A story from the technology of youth about wolves. "Among the Wolves"

When I was still in school, I remember reading a book with great interest foreign author titled "Do not cry: wolves!". It was the story of a researcher who lived for several years in a pack of wolves and thoroughly studied their habits, habits, way of life. Even then it was clear that the family of wolves is a very complex formation, that wolves are very smart and very interesting animals.
And now I came across an article about a Georgian zoologist who also studied wolves in their natural environment having lived with them for two years. Read. AT the highest degree interesting interview!
(Click on the link at the end to read the second part).

===============================

Original taken from Burtin in BETWEEN HUMAN AND WOLF

Misha Ioshpa and I ( yazim ) interviewed Jason Badridze. Of course,

The best interview I've ever had. Jason is one of the most amazing people in the world. He lived for several years in a pack of wolves - and brought something important to both species. He told us about the culture of animals, and taught them to escape from us. His stories are like a fairy tale - because Jason descends into those layers of consciousness in which ancient myths were created and in which people and animals still knew how to hear each other.

When I was five years old, my father took me to the Borjomi Gorge in the autumn. We lived there on the edge of the forest - and strange sounds were heard. And when I asked, the owners answered me that it was a deer screaming.
- Why are they screaming?
- Well, now they are screaming, and in the spring there will be deer ...
They could not explain to the child why they were screaming. Well, I knew that children are found in cabbage. I think: there is no cabbage in the forest, which means they find it in the bushes. I expressed my opinion - everyone began to laugh, I was terribly offended ...
Then we came with my father to the forest - and heard the howl of a wolf. And it was a terrible impression, something amazing! Everything in my heart turned upside down. And until now, as I hear a howl, some kind of excitement sets in, I want to run somewhere, it’s hard to explain ... From this, apparently, it all started. And when the question arose, what to do, I chose them.

- You lived in a pack of wolves for two years?
- Yes, I was originally an experimenter, studied the physiology of behavior. But I soon realized that we are studying the mechanisms of what we do not know the meaning of. The life of the animal in nature was almost unknown, there were almost no publications about the wolf at that time. I tried to study the group behavior of dogs - but very soon I realized that they, living next to us, had lost many behavioral traits. And then I decided to live with the wolves. I went there, to the Borjomi Gorge, and found one family. I was interested in how behavior is formed, how they teach wolf cubs to hunt ...

- Wait. How did you get to know them, how did you gain confidence?

- What is it like?
- Well, I'm trailing something (follow the trail, hunting jargon - Sh.B.) he knew how, he was fond of hunting in his youth - then he tied the muzzle with a knot. So, I figured out the paths, took old diapers (my children have already grown out of this), scolded me so that they would be saturated with my smell. And he began to lay these pieces on the trails. The matter is white, it contrasts very much - and neophobia is very highly developed in a wolf ...

- What?
- Neophobia - they are afraid of everything new. And, on the other hand, they really want to explore it - they live on such a conflict all the time. The wolves began to bypass these pieces from afar. It was interesting to watch how the distance gradually reduced - and in the end they began to tear these pieces. I then began to lay out pieces of meat there. When they started to eat it up, it meant that they got used to my smell. This all went on for about four months.

- All the time in the forest? How?
- Yes, it's okay: a burka, a backpack, bowlers. I didn't take a tent. If it was necessary to kindle a fire, I went across the river. In the mountains, the air flows along the stream, so the smoke did not bother them. I already knew all their trails, I knew where the daytime rookery, rendezvous site ...

But didn't you go to them?
- In no case - so as not to scare. And then I decided to meet. One morning I saw on the trail that they had passed - hardened, male and female - they were looking for a den for wolf cubs. And he stayed to wait for them, about fifty meters from the trail. Around noon they returned. And when they saw me, the female stopped - and the mother went straight at me. Meters up to five came up and looks. This state was, I'll tell you! When at such a distance the beast looks into your eyes. I'm unarmed - and he knows it, they know the smell of weapons well.

Why were they unarmed?
- From the weapon the person becomes impudent. He takes risks, to complicate the situation - knowing that he has a weapon behind him. I know, I had a whole arsenal at home, my father had an amazing collection, I used to handle it from childhood. And my father once taught me: to run away from the beast - there is nothing worse, it will catch up anyway. So he stood, looked, looked, then barked, turned around - and onto the path. And they quietly left. And I can’t move my tongue, as if my tongue had served time. Well, it's gone, it's really gone. But it has already become clear that this number will pass with them. He tried me - how I would react. I saw that I would not attack and I was not going to run away either.

And after that it became possible to walk with them. They're coming - I'm fifty or a hundred meters behind them. Where they are, there I am. Burka, my bowlers and all sorts of things in a backpack - and ran after them. I was in good shape thanks to my father: he was the founder of a local stunt school, and since childhood I have been involved in acrobatics, I knew how to control my body - how to jump, where to fall. But still, of course, it was hard to keep up. And they generally waved at me, at first they ignored me to the insult, as if I did not exist in the world.

- So you moved to live with them?
- Yes, I went with them all the time. Where we stop - there I stay to sleep. Somehow I slept in a cloak wrapped in a rendezvous site - I hear the water murmuring, something is being poured onto the cloak. I look out - a hardened one with a raised leg is standing, it means that he marked me ...

- And what was this flock?
- wonderful family, the best of all. The elder there was an old wolf, then a couple of mothers - father and mother, three (grown up puppies of past years) Then the wolves appeared. The old man no longer hunted, there was a small hillock at the rendezvous site - and he lay on it all the time, because the view is good, it can be seen from afar. The she-wolf brought him food - she burped after the hunt. Wolves have an interesting ability - they are able to regulate the secretion of the stomach. If the meat is needed for storage or to burp for an adult, it is absolutely not digested. Just a slime shell and that's it. This mucus is bactericidal - the meat in the ground does not deteriorate, in the worst case it will dry out a little. And they bring half-digested puppies - already half an hour after the hunt. And so the old man was fed by a seasoned she-wolf and one of the pereyarki.

This perennial, Guram - he fed me when I was sick there. I badly injured my leg, I was lying, I could not accompany them to hunt. They were returning, Guram would come up, look into my eyes - and op - half a meter away from me, the meat would burp. Guram was my closest friend, we were engaged in mountaineering together, he died - and in honor of him I named him this pereyarka. He really looked like - so tall, light, much lighter than the rest. And the character is very good. There are often fights between young people. And this Guram always won in them - but at the same time he never provoked them.

- And they all received you the same way?
- The adults accepted after that meeting, the parents watched the parents, they realized that I was not dangerous. And then the puppies were born - they did not know at all that I should not be there. The point is that these wolves saw me much earlier than I saw them. While I was studying their tracks, they already knew me physiognomically. And they realized that my presence provides them with a quiet life from the huntsmen. There was terrible poaching: they constantly set traps, chased them - they gave fifty rubles for a wolf. And I agreed with the rangers under the threat of a massacre: while I am here, do not touch any wolves.

- And how do they live, what do they do?
- They rest for a fair amount of time. They must minimize energy costs. On days where the whole family gathers, they mostly lie, look at each other, seasoned male and female can lick each other. No adult play. And young people play a lot. Playing, resting and hunting - they do nothing else.

- Do they sleep at night or during the day?
- It's impossible to predict, depending on the situation. If good prey is piled up, a big deer will get drunk, feed puppies or a bitch that does not hunt after giving birth, the remains will be buried, pantries will be made - and they can wallow for days.

- What kind of relationship did they have?
- Very good. Pereyarki take amazing care of puppies. Everyone approached the old man, licked, fleased. The only thing is that they determine their status. Young people often fight, at first it comes to blood; and then they learn to ritualize aggression - a year and a half, when the young enter into social system seniors. Adults also have a state of aggression - but it is ritualized. I can show fangs, grab - but there will be no scratches. It is very important.

- How do they hunt?
- Well, for example, the old man jumps up, sits down and starts calling others. They rub their noses. The seasoned man turns around, walks away about fifty meters, listens, returns, again some contacts - they rub their noses, look into each other's eyes, sort of like they are conferring and go hunting.

They go down the path, stop, look into the eyes again - and everyone disperses. Functions on the hunt are distributed: one runs better, drives, the second attacks better in ambush. There, for example, there was a huge meadow - a she-wolf with her daughter went into the forest, to the edge, a seasoned one attacks a deer and drives, someone blocks his path, they try to drive him closer to the edge - and there the she-wolf flies out.

- And how do they agree who will be where?
- That's it. There is communication sound, smell, visual. But there is also some kind of non-verbal connection, telepathic. This is very clearly seen before the hunt - they seem to be conferring, looking into each other's eyes, such a fixed look - and the beast turns around, walks and does what it turns out to be adequate to do at that moment. And when all the barriers disappeared, I also got it. So I go hunting with them - the seasoned one turns around, looks into his eyes - and I run to where I need to go. It then turns out that I went the right way and closed the path to the deer.

- Can't he pass the path?
- Yes, where with such horns, they will instantly overtake.

- And your consciousness did not interfere with you?
- At first it interfered while I thought what to do. And then - no, absolutely, after a few months. And about eight months later, I could already accurately describe what the wolf was doing behind me. Because all the same, there was tension all the time: these are wild animals, you need to control them. And, apparently, this tension awakened the third eye, or whatever it is called.

Then I set up an experiment. Here I am training a wolf indoors: light - signal to the right, sound - to the left. There's food in the feeder. For training, for example, ten experiments are required. Then this animal remains in the room - I introduce a new wolf. He does not see or hear the first, I know for sure - I had a microphone that felt from 5 Hz to 35 kHz. No sounds. The second wolf is trained in five experiments. I bring out the first, trained - it takes ten or eleven. For what? After all, this is connected with food: the animal gets excited when it hears conditioned signals, and, apparently, mentally repeats everything that it really should have done. And somehow it is transmitted...

In general, a lot of questions have accumulated over these two years, which had to be answered experimentally. It was food for thought, for experimental work.

