mean really coming up close to sniff you and check you out. If this ever happens to you (although this is a véry unlikely thing because as stated above, most wolves ‘know’ of humans and learned to avoid them and see us as dangerous), best thing to do is stay low to the ground, don’t make sudden movements, and don’t make any eye contact. This makes it sound like they are very aggressive animals, but this is just purely to make sure to act in the most save way and to communicate good intentions - better safe than sorry. Once they’ve discovered you are not a threat, they will most likely loose interest in you, leave you alone and no longer bother about you. (Here’s a great video from the documentary “A woman among wolves”, in which a pack of curious wolves not yet familiar with humans approaches German biologist Gudrun Pflueger. To communicate to the wolves that she has good intentions, she lays on the ground, trying not to move much).
Also it’s happening more and more that wild wolves become habituated due to people feeding wildlife, making them lose their natural shyness towards humans. This is problematic because these wolves are still wild predators who’s actions and interpretations of our actions can’t be predicted. Even a little warning bite from a scared wolf can be disastrous, and if an incident happens or if authorities decide the wolf is getting too close to people or urban areas, the wolf will get punished (which usually means said wolf being shot). Here and here are some tips on how to prevent wolves from becoming habituated.
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