- And how often do they manage to catch this deer?
- Well, if every fourth hunt is successful.

- Infrequently. And how long is it enough?
- For several days. I said they make pantries. But it turned out that the wolves do not remember the existence of their pantries. But why do it then, right? I made experiments. It turned out that the function of these pantries is not to feed themselves, but to create the most stable food base for puppies. Because the probability of accidentally finding one's own or other people's pantries is so great that it is not necessary to memorize. It's good that they don't remember them - otherwise they would have eaten them themselves, but they should be left to the puppies so that they do not starve. If the cubs are malnourished, they grow up mentally ill, excitable - and their aggression is not ritualized, it always remains real. When the she-wolf is on demolition, the family begins to intensively bury the prey. Buried and forgotten. It's an incredibly adaptive inability to remember. “Adaptive incapacity” sounds absurd, but it is.

- You wanted to understand how they teach wolf cubs to hunt?
- Yes, all large predators teach children to hunt. From birth, they do not know how. Mustelids, for example, hunt rodents, they have one technique there, it is genetically determined. As soon as the young marten has left the nest, she can hunt, her parents do not teach her. And a wolf cub can kill a rat in the game - and immediately lose all interest in it, and can die of hunger next to this rat.

- Why?
- I think that large predators have a very large species diversity of prey. They have some innate instinctive elements: a positive reaction to the smell of blood, the pursuit of moving objects - but this is far from being able to hunt. If an untrained wolf gets into a herd of sheep, he will simply be in a panic. He has no idea what food is. Their hunting is a culture, a tradition. And each family has its own. Families can live in the same area that only know how to hunt elk or only deer. On the one hand, this is a chic division, so as not to compete. But on the other hand, this is a classic example of tradition. If a wolf cub is not taught to hunt an elk, he himself will not learn - he does not even know the smell of it.

Where we lived with them, in Nikolaev times there was an imperial hunting ground. And at that time, one unusual method of hunting was described among wolves. In general, normally they try to let the deer go downhill, and he tries to go upstairs. In deer, this is an instinctive reaction: it is easier for them to escape at the top, and going downhill is one hundred percent death. And then the wolves specially drove him uphill - which ended in an abyss. The deer fell off there, and they calmly bypassed this mountain and hunted it there. The same reception at the same specific place was with me. Passed down from generation to generation.

- So maybe they don't need to negotiate then?
- Absolutely standard situations do not happen. Old experience must be applied in a new situation - that is, to think. I have always been interested in whether animals are capable of thinking or not. I experimented with the application of old experience in new conditions. In different experiments, everything looks different - both visually and physically. But the animal is able to catch the logic of the task itself. On the hunt, without the ability to think, the beast will not be able to do anything. Only it is necessary to extrapolate the direction of movement of the victim dozens of times during the hunt. This is a fairly simple level - but you need to learn this, the wolf from the zoo will not be able to. And they are capable of a higher level: to predict the result of their actions, to act purposefully. I have had experiments that prove it.

Then I also found out that wolves can count up to seven and a multiple of seven. They often have to solve problems consisting of a large number sets, and they can do it. Well, that is, he can easily find the third bowl in the fifth row. But, if the number is more than seven, it goes astray ...

In short, they think all the time. And if something happened on the hunt - once is enough, and they begin to apply this technique. Once a roe deer climbed into a bush - and could not move there. And they crushed her instantly. On the next hunt, they purposefully try to drive it into the bush.

- And how do they teach wolf cubs?
- First they bring pieces of meat, then pieces of meat with a skin - they accustom puppies to the smell of prey. Moreover, they do it strictly by age. At four months, adults begin to call the cubs to prey. They get a deer - and howl call, show how it looks. Then they are taught to take a trail and trail. At first, the puppies do not understand in which direction to run along the trail - but after a few days they already track correctly. But if they catch up, they run away: up to nine months they experience an overwhelming fear of a deer. Then they begin to go hunting with adults. At first, they just run around, they are still afraid, then they start to drive, then bite - and gradually master the techniques, by about a year and a half. Everyone has their own tricks - it depends on strength, character. Someone rushes to the croup, someone to the side. If the wolf is weaker, he will choose tactics where there is less effort, if he is cowardly, he will act as safer. And the roles add up: one drives, the other directs, the third is in ambush ...

And besides, the cubs are playing with each other all this time. If we compare how the wolf cub attacks during the game - and then on the hunt, it turns out that it is the same. At the same time, they learn to feel, understand each other. And then these skills are honed on real objects. They start with a small one, with a hare, learn how best to take it. Moreover, training goes on from one time: once you make a mistake - you won’t repeat it a second time.

- Did this family change in any way while you lived there?
- Only one was kicked out pereyarka. He had a very difficult character, all the time some kind of conflicts arose - and they kicked him out. It seems that an aggressive individual should become a dominant. But if this aggressiveness crosses some line, then the entire social system, with all low-ranking individuals, unites and expels him. This is such a mechanism that stops excessive aggression. And this beast will never be able to find a sexual partner. Thus, if it is a gene for aggressiveness, it is excised.

- And where did he go?
- Well, out of bounds. In wolves, territories do not touch, the system is not closed. The border is two to three kilometers from the border, there are neutral zones so that individuals can go out. A family cannot grow indefinitely. Although only one pair breeds, the dominant one is a full-grown wolf with a she-wolf. In perennials, even estrus does not occur, as a rule; in order to reproduce, they must either leave or wait until their parents grow old. But all the same, the litters are large - and about once every four years the family reaches a critical number, it becomes crowded. All mammals have a need to realize a certain amount of social contacts. And as soon as this number goes beyond the norm, noise begins in the group, conflicts arise. The distance during sleep increases - this is the first indicator. Normally, they sleep closely. The number of aggressive interactions increases, social distance increases - and groupings are formed. One group has little contact with the other, and eventually someone has to leave. The dominant group remains.

- And where are you?
- How lucky there. If you enter someone else's territory, they will kill you. But it happens that you can join others - if their group is small, they lack social contacts. Or he will come out to a man and start slaughtering sheep.

Pereyarka was kicked out and the old man died. It was just the time when the wolf cubs come out of the lair. Wolf cubs are born in the den and do not want to get out, they have neophobia. And the lair is always arranged somewhere else, secluded, not at the rendezvous site. And so we all gathered there in the evening, except for the old man. At dawn, I was awakened by a screech - the wolf cubs were hungry, their mother had not fed them for almost a day. Just look at them for a minute - and back, lies down in front of the lair. And elder sister too. And the rest sit around, waiting, in suspense. I could already see the day before that the wolves were worried, waiting for something. It lasted four hours. In the end, muzzles appear from the hole, so charming. It was a very exciting moment. I remember catching myself whining with delight too. The mother crawled up, licked them, came back - and then they decided. The peanuts fell out of there, hobbled to their mother, sucked. Everyone surrounded them, sniffing ...

And suddenly we heard a terrible howl, just terrible. It was immediately clear that something terrible was going on there. We ran back - the old man was sitting on a hillock and howling, heartbreakingly, some kind of cry of despair. And then he left - and that's it.

Matery took his place only a month later. For a month, I did not go up to any of them. As if some kind of commemoration, I can not explain. I'm afraid to anthropomorphize. But I can imagine: firstly, the smell of death is a very strong thing for animals. They are not afraid of death in advance, they do not know what death is. But the smell of death, while the wolf is dying, before stiffness has yet set in, they are terribly afraid.

- Do they say that wolves eat the sick, the old?
Yes, it's all fairy tales. Young people often die from fights: if they get hurt - bleeding or infection, they will not be able to move, they will weaken. Only half survive to the age of one year. But purposefully never kill. And about cannibalism is a bluff. Of course, you can bring. During the blockade and the Volga hunger strike, the children of their parents also ate, and the parents of the children ate.

In fact, they have fantastically developed mutual assistance. They saved my life too. We were returning from hunting, but the hunt was terribly unsuccessful. Either a few deer left us, or something else. All day and by evening, we were barely dragging our feet. And the wolves are tired, and I - you can imagine. And somewhere about five kilometers from the rendezvous site, a huge boulder lay. I go up to him, I have to sit down, the truth is no strength. And from there a bear rears up. And the distance is like you and me. I don’t remember now: I screamed or he made some sounds - but the wolves heard and rushed. Although one of his blows could rip this wolf apart. The she-wolf took him by the heel - and then the poet's soul could not bear it, he went down, under the slope.

Then for the first time I thought about altruism: what is it? So, this is the realization of a biological need. What will happen - the beast does not think about it. And then I realized that everything we have, what we are proud of, is not something we came up with, it all comes from there ... But it is interesting that they do not protect cubs from humans - they understand that it is better to remain a producer than to die for everyone. And this is acquired, culture. Wolf cubs are protected from any other animal - from a lynx, for example, or from neighbors, other wolves.

- Does it happen that others attack?
- It rarely happens when territorial wars. If food runs out in that area for some reason - usually because of a person.

I had a hunter friend. And once he got ready to hunt and asked me:
- What do you want to bring? Talk, I'll bring it.
I thought: “Look brags! Let me bend something smarter, ”and he said:
- Bring me a live wolf. That's what.
The friend thought for a moment and said, looking at the floor:
- Okay.
And I thought: “That's it! How I cut you! Don't brag."
Two years have passed. I forgot about our conversation. And once I come home, and in the hallway they say to me:
- They brought you a wolf. Someone came and asked you. “He is a wolf,” he says, “he asked, so pass it on.” And to the door.
I, without taking off my hat, shout:
- Where, where is he? Where is the wolf?
- It's locked in your room.
I was young, and it seemed to me ashamed to ask how he was sitting there: bound or just on a rope. They think I'm bullshitting. And I think to myself: “Maybe he walks around the room as he wants - free?”
And I was ashamed to be a coward. I took a deep breath and rushed to my room. I thought: “Immediately he will not rush at me, and then ... then somehow ...” But my heart was beating strongly. I quickly looked around the room - no wolf. I was already angry - they cheated, which means they were joking - when I suddenly heard that something was tossing and turning under the chair. I bent down cautiously, looked cautiously, and saw a big-headed puppy.
I'm saying - I saw a puppy, but it was immediately clear that this was not a dog puppy. I realized that I was a wolf cub, and I was terribly happy: I will tame it, and I will have a tame wolf.
The hunter did not cheat, well done: he brought me a live wolf!
I carefully approached, - the wolf cub stood on all four paws and alerted. I saw him: what a freak he was! It almost entirely consisted of a head - as if a muzzle on four legs, and this muzzle consisted entirely of a mouth, and a mouth of teeth. He bared his teeth at me, and I saw that his mouth was full of white teeth, sharp as nails. The body was small, with sparse brown hair, like stubble, and a rat's tail at the back.
“After all, wolves are gray ... And then, puppies are always pretty, and this is some kind of rubbish: one head and a tail. Maybe not a wolf cub at all, but just something for a laugh. The hunter inflated, that's why he ran away right away.
I looked at the puppy, and he backed under the bed. But at that moment my mother came in, sat down by the bed and called:
- Wolf! Volchenka!
I look, the wolf cub crawled out, and the mother picked it up in her arms and stroked it - such a monster! It turns out that she had already given him milk twice from a saucer, and he immediately fell in love with her. It smelled of a pungent animal smell. He smacked and poked his muzzle under his mother's arm.
Mother says:
- If you want to keep it, then you need to wash it, otherwise it will stink from it all over the house.
And took him to the kitchen. When I went out into the dining room, everyone laughed that I rushed into the room like a hero, as if there was a terrible beast, and there was a puppy.
In the kitchen, the mother washed the wolf cub with green soap and warm water, and he stood quietly in the trough and licked her hands.

How I taught the wolf "tubo"

I decided that from childhood it was necessary to start teaching the wolf cub, and then nothing can be done about how a big beast grows up. Here he is still small, and the teeth are already in his mouth. And it will grow - hold on then. The first thing, I thought, was to teach him the tubo. It means "don't touch". So that I shout “tubo”, so that he even let out of his mouth what he grabbed.
And so I took the wolf cub to my room, brought a bowl of milk and bread, put it on the floor. The wolf cub sniffed, smelled milk and hobbled on its paws to the bowl. As soon as he put his muzzle into the milk, I shout:
- Tubo!
And he at least that: champs and rumbles with joy.
Me again:
- Tubo! - and pulled him back.
And here he immediately barks at me, turns his head, snaps his teeth - like a lightning strike. And it turned out so forest-like, animal-like, that for a moment I was terrified. I haven’t heard this from an adult dog, - that’s what a wolf means ...
Well, I think, if he is like that from an early age, then what then? Do not come up then, just eat. No, I think we need to take him with fear, let him get used to being afraid of my hand.
I shouted “tubo” again and hit the wolf cub on the head with my fist. He hit his jaw on the bowl and squealed like a child. But he could not tear himself away from the milk, licked his lips and again in a bowl.
I called out in a voice that was not my own:
- Tubo, such rubbish! - and struck again with his fist.
The wolf cub bounced off the bowl and hobbled along the wall on thin paws. He ran and shook his head in pain. Milk flowed from his muzzle, and he howled resentfully.
He ran along the wall the whole room, and his legs themselves carried him to the milk.
Although I was ashamed that I hit such a small one so hard, I still decided to stand my ground.
As soon as the cub began to eat, I again called "tubo". He hastily snapped and began to bark more quickly. I hit him with my fist. He howled, rushed, and I did not have time to grab him, as he already opened the door with his muzzle and ran headlong out. He ran to his mother, thrust his wet muzzle into her skirt and whined in a loud voice throughout the apartment.
Everyone came running, began to stroke the wolf, and they scolded me for torturing such a small one.
Mom, he stained the whole skirt with milk and slobbered.
Then he ran after his mother all day, and everyone scolded me so much that I went for a walk.
I got offended at everyone at home. I thought: “It’s good for them to say: “Wolf, dear and poor,” but when a wolf beast with huge teeth grows up, then everyone in the house will begin to shout: “Look what the wolf has done! Your wolf, take him where you want. Then everything will fall on me. “He started,” they will say, “the beast in the house, now disentangle it.” And I decided that I would leave home, rent myself a small apartment and live there with my dog, with a cat and with a wolf.
I did just that: I found a room with a kitchen, hired and moved with my animals to new apartment.
They laughed at me:
- Tell me, what kind of Durov we got! Live with animals.
And I thought: "Durov is not Durov, but I will have a tame wolf."
My dog ​​was red-haired, small. She was of a secret and malicious nature. Her name was Pliska. The pliska was a little bigger than the wolf cub. The wolf cub, as he saw her, ran to her, wanted to play, tinker. And Plishka bristled, bared her teeth, as she snapped:
"Rraf!"
The wolf cub was frightened, offended and ran to look for my mother, but I already lived alone. He whined, ran around the room, looked in the kitchen, and finally came running to me. I caressed him, put him on the bed next to me and called Plishka. "Give, - I think, - I will reconcile you." I made Plishka lie down next to the wolf cub. She, rubbish, kept raising her lip, showing her teeth and grumbling in a whisper - it was obvious that she was disgusted to lie next to the wolf cub. And he tried to smell it, even licked it. The little wolf trembled with anger, but did not dare to bite the wolf cub in front of me.
“Well, I think, how can I leave them alone at home, how can I go to work? The wolf cub Plishka will eat, he will bite. And I decided to take Plishka with me in the morning. She was very drilled, and in the morning at the service I hung my coat on a hanger, and Plishke told her to watch and not leave her place. When Plishka and I returned home, the wolf cub was so delighted with Plishka that he rushed to her with all his crooked legs and knocked down the dog with a run and fell on it.
The plate jumped up like a spring, and I did not have time to shout - she grabbed the wolf cub by the ear. But it didn’t work out that way: the wolf cub barked and clanged his teeth so fast - quickly, like lightning - that Plishka head over heels into a corner, pressed herself and, opening her mouth, growled with a frightened wheeze.
The cat Manefa entered the door importantly to see what the scandal was. The wolf cub shook his sore ear and ran around the room, bumping into everything with his strong forehead. Manefa, just in case, jumped up on a stool. I was afraid that it would occur to her to scratch the wolf cub from above. No, Manefa sat down more comfortably and only watched with her eyes as the wolf cub rushed about.
I brought oatmeal and bones for the wolf with me and gave it to the janitor Annushka to cook.
When she brought the hot pot, she immediately noticed the wolf cub.
- What is this ugly dog? - And squatted down. - What breed will it be?
I didn’t want people in the house to know that there was a wolf, and I thought what a lie, when Annushka took a closer look and said:
- Isn't it a wolf cub? Yes, that's right, wolf cub. Oh my poor you!
Look, he's stroking him.
I said:
- Annushka, please don't tell anyone. I want to grow, let it be manual.
“But why should I tell you,” says Annushka, “only, you know, they say: no matter how you feed the wolf, he keeps looking into the forest.
And I agreed with Annushka that she would clean up and cook for me, and the wolf would cook a brew of oatmeal with bones every day.
I gave all the animals to eat, each in his corner, each from his feeder.
The wolf cub munched on his oatmeal, and Plishka quickly ate hers and looked back at me. I watched her in the mirror, but she did not understand this and thought that I would not see anything from behind. And now I see in the mirror how she quietly sneaks along the wall towards the wolf. Once again she looked back at me and quietly turns on the wolf. She bared her teeth with her whole mouth, her eyes were angry, and she was advancing step by step.
“Well, I think, you climb into his feeder, I will pull you out with a belt, you will know. I see everything, my dear."
But it turned out differently. Only Pliska stuck her muzzle to the feeder, the wolf - roar! - and clanged his teeth, and not past, but right in Plishka's muzzle. She jumped away with a screech, and then she had a downright seizure: she rushed around the room, around the kitchen, rushed into the hallway and howled so desperately, as if all her hair was on fire. I called her, but she pretended not to hear, and only squealed even more piercingly. And the wolf cub was champing in his bowl. I poured milk into it for him, and he hurried, lapped, only managed to catch his breath. I drove Plishka out into the yard and in the yard I heard how she tried to make a fuss. All the neighbors thought that I accidentally scalded the dog with boiling water.
And every day I taught the wolf "tubo". And now things have moved forward: as soon as I shout “tubo”, the wolf cub ran headlong away from the feeder.

Dogs quarrel

Every evening I went for a walk with the animals. Pliska was trained to run next to the right foot, and Manefa sat on my shoulder. The streets near my apartment were deserted and, to tell the truth, places of thieves - there were few people, and there was no one to show a finger that an adult man was walking with a cat on his shoulder. And so I decided now to go for a walk with the four of us - to take a wolf with me. I bought him a collar and a chain and walked down the street in the evening: the wolf cub hobbled on the left side, but I had to pull him by the chain so that he would walk beside him. I thought no one would notice us. But it didn’t work out that way: they noticed us and raised a scandal. Only not people, but dogs.
The first was a small dog, Plishkin's friend. She ran up to us, but suddenly became alert, snorted and began to sneak after the wolf cub, sniffing the trail. Then she rushed to her gate and from there burst into such an alarming bark that dogs answered in all the yards. I never thought there were so many dogs on our street. The dogs began to jump out of the gate, alarmed, bristled and with an evil fright approached the wolf from a distance. And he clung to my leg and twirled his big forehead. I already thought: should I take the wolf cub in my arms and turn home before the dogs rushed at him? People were already leaning out of the gate to see what had happened.
The plate from below looked into my face: what, they say, should I do? What, then, is the commotion because of this stuffed muzzle! But I was no longer afraid: the dogs did not dare to approach the wolf cub closer than three steps. Each barked us to her house and backed away at her own gate.
The wolf calmed down. He no longer turned his head, but just did not lag behind and ran, holding tightly to my leg.
- What, - I said to Plishka, - ours took?
We went out into the crowded streets, where there were no dogs, and when we returned, all the gates were already locked and there were no dogs on the street. But Volchik was very happy when he came home. He began to fiddle around like a puppy, knocked down Plishka, rolled her on the floor, but she endured and did not dare to snap at me in front of me.

grows up

And the next day, when I was returning, I saw Annushka in the yard: she was washing clothes in the pelvis, and near her, curled up in a ball, basking in the sun.
- I took him to the sun, - says Annushka. - Well, in fact, the animal does not see the light.
I called:
- Wolf! Wolf!
He reluctantly got up, spread his legs like a broken bed, and began to stretch, just like a dog. Then he wagged his rope tail and ran towards me.
I was so glad that he was going to the call that immediately without any "tubo" I fed him a rich bun. I already wanted to take him into the room, then Annushka says:
- I just finished, but the water remained, let me and him. And the spirit from him is already very wolfish. She grabbed him under the arm and put him in the tub. She washed him as she wanted, and he stood funny, all in white foam. He never even growled at the janitor when she doused him clean with warm water. Since then it has been washed every week. It was clean, the coat began to shine, and I did not notice how the tail of the wolf cub from a bare rope became fluffy, he himself began to turn gray and turned into a pretty cheerful dog.

Fight with Manefa

And once I fed my animals, and Manefa, sitting on a stool, finished eating the fish. The wolf cub finished his job and climbed to the cat. He put his paws on the stool and stretched his muzzle towards the fish. I did not have time to shout “tubo”, as Manefa hissed, tail with a broom and - once! once! - slapped the wolf in the face. He squealed, sat down and suddenly rushed at the cat like a real beast. All this happened in one second: the wolf knocked over the stool, but the cat jumped up on all four paws and managed to pull it with its claws on the nose - I was afraid that it would scratch out my eyes.
I shouted "tubo" and rushed to the wolf. But he himself was running towards me, and the cat jumped up from behind and tried to scratch through the wool. I began to stroke and calm the wolf cub. The eyes were intact, - there was a decent scar on the nose. There was blood, and the wolf cub licked the sore spot with his tongue. The plate disappeared during the battle. I hardly called her out from under the bed. There was a puddle.
In the evening, the wolf lay on the bedding. Manefa - a tail with a pipe - walked around the room like a queen. When she passed by a wolf, he growled, but she did not even turn her head, but calmly rubbed herself against my leg and purred on her full belly.

"Special Breed"

Everyone in the house thought I had two dogs. And when they asked about Volchik, I said that it was a shepherd dog, they gave me - a special breed.
But one night I woke up from a strange sound. Waking up, it seemed to me at first that a drunk was roaring outside the window. But then I figured out what it was. Wolf. The wolf howled...
I lit a candle. He sat in the middle of the room, his muzzle raised to the ceiling. He did not look back at the light, but struck out a note, and with his voice he brought out such a forest animal longing to the whole house, which was terrifying.
Here's a "special breed shepherd" for you. That way he will wake up the whole house, and here you can’t hide that he’s a wolf. They will go oohs, ahhs: "The wolf is in the yard." All the housewives will make a scandal and kick me out of the house tomorrow with my cats and sheep dogs. Upstairs the general's wife lives, angry and absurd. “Have mercy,” he will say, “you live like in a forest, the wolves howl all night. I humbly thank you." I knew all this for sure, and it was necessary to stop this howl at once.
I jumped up, sat down by the wolf, began to stroke, but he looked at me and threw back his head again.
I grabbed his collar and threw him to the floor. He seemed to come to his senses, got up, shook himself, rang his buckles. I ran into the kitchen and got a thick bone out of the soup. The wolf lay down on the bedding and began to gnaw. With his white teeth he gnawed at large oxbones like crackers. It just crunched. I put out the candle, began to fall asleep, - as my wolf pulls a note, stronger than before. I quickly dressed and dragged the wolf out into the yard. I began to play with him, run around the yard. And I noticed here, at night, that, not knowing, I would have taken him for a respectable yard dog. And no one noticed: my dog ​​did not bark. Trouble if they find out that he howls at night!
Now I have no rest at night. I used to sit for an hour and persuade the wolf, I entertained him, shoved him bones, so that somehow he would forget about the howl. I looked after him as if he were a patient with seizures. After two weeks, he stopped howling. But during this time we became friends with him. When I returned home, he put his paws on my shoulders, and I felt how strong he had them - like iron sticks. I walked with him during the day, and everyone looked at the big dog with a special gait. When he ran, he sprung so easily with his hind legs; he knew how to look back, completely turning his head to the tail, and at the same time run straight ahead.

Learned

He was completely tame, and acquaintances, when they came, stroked him and patted him on the back, like a simple dog.
And now I'm sitting in the park on a bench. A wolf sat on the ground between my knees and breathes a hot spirit, hanging its long tongue over its teeth.
Small children played in the sand, and nannies on the bench husked seeds.
The guys started coming up to me.
- What a good dog! Fluffy and tongue red. Doesn't bite?
- No, - I say. - She's meek.
- Can I stroke a little?
I said "tubo" to the wolf. He already knew this well, and the children, who were bolder, began to carefully stroke. I stroked along with them, so that the wolf knew that my hand was there too. The nannies came up and asked:
- Won't bite?
Suddenly one nanny came up, looked and how she groaned:
- Oh, mother, wolf!
The children squealed and jumped like chickens. The wolf was so frightened that he turned around on the spot, hid his muzzle between my knees and flattened his ears.
When everyone calmed down a bit, I said:
- They scared the wolf. See how humble he is.
But where is it! The nannies pull the children away by the hand and do not order to look back. Only two boys who were without nannies came up to me, stood a meter away and said:
- Is it a wolf?
“Right,” I say.
- Real?
- Real.
- Well, - they say, - be afraid.
- By God, - I say, - real.
- Yeah, - they say, - then you tied him to your hand. Well, give me another stroke. Something real.
It was really like this: I tied the chain from the wolf with a belt to my left hand - in case it twitches or rushes, it won’t come off me. Even if I fall off my feet, it still won't go away.

missed

Annushka taught the wolf so much that he would never leave the gate alone. He approaches the gate, looks out into the street, sniffs the air with his nose, sniffs, growls at the passing dogs, but does not step over the threshold with his paw. Maybe he himself was afraid to jump out alone.
Here I am back home. Annushka was sitting in the yard, sewing in the sun under the window, and the wolf lay in a ball at her feet - a big gray animal. I called out; the wolf jumped up to me. And then I remembered that I had not bought a cigarette. And the peddler was standing ten paces from the gate with the tray. I jumped out of the gate, the wolf followed me. I take change from the peddler and hear - from behind a dog barking, barking, squabbling. I looked back - oh, trouble! My wolf is sitting, pressed into the corner of the gate, and two big dogs pounced, pinned him, advancing. The wolf turns its head, its eyes burn, and its teeth clang quickly, like shots: whip! whip! Right left!
The dogs are pushing, looking for a place where to grab, and the barking is so worthy that my cry is not heard. I ran towards the wolf. The dogs, apparently, realized that a man was running to their aid, and one rushed at the wolf.
Before he could blink, the wolf pulled her by the scruff of the neck and threw her onto the pavement. She rolled and screeched away. Another jumped for me. The wolf rushed, knocked me down, but I managed to grab him by the collar, and he dragged me two steps along the pavement. A hawker with a tray to the side. And the wolf is torn, I flounder on my back, I don’t let go of the collar.
Then Annushka ran out of the gate. She ran in front and buried the wolf's muzzle into her knees.
- Let me, - shouts, - I already took it!
That's right: Annushka took the wolf by the collar, and together we took him home.
When I then went outside the gate, I saw blood. The bloody path went through the square, where the dog ran. I remembered that a lot of people had gathered to watch our scandal, and tenants leaned out of the windows. And someone shouted: “Mad! Mad!"
It was the general's wife who lived above me shouting.

Trouble

For two days I did not let the wolf out into the yard, only in the evenings I took him for a walk on a chain. On the second night he howled, and howled unbearably: loud as a trumpet, and so desperately, so melancholy, as if roaring over the dead. They knocked on my ceiling.
I jumped out with the wolf into the yard. I saw light flash in the windows, a shadow flicker. Apparently, the lady was taken aback.
The next morning I heard her shouting at the janitor in the yard:
- Disgrace! Where is it allowed to keep rabid dogs in the house? Howls like a wolf at night. Didn't sleep all night. Now I will declare. Right now!
Annushka brought the oatmeal to the wolf all in tears.
- What happened? - I ask.
- Yes, what is worse - the lady scandalizes. To the police, he says, I will declare! So this janitor, my husband, means out of the house: he shelters rabid dogs, he says he doesn’t look at anything. And he is like family to me.
- Who is it? - I say.
- Yes, Wolf! - And sat down to him, stroking. - Eat, eat, dear. My orphan!
When I was walking home from work, a police officer stopped me on the street:
- Excuse me, are you holding a wolf?
I looked at the bailiff and did not know what to say.
“But I have known for a long time,” says the bailiff. He grins and twirls his mustache. - There, you see, the complaint has arrived. Generalsha Chistyakova. But, you know, here's what I advise you: give me your beast, by God. And the bailiff smiled pleadingly. - By God, give. I have sheep on my estate, and they are guarded by sheep dogs. Here are some. - And showed almost a meter from the ground. - So from your wolf good kids will be - evil, first grade.
And he will make friends with dogs, he will live in freedom. BUT? Right. And in the city you will have some scandals with him. I can guarantee that there will be scandals. And then the bailiff frowned. - That's really one complaint is: keep in mind. So how? By hand, right?
“No,” I said. - I'm sorry to give. I'll arrange it somehow.
- Well, sell! - shouted the bailiff. - Sell it, damn it! How many you want?
- No, and I won’t sell it, - I said and quickly walked away.
So I'll steal! the bailiff called after me. - Hear: u-kra-du!
I waved my hand and walked even faster. At home I told Annushka what the bailiff had said.
“Take care of the wolf,” I said.
Annushka didn't answer, she just frowned.
In the yard I ran into General Chistyakova. She suddenly blocked my way. He looks me evil in the eyes, and his lower lip is trembling. And suddenly, as the umbrella hits the floor:
Will we be out of danger soon?
- From what? - I ask.
- From a rabid dog! - shouts the general.
- You, apparently, madam, bitten, but it's not mine.

From captivity

It's been five days. I was on duty. I was told that some woman was asking me, and that now, immediately. I ran. Annushka was standing on the stairs.
- Oh, run, - he says, - run quickly: the bailiff took our wolf to the station. He's in the police there.
I grabbed my hat. On the way, Annushka told me that the bailiff ordered the janitor to take the wolf to the police, and that the janitor did not dare to disobey: he took him and tied him in the yard at the police station.
When I opened the gate at the police gate, I immediately saw a crowd of people at the end of the yard: policemen and firemen were standing in a dense crowd, shouting, shouting. I quickly walked across the yard and, as I approached, I heard shouting:
- What, gray, got caught?
I pushed through people. The wolf on a chain was tied to a ring. He sat on his hind legs, his tail between his legs and snarled at the policemen. The wolf noticed me first. He jerked, jumped up on his hind legs and pulled the chain. Everyone shrank back. I removed the chain from the ring and quickly wound it around my hand.
They shouted all around:
- Where did you take him? What is he, yours?
- And if you are the owner, then take it! I shouted.
Everyone parted. Suddenly someone yelled:
- Lock the gate, hurry!
And one policeman ran to the gate.
- Stop! I'll release the wolf! I shouted to the whole yard.
The policeman jumped back and stood.
And the wolf pulled me so hard that I could barely keep up with him. We ran to the gate, I threw back the door, the wolf jumped over the threshold and rushed to the right, home. They whistled behind. We were already around the corner. Now the square, and through the square and our house. I heard feet stomping behind me, whistles whistling. But I didn't look back and ran. Here is the square now. The area is empty. And Annushka is standing at the gate. I threw the chain, and the wolf began to make huge leaps towards the house. Annushka squatted down, and I saw how she caught him by the neck.
I took a breath and looked around: two policemen stopped. One angrily spat on the ground and waved his hand.

Quite the end

I decided to move to another district, where this bailiff is not the boss and where he does not mean anything. I started looking for a new apartment. I reproached the janitor for meanness:
- Why was it necessary to take the wolf away from me? Why would I do such a stupid thing?
- Yes, you, - he says, - enter into my position: the wolf is fun for you, but if I don’t bring him when they say, it turns out that he’s out of his place. I'm only a broom and I can wield. Get kicked out - where will I go? Are you going to feed me? Is it possible for you to hire wolves? I didn't know what to say. Okay, I'll move.
I saw the bailiff across the street. He did sly face and slyly shook his finger at me. And I told him too.
I bought the wolf a muzzle. At first he tore it off with his paws, but still he got used to it, and now, in a collar, with a muzzle, he was just like a dog.
Everything free time I walked with the wolf - we were looking for an apartment. I had found it, all I had to do was move.
And then I came home from work. At the gate Annushka in tears:
- Again! Again!
- What, they took you away? - And I twitched to run to the police.
But Annushka grabbed my sleeve:
- Go without work. He took away, took away, accursed, to himself! I myself saw how they put it on the cart. Tied up - and for hay. But the horses cannot be kept.
I still ran to the station. There was no bailiff: he went to his estate.
I found out: everything was as Annushka said.

Interview with Jason Badridze.
Jason is one of the most amazing people in the world. He lived for several years in a pack of wolves - and brought something important to both species. He told us about the culture of animals, and taught them to escape from us. His stories are like a fairy tale - because Jason descends into those layers of consciousness in which ancient myths were created and in which people and animals still knew how to hear each other.

When I was five years old, my father took me to the Borjomi Gorge in the autumn. We lived there on the edge of the forest - and strange sounds were heard. And when I asked, the owners answered me that it was a deer screaming.
- Why are they screaming?
- Well, now they are screaming, and in the spring there will be deer ...
They could not explain to the child why they were screaming. Well, I knew that children are found in cabbage. I think: there is no cabbage in the forest, which means they find it in the bushes. I expressed my opinion - everyone began to laugh, I was terribly offended ...
Then we came with my father to the forest - and heard the howl of a wolf. And it was a terrible impression, something amazing! Everything in my heart turned upside down. And until now, as I hear a howl, some kind of excitement sets in, I want to run somewhere, it’s hard to explain ... From this, apparently, it all started. And when the question arose, what to do, I chose them.
- You lived in a pack of wolves for two years?
- Yes, I was originally an experimenter, studied the physiology of behavior. But I soon realized that we are studying the mechanisms of what we do not know the meaning of. The life of the animal in nature was almost unknown, there were almost no publications about the wolf at that time. I tried to study the group behavior of dogs - but very soon I realized that they, living next to us, had lost many behavioral traits. And then I decided to live with the wolves.

I went there, to the Borjomi Gorge, and found one family. I was interested in how behavior is formed, how they teach wolf cubs to hunt ...
- Wait. How did you get to know them, how did you gain confidence?
- Firstly, I had to determine their main paths.

What is it like?
- Well, I knew how to trail (follow the trail, hunting jargon - Sh.B.), I was fond of hunting in my youth - then I tied the muzzle with a knot. So, I figured out the paths, took old diapers (my children have already grown out of this), scolded me so that they would be saturated with my smell. And he began to lay these pieces on the trails. The matter is white, it contrasts very much - and the neophobia of the wolf is very highly developed ...

What?
- Neophobia - they are afraid of everything new. And, on the other hand, they really want to explore it - they live on such a conflict all the time. The wolves began to bypass these pieces from afar. It was interesting to watch how the distance gradually reduced - and in the end they began to tear these pieces. I then began to lay out pieces of meat there. When they started to eat it up, it meant that they got used to my smell. This all went on for about four months.

All the time in the forest? How?
- Yes, it's okay: a burka, a backpack, bowlers. I didn't take a tent. If it was necessary to kindle a fire, I went across the river. In the mountains, the air flows along the stream, so the smoke did not bother them. I already knew all their trails, I knew where the daytime rookery, rendezvous site ...

But didn't you go to them?
- In no case - so as not to scare. And then I decided to meet. One morning I saw on the trail that they had passed - hardened, male and female - they were looking for a den for wolf cubs. And he stayed to wait for them, about fifty meters from the trail. Around noon they returned. And when they saw me, the female stopped - and the seasoned one went straight at me. Meters up to five came up and looks. This state was, I'll tell you! When at such a distance the beast looks into your eyes. I'm unarmed - and he knows it, they know the smell of weapons well.

Why were they unarmed?
- From the weapon the person becomes impudent. He takes risks, to complicate the situation - knowing that he has a weapon behind him. I know, I had a whole arsenal at home, my father had an amazing collection, I used to handle it from childhood. And my father once taught me: to run away from the beast - there is nothing worse, it will catch up anyway. So he stood, looked, looked, then barked, turned around - and onto the path. And they quietly left. And I can’t move my tongue, as if my tongue had served time. Well, it's gone, it's really gone. But it has already become clear that this number will pass with them. He tried me - how I would react. I saw that I would not attack and I was not going to run away either.

And after that it became possible to walk with them. They're coming - I'm fifty or a hundred meters behind them. Where they are, there I am. Burka, my bowlers and all sorts of things in a backpack - and ran after them. I was in good shape thanks to my father: he was the founder of a local stunt school, and since childhood I have been involved in acrobatics, I knew how to control my body - how to jump, where to fall. But still, of course, it was hard to keep up. And they generally waved at me, at first they ignored me to the insult, as if I did not exist in the world.

So you moved in with them?
- Yes, I went with them all the time. Where we stop - there I stay to sleep. Once I slept in a cloak wrapped in a rendezvous site - I hear water murmuring, something is poured onto the cloak. I look out - a hardened one with a raised leg is standing, it means that he marked me ...

And what was this flock?
- A wonderful family, the best of all. The eldest was an old wolf, then a couple of mothers - father and mother, three pereyarki (grown up puppies of past years), then wolf cubs appeared. The old man no longer hunted, there was a small hillock for the rendezvous site - and he lay on it all the time, because the view is good, it can be seen from afar. The she-wolf brought him food - she burped after the hunt. Wolves have an interesting ability - they are able to regulate the secretion of the stomach. If the meat is needed for storage or to burp for an adult, it is absolutely not digested. Just a slime shell and that's it. This mucus is bactericidal - the meat in the ground does not deteriorate, in the worst case it will dry out a little. And they bring half-digested puppies to puppies - already half an hour after the hunt. And so the old man was fed by a seasoned she-wolf and one of the pereyarki.

This perennial, Guram - he fed me when I was sick there. I badly injured my leg, I was lying, I could not accompany them to hunt. They were returning, Guram would come up, look into my eyes - and op - half a meter away from me, the meat would burp. Guram was my closest friend, we were engaged in mountaineering together, he died - and in honor of him I named him this pereyarka. He really looked like - so tall, light, much lighter than the rest. And the character is very good. There are often fights between young people. And in them this Guram always won - but at the same time he never provoked them.

And they all treated you the same way?
- The adults accepted after that meeting, the parents watched the parents, they realized that I was not dangerous. And then the puppies were born - they did not know at all that I should not be there. The point is that these wolves saw me much earlier than I saw them. While I was studying their tracks, they already knew me physiognomically. And they realized that my presence provides them with a quiet life from the huntsmen. There was terrible poaching: they constantly set traps, chased them - they gave fifty rubles for a wolf. And I agreed with the rangers under the threat of a massacre: while I am here, do not touch any wolves.

And how do they live, what do they do?
- They rest for a fair amount of time. They must minimize energy costs. On days where the whole family gathers, they mostly lie, look at each other, seasoned male and female can lick each other. No adult play. And young people play a lot. Playing, resting and hunting - they do nothing else.

Do they sleep at night or during the day?
- It's impossible to predict, depending on the situation. If good prey is piled up, a big deer will get drunk, they will feed the puppies or the bitch, which does not hunt after giving birth, the remains will be buried, pantries will be made - and they can wallow for days.

What kind of relationship did they have?
- Very good. Pereyarki take amazing care of puppies. Everyone approached the old man, licked, fleased. The only thing is that they determine their status. Young people often fight, at first it comes to blood; and then they learn to ritualize aggression - a year and a half, when the young enter the social system of the elders. Adults also have a state of aggression - but it is ritualized. I can show fangs, grab - but there will be no scratches. It is very important.

How do they hunt?
- Well, for example, the old man jumps up, sits down and starts calling others. They rub their noses. The seasoned man turns around, walks away about fifty meters, listens, returns, again some contacts - they rub their noses, look into each other's eyes, sort of like they are conferring and go hunting.

They go down the path, stop, look into the eyes again - and everyone disperses. Functions on the hunt are distributed: one runs better, drives, the second attacks better in ambush. There, for example, there was a huge meadow - a she-wolf with her daughter went into the forest, to the edge, the seasoned one attacks the deer and drives, someone blocks his path, they try to drive him closer to the edge - and there the she-wolf flies out.

And how do they agree who will be where?
- That's it. There is communication sound, smell, visual. But there is also some kind of non-verbal connection, telepathic. This is very well seen before the hunt - they seem to be conferring, looking into each other's eyes, such a fixed look - and the beast turns around, goes and does what it turns out to be adequate to do at that moment. And when all the barriers disappeared, I also got it. So I go hunting with them - the seasoned one turns around, looks into his eyes - and I run where I need to. It then turns out that I went the right way and closed the path to the deer.

Can't he just walk past the path?
- Yes, where with such horns, they will instantly overtake.

And your consciousness did not interfere with you?
- At first it interfered while I thought what to do. And then - no, absolutely, after a few months. And about eight months later, I could already accurately describe what the wolf was doing behind me. Because all the same, there was tension all the time: these are wild animals, you need to control them. And, apparently, this tension awakened the third eye, or whatever it is called.

Then I set up an experiment. Here I am training a wolf in a closed room: light is a signal to the right, sound is to the left. There's food in the feeder. For training, for example, ten experiments are required. Then this animal remains in the room - I introduce a new wolf. He does not see or hear the first, I know for sure - I had a microphone that felt from 5 Hz to 35 kHz. No sounds. The second wolf is trained in five experiments. I bring out the first, trained one - you need ten or eleven. For what? After all, this is connected with food: the animal gets excited when it hears conditioned signals, and, apparently, mentally repeats everything that it really should have done. And somehow it is transmitted...

In general, a lot of questions have accumulated over these two years, which had to be answered experimentally. It was food for thought, for experimental work.

And how often do they manage to catch this deer?
- Well, if every fourth hunt is successful.

Infrequently. And how long is it enough?
- For several days. I said they make pantries. But it turned out that the wolves do not remember the existence of their pantries. But why do it then, right? I made experiments. It turned out that the function of these pantries is not to feed themselves, but to create the most stable food base for puppies. Because the probability of accidentally finding one's own or other people's pantries is so great that it is not necessary to memorize. It's good that they don't remember them - otherwise they would have eaten them themselves, but they should be left to the puppies so that they do not starve. If the cubs are malnourished, they grow up mentally ill, excitable - and their aggression is not ritualized, it always remains real. When the she-wolf is on demolition, the family begins to intensively bury the prey. Buried and forgotten. It's an incredibly adaptive inability to remember. “Adaptive incapacity” sounds absurd, but it is true.

Did you want to understand how they teach wolf cubs to hunt?
- Yes, all large predators teach children to hunt. From birth, they do not know how. Mustelids, for example, hunt rodents, they have one technique there, it is genetically determined. As soon as the young marten has left the nest, she can hunt, her parents do not teach her. And a wolf cub can kill a rat in the game - and immediately lose all interest in it, and can die of hunger next to this rat.

Why?
- I think that large predators have a very large species diversity of prey. They have some innate instinctive elements: a positive reaction to the smell of blood, the pursuit of moving objects - but this is far from being able to hunt. If an untrained wolf gets into a herd of sheep, he will simply be in a panic. He has no idea what food is. Hunting is their culture and tradition. And each family has its own. Families can live in the same area that only know how to hunt elk or only deer. On the one hand, this is a chic division, so as not to compete. But on the other hand, this is a classic example of tradition. If a wolf cub is not taught to hunt an elk, he himself will not learn - he does not even know the smell of it.

Where we lived with them, in Nikolaev times there was an imperial hunting ground. And at that time, one unusual method of hunting was described among wolves. In general, normally they try to let the deer go downhill, and he tries to go upstairs. In deer, this is an instinctive reaction: it is easier for them to escape at the top, and going downhill is one hundred percent death. And then the wolves specially drove him uphill - which ended in an abyss. The deer fell off there, and they calmly bypassed this mountain and hunted it there. The same reception at the same specific place was with me. Passed down from generation to generation.

So maybe they don't need to negotiate then?
- Absolutely standard situations do not happen. Old experience must be applied in a new situation - that is, to think. I have always been interested in whether animals are capable of thinking or not. I experimented with the application of old experience in new conditions. In different experiments, everything looks different - both visually and physically. But the animal is able to catch the logic of the task itself. On the hunt, without the ability to think, the beast will not be able to do anything. Only it is necessary to extrapolate the direction of movement of the victim dozens of times during the hunt. This is a fairly simple level - but you need to learn this, the wolf from the zoo will not be able to. And they are capable of a higher level: to predict the result of their actions, to act purposefully. I have had experiments that prove it.

Then I also found out that wolves can count up to seven and a multiple of seven. They often have to solve problems consisting of a large number of sets, and they can do it. Well, that is, he can easily find the third bowl in the fifth row. But, if the number is more than seven, it goes astray ...

In short, they think all the time. And if something happened on the hunt, once is enough, and they begin to apply this technique. Once a roe deer climbed into a bush - and could not move there. And they crushed her instantly. On the next hunt, they purposefully try to drive it into the bush.

And how do they teach wolf cubs?
- First they bring pieces of meat, then pieces of meat with a skin - they accustom puppies to the smell of prey. Moreover, they do it strictly by age. At four months, adults begin to call the cubs to prey. They will get a deer - and howl call, show how it looks. Then they are taught to take a trail and trail. At first, the puppies do not understand in which direction to run along the trail - but after a few days they already track correctly. But if they catch up, they run away: up to nine months they experience an overwhelming fear of a deer. Then they begin to go hunting with adults. At first, they just run around, they are still afraid, then they start to drive, then bite - and gradually master the techniques, by about a year and a half. Everyone has their own tricks - it depends on strength, character. Someone rushes to the croup, someone to the side. If the wolf is weaker, he will choose tactics where there is less effort, if cowardly, he will act as safer. And the roles add up: one drives, the other directs, the third is in ambush ...

And besides, the cubs are playing with each other all this time. If we compare how the wolf cub attacks during the game - and then on the hunt, it turns out that it is the same. At the same time, they learn to feel, understand each other. And then these skills are honed on real objects. They start with a small one, with a hare, learn how best to take it. Moreover, training goes on from one time: once you made a mistake - you won’t repeat it a second time.

Did your wolves howl at the moon?
- They do not howl at the moon, just a full moon causes a surge of emotions.

Why are they howling?
- Communicate with other groups, this is social contact, "touch". In addition, this is information - about the distance to other animals, about the status, about emotional state. Everyone has their own party - and apparently, they are strictly functional.

How do they know how to howl?
- In general, there are two categories of sounds. Congenital, to which the reaction of others is also innate. For example, the sound of danger is such a snorting bark. Puppies hear him - run away, although no one taught them. And there are acquired sounds that have been taught. Moreover, there are dialects: for example, a Kakhetian wolf is unlikely to understand a wolf from Western Georgia. I was in Canada, at the invitation of John Teberg, came to national park. I started wailing (howling invitingly), turned around - ul-lu-lu - in Georgian, let out curlicues - and in general the wolves did not give a damn about me. I was terribly offended. And Teberge just played the clarinet like that - uuuu - and that's it, they went crazy, they began to wail.

And what do all these curls mean? What do they say to each other?
- If I knew, I would make a dictionary. These questions also interest me terribly - it's a pity that there is no opportunity to study. Various information is transmitted. For example, I found that parents, when wolf cubs call to prey at a great distance, then howl explain how to go. There are trails, you can't go straight. The seasoned one goes to the turn - howls, the puppy hears. Then until the next - there will howl. At four or five months, the cubs already understand, this zigzag is formed in the imagination, they easily find it. There is a howl for gathering the pack - when the group disperses and the wolf is bored. This sound is easy to distinguish - it brings such melancholy, turns the soul out. To be honest, there are many different views on this topic, but so far little is clear. There is such a San Sanych Nikolsky in Moscow, he knows all this better, ask him.

And you sat with them for two years? Without getting out?
- No, when you sit in the forest for three months, the soul of human communication requires. Sometimes I returned home, to Tbilisi for a few days, it was impossible for longer, so as not to lose the habit.

Did you say you already had children?
Yes, there were small children. The children in the apartment with the wolves grew up, it was a whole mess. In general, I was such a black sheep, because all normal zoologists dealt with animals that can be eaten. “How to deal with an animal that cannot be eaten? I would take care of the deer!” They were sure that I still earn money on my wolves, I kill them, I sell their skins. These people could not but think so: the salary was one hundred and forty rubles, and for a wolf they gave fifty rubles as a bonus. Surely someone sent financial inspectors: where are the wolf cases? Wolves often die. I say buried. Well, how could they believe that I buried such money? I had to go there, dig up these unfortunate ones, already decomposed, at least to find wool. And I earned money in different ways: I was engaged in chasing, I made jewelry, according to cupronickel, silver, I sold on the sly, I worked as an auto mechanic. The salary was not enough, of course, to work experimentally with tame animals, but they had to be fed with meat. But what could I do? I had an irresistible desire to do it.

And what happened to the wolf family?
- It was impossible to settle there forever, I would love to, but it was impossible. And a year later I returned - and it turned out that before that fifty-four wolves had been exterminated there, including mine. It was very hard...

And after that, the reserve was filled with feral dogs, because there was no one to hold the borders. Then I tamed others, I had five more families - but that turned out to be the most important for me. Further and the distance we had more, and not so interesting, to be honest. Basically, those wolves walked with sheep, wandered to winter and summer pastures. And this is psychologically completely different animals, an uninteresting life.

And then you started raising your wolves

Yes, along the way, I came up with the idea of ​​reintroduction. She originally came to me to save my animals that I was experimenting with. Because it worked - either you need to kill it or give it to the zoo, somewhere to get rid of them in the end. Well, I found some zoos, nurseries - but it is impossible to give away a hundred animals. It has to be released somewhere. But an animal that grew up in captivity will not survive in the forest - this was already clear. On the other hand, this is a common problem. There are already many species in the world that are not left in nature, only in captivity. The leopard in the Caucasus has completely disappeared, there are almost no striped hyenas left. So you need to get offspring in captivity and release. But you were in the zoo - the inferiority of the psyche immediately catches your eye: nervous tics, stereotypical movements. I decided to try to raise animals with normal hunting behavior, able to live in the forest.

He advertised in the newspaper, began to buy wolf cubs from hunters, feed them. Unfortunately, I screwed up the first two broods. I took suckers, with their eyes still completely closed, not seeing clearly. It turned out that in order for them to grow normally, you need to know how to feed them. What nipple should be, what hole is on this nipple. For example, while suckling, the puppy should massage the mother's mammary gland with his paws - one or the other. The flexor and extensor muscles work in turn, the impulses go to the brain. And if they have nothing to rest against, there is a tonic muscle tension - both flexors and extensors. In the brain, foci of high activity are formed, which remain for life. Animals grow up mentally unbalanced - depressions, frustrations, conflicts in the group. The manipulatory activity of their paws is inferior, and without this it is difficult for a wolf to live.

Then it turned out that it is bad if the hole in the nipple is too big. The stomach fills up quickly - and in newborns, the brain is not fully formed: they do not feel either hunger or satiety, and stop only when they have satisfied the need for the amount of sucking activity. It has nothing to do with the stomach. The milk is pouring, the tummies are bloated, but they still suck. The stomach is stretched - its potential volume increases. And when they grow up, they need more food than the rest, and they get hungry faster. A type of bulimia is a condition - they cannot eat. By their behavior they absolutely destabilize the situation in the group. Their aggression is not ritualized, they cannot build relationships ... But how could I imagine all this? This is what I understood later.

It seems, creature terribly finely ground to the environment: a step to the side - and that's it, it's broken ...
- Undoubtedly. Leonardo Da Vinci was the first to say this - that an organism does not exist on its own, it lives in an environment, and all our research must be based on an understanding of their commonality, otherwise it will be an artifact. That is why the field experience was so important to me.

Of course, these limits are especially narrow in newborns, wider in adults. I had to catch them somehow - and thank God, I seem to have caught the main part. I fed the wolf cubs at home - and as soon as they began to move, the time of leaving the den - I already took them out to the field for a couple of days. And he completely let them out already sexually mature, on the Trialeti ridge, not far from Tbilisi. And there he was with them. Not always - stay for a week, come back.

And how did you teach them?
- The main thing is that they have formed the skills of orientation in space. The territory should be known on which they will live, watering places for ungulates, the main paths. Without this, they will not be able to hunt. Next, you need to learn to take the trail. Let's say we go, we stumbled upon the trail of a deer. Wolves have a clear reaction - deer smell very sharply. It is necessary to calm them down - I myself begin to study the trail, sniff, whine, call them. They will definitely run up and do the same. That's how their parents teach them. If, for example, the trail is dangerous, the mother defiantly sniffs - the puppies run up, sniff too - and then she emits an alarm signal. It's such a snorting bark. It is the same for all wolves - and puppies have an innate reaction to it. And all - they are scattered. This trail will never be approached again in life. That's how I learned to bark. And the sounds that they make, positively reinforcing some situation, I can’t portray - it means I’ll just scratch behind my ear.

But you didn't smell everything they did, did you?
- Sometimes I reacted to their reaction. Some sound or smell appeared, but I do not feel it. It is not even necessary to understand - the main thing is to react and look in the same direction. And eventually you will see. And they, on the other hand, see worse, short-sighted. I noticed it just then. It was autumn, quail hunting season. And if I stand in the wind, they could not distinguish me from the hunters. They rush to him, the hunter is in a panic, I yell: “Do not shoot!” A whole mess. And when they realized that it was not me, they fly by - and the quail hanging on his side - hop ... What was to be done? Wear bright clothes - I will scare other animals. It’s good that no one in Georgia wore a beard at that time - the only thing was, when someone close to him died, they didn’t shave for 40 days. I had to let go of my beard.

How did you teach them to hunt?
- Yes, just one to one repeated what he saw. He poached on the sly, shot roe deer. At first he gave meat - at first it was semi-digested: he bought gastric juice, which is sold in pharmacies, poured it, it was fermented. Wolf pups appear to be deficient in enzymes. Then raw meat, then with the skin - he brought the leg, threw it away. And then I began to bring shot roe deer - I shot them with a syringe with sleeping pills. When she starts to come out of anesthesia, I release the wolves.

But you couldn't replace a pack of wolves, teach how to drive, attack?
- The main thing was to motivate them, to show their interest - I was their leader, dominant. And they did everything themselves. One successful hunt is enough, then everything is perfected - the main thing is that they know the species that they need to hunt.

In parallel, they learn to think - at about five months they begin to think. They play catch-up all the time - and learn to extrapolate the movement of the victim, in short, to cut off the path of persecution. At first, they do it poorly: if the partner disappeared from sight, ran behind the boulder, they repeat his path. And at five months they suddenly begin to think. Then, in experiments, it turned out that it is at this age that they develop the ability to use past experience, decompose it into elements and build logical connections.

But it is interesting that under experimental conditions the animals did not solve such problems well. They made up their minds, but soon they began to lose their temper - and already refused to work, snapped. Because thinking requires a strong nervous tension. But how do they hunt then? For one hunt, a wolf has to solve dozens of extrapolation tasks - and they never make mistakes, although the emotional stress is high. Why? Krushinsky, my late teacher, and I often talked about this.

Then it turned out that in animals that grew up in captivity, in a depleted environment, the ability to think cannot develop normally. I had two groups of wolf cubs. One I raised in a regular enclosure, and the other in an enclosure with an enriched environment - many boulders, blockages from tree trunks, special screens to hide behind. And at seven months, the cubs from the enriched enclosure could solve the extrapolation problem, but the cubs from the usual one could not. Then, at the age of one, I changed their places - but they could no longer learn to think normally, the ability was extinguished. On the extropolation unit, they could solve one or two problems, and then they began to break down. And the wolves from enriched, like seeds, clicked them. Why is that? It looks like there are two levels. You can't talk about consciousness and subconsciousness in a wolf - but something like that. If the animal does not have extrapolation experience, it has to “consciously” operate with some kind of knowledge, and this is difficult for it. It's like a multiplication table: if you study intensively, the child becomes disgusted. And if the experience is strong, accumulated slowly, in a game situation, then the operation takes place on a subconscious level. Like driving a car or playing the piano, solving the problem itself does not cause emotional stress.

This is reminiscent of one classic experiment in child psychology ...
- Yes, of course, essentially we differ little, life tasks are the same. We have been learning to live all our lives… Then I released both of these groups on the same Trialetsky ridge and tried to teach them to hunt. It is clear that with the animals from the usual enclosure did not work. While roe deer and deer, they were not afraid, somehow, and then everything. Unfortunately, I deliberately went for it, raised them inferior. I knew that they would have to spend their whole lives in captivity. And they are well trained.

At some point, did you discover that they themselves can do it?
- I'm lucky. There, on this ridge, there were no wolves, only wild dogs. And roe deer adapted to dogs, they knew that it was a predator. And the wolf has a different smell, different habits - the roe deer let it close. There is such a thing as "flight distance" - this is the distance at which the beast allows itself to approach. It can easily determine the level of poaching. When I am in Switzerland or America in National parks I go in - listen, these animals get bored, they spin before my eyes all the time! And here they don’t let them get closer than five hundred meters ... Well, roe deer were not afraid of wolves, so the probability of a successful hunt was 50% - this is a lot. This, frankly, saved the project. Then the flight distance began to increase and the success to fall.

I heard you taught them not to eat sheep?
- Yes, the main problem what kind of reintroduction? Problems with the local population. Because these animals are not afraid of people. For many years, cheetahs have been released in Africa. And they kick back their hooves from hunger, come to villages, steal chickens, sheep. People kill them, you have to catch them back. If the local population is against - the end of the venture. Especially in former USSR poaching is amazing.

I know wild wolves - they panic avoid people. So I had to somehow teach mine. And in the sixties there was such a great physiologist Jose Delgado, he was a Spaniard and came up with such a show, he earned money. He implanted an electrode in the brain of bulls and he had a radio transmitter. And when this angry bull rushed at him, he pressed the button - and the bull froze half a meter away from him. But you won’t implant an electrode into the brain of wolves - I came up with a collar. It was good then that such super-duper biscuit batteries appeared. In Tbilisi, everything could be bought from the military. I dialed them, nine volts, and the output was 300 volts.

We have attracted local residents. Because it was impossible to hide this work, and if you show the villager that the wolf is afraid of you, this is a complete delight. And immediately the attitude changes. And me different people they were needed - both young and old, and humpbacked, with a bag, without a bag, with a stick, with a gun, such and such. The wolves got used to me, and this is a generalized reaction - they are not afraid of any people. New person appears - they go to him, I immediately press the button, they get annoyed by the current. One, two, for the third time, as soon as they see a person, they run away instantly. But at first they didn’t run far, but it was necessary to develop such a reaction that would save their lives, so that the avoidance distance was inaccessible for a shot. In general, it took about forty days to work perfectly.

Well, similarly, it was necessary to develop a reaction to pets. The shepherds willingly agreed to this, they were wondering how the wolf would not eat the ram? This is an unthinkable thing. You should have seen the expression on the face of this sheep, from which the wolf was running away. The second time, she already looked down at him: a booger! .. And the peasants had exactly the same reaction, they liked it very much.

But this reaction is not developed in a generalized way for all cattle - for each species it was necessary separately: for sheep, goats, cows, horses. Along the way, one she-wolf climbed into my sheepfold, and there were chickens. She passed the chickens, but did not touch the sheep ...

Such collars are sold in Moscow.
- Yes, I foolishly published an article, described everything. No one scratched it in our country, but in America two years later they appeared, they are called “electronic dog trainer”. I had another idea with them: I hung small radio transmitters for the wolves, took direction finding - and you could see a clear picture of their movements. The direction finder itself was assembled, worked for five kilometers. They go somewhere so as not to run after them. Well, the military caught me. What's beeping on the air. I didn’t have quartz stabilizers then, and in the shade or in the sun, the frequency changed. They hear: I-u-i-u ... - they thought someone came up with some kind of code. For three days I sat with them in a bullpen, in a truck, begging: “Listen, I am a zoologist. Well, do you want me to call the wolves? “Are you kidding me? Are you taking us for fools?" Well, on the third day, apparently, they told someone, the colonel arrived: “What are you doing?” I say: "The Institute of Zoology, I follow the movement of wolves." "How can you prove it?" I say: "Let's get out of here, we'll move a hundred meters, I'll howl - they will come." He looked at me like that with a squint: he's lying, flooding. The wolves will come to him from the forest. In general, he howled, they came out - they were horrified, they didn’t shoot well. They forced me to take off the collars, they took me away, I just managed to try.

In general, you taught them everything. So, what is next?
- Then it was interesting what the next generations will have. They taught their wolf cubs everything, I was convinced of this. Even the first generation of puppies - she already avoided me. Because the she-wolf sees a man - and immediately emits this snorting bark, and they scatter. Then she herself sees that it's me, she communicates, and they are afraid. But I wanted to see how it goes. I made a metal collar for each, from steel rulers. And on each is an inscription that if you bring me this collar, I will pay you twice as much as the state. And they didn't bring me one. I later asked: for ten years not a single wolf was killed in those parts, none of the local hunters saw them. So, a tradition has developed, they teach puppies.

Do all these ideas apply to other species?
- This technique is suitable for the tiger, for the leopard, for all large predators. It was just profitable to deal with a wolf, because it is the most complex species - both the psyche and the social organization. Now give me such an opportunity, I would do everything differently, I wouldn’t feed so many wolf cubs, all this hustle and bustle. I would put them on a she-wolf who is trained in everything. How do shepherd dogs train puppies? I already know that all this is perfectly conveyed. Tinker with a couple of couples - they themselves will teach everyone.

And you didn't see them again?
- There then such strange story was. This was nine years later. I went there on my business, walked through the forest - and saw some familiar footprint. At first, I didn’t even understand why I was familiar, but there wasn’t one phalanx there. I realized that these are my animals. Walked for almost a week, lubed. And finally they came out, two wolves. They were already thirteen years old, gray-haired, their teeth worn out. I am almost sure that they could no longer hunt roe deer, probably they ate hares and rodents. Apparently, they have been watching me for two days, walking around. They came out, stared, and looked and looked like that - and then they began to play like puppies. How they played, squealed! I have never been so happy.

Good day. I want to tell you the story of my father's friend. I immediately warn fans of horror stories and tickle your nerves - this story is not for you, there are no scary moments, devils, brownies and demons in it, there is no witchcraft and corruption in it, but not without mysticism. This story is about life - a life where we, people, are sometimes scarier than any monsters!!!
To begin with, in the early eighties, my father went to work in the taiga, somewhere in Siberia. There he became friends with local resident, let's call him Andrey (I changed the name).
Well, we became friends, just do not spill water. All the two years that dad worked there, they were together shoulder to shoulder. It was time to leave, and since then they had not seen each other for twenty-five years, until, by the will of fate, they met again by chance, in one of the Moscow markets.
All as expected, went to celebrate a meeting in a cafe for a bottle of cognac. Well, when they sat down, the father noticed that on right hand he does not have two fingers, index and middle.
- What happened??? Dad asked.
“I’ll tell you, you won’t believe it,” Andrey answered.
“You know me, I believe and trusted you like no one else, and we never lied to each other. the father insisted.
“Well, I’ll tell you, but until that day I didn’t tell anyone this, so that they wouldn’t laugh at me and take me for a madman,” said Andrey and began his story. Further I will write from his words.
After your departure, two years later, a moneybag moved to our village, restored the collective farm, bought tractors, small and large cattle, and a moderate life began to flow. Many went to work for him, a small but stable income. We were all satisfied, despite the fact that this rich man felt himself to be our god and master of everyone and everything. It was harmful until blue in the face, but we endured, but there was nowhere to go.
So he was generally furious when his cattle began to disappear, they blamed them on the wolves. Well, indeed, most likely they are, since the remains of cattle were often found gnawed in the forest.
He appointed a reward for each head of the slain wolf. Well, the gold rush for the total extermination of wolves in our taiga rushed straight. Of course, I did not stand aside, a hack never hurts.
It got to the point that the men and I split into two teams and began to compete who will bring more goals by the evening. They argued for three bottles of vodka for the evening feast.
On the first day, our team lost, and the men and I agreed to get up early and go deep into the forest to shoot more. We got up at dawn, packed up and set off.
The day started well. Already in the morning we managed to shoot three, and then silence, for several hours not a single wolf. We decided to take a break and have a bite to eat. And not far, under a large stone, there was a cave, and from there a wolf comes out and growls at us, which seemed very strange, since they usually run away at the sight of people. Well, without thinking twice, I shot him with a well-aimed shot in the head with the words: "The fourth is ready." We ate, left the carcass to lie (then on the way back we collected them, having built floorings from brushwood).
They shot two more and decided to go home, collecting a bloody harvest along the way. When we reached the place of our halt, I stood up in my tracks. Three wolf cubs dug into the chest of a dead mother wolf and drank milk. Tears gushed like a river on their own, until I was struck like thunder by another shotgun blast and the words of one of the men: “I killed three with one shot, small heads too.” I rushed to the cubs, picked up one still alive in my arms and, imagine, a small ball of wool, bleeding, was dying in my arms. With his button eyes, he looked into my eyes, after which he licked my hand, closed his eyes, from which two drops of tears came out, and his heart stopped beating (I am writing, but the tears are near).
I started yelling: “It's a child, you killed a child, you killed innocent children. They are children, they are not to blame for anything. What difference does it make a man or a wolf, children are all the same. After that, I jumped up and started hitting everyone with anything, I went crazy until they grabbed me and I calmed down a bit. And what do you think, they were going to throw them to the heap. I again broke loose with the words: “Do not touch them, otherwise I will shoot them all.” The men left me with the words: "Well, stay with them, we went."
I dug a grave, buried them together, mother and her children. For a long time he sat at the grave and asked their forgiveness like a madman. It began to get dark and I went home.
Gradually I began to forget about this incident, but on wolf hunting never went again.
Several years have passed. Winter, there is no work, and the family has to be fed. I went hunting to shoot a rabbit, a deer if I'm lucky. Wandered all day, but not a single living creature in the area ...
I was about to go home, when a snow storm broke out, so strong that nothing could be seen beyond the nose. The icy wind pierced to the bones, I felt that I was starting to freeze, and if I was not at home soon, I would die of hypothermia ... There was nothing left but to go home at random.
So I wandered in an unknown direction for several hours, until I realized that I was completely lost. Strength left me, I crashed into the snow, not feeling my arms or legs. He could not move, only occasionally raised his eyelids with the thought of once again looking at the world before death. The storm has stopped full moon, but there was no strength anymore, all that remained was to lie and humbly wait for death. When I once again opened my eyes, the same she-wolf with her cubs stood in front of me, they just stood and looked at me ... I remember the thought that ran through my head: "I deserve it, you can take me."
Some time later, they turned around and went up the hill, but, what is most interesting, in complete silence, I did not hear any of their steps, there was no trace of them left. The passage of time seemed to have slowed down, I felt every second of my life, when suddenly the howl of wolves interrupted the deathly silence and not one, but a whole pack. I look at the hill where my ghostly guests have disappeared, and from there a whole pack of wolves descends. "Well, that's it," I thought, "that's death, to be eaten alive." Thoughts were not reaching for the gun, since my hands had not obeyed for a long time, it remained to watch how death was approaching closer and closer.
Here is one already at my feet, followed by ten more wolves. I mumble: "Well, let's, what are you waiting for, eat while warm." And they stand and watch. The one that was standing at my feet climbed on top of me and lay on my stomach, followed by the second, third ... They stuck around me from all sides, I did not believe it, I thought I was sleeping. From head to toe, I found myself in a living coat of wolves, their warmth over time caused unbearable pain all over my body, but I was happy. I felt myself, they warmed me, they saved me. "For what???" - he asked himself a question. I heard them talking, they were mumbling something to each other. “They are reasonable,” I thought, and they save the killer of their relatives ... I fell asleep at this thought ...
I woke up in the morning from the screams of peasants from the village that they came out to look for me. All the snow was around me in wolf tracks. I got up and moved somehow towards them, cloudless sky and bright sun. I'm alive, it's a miracle!!!
That's when I lost two fingers from frostbite. I think that's the only thing my saviors didn't cover up. As you can see, they will never fire a gun again and kill no one.

With this he ended his story. Thank you for your time and all the best.

WOLVES

Throughout human history, wolves and humans have always lived side by side. These predators have always been a danger to humans. They attacked livestock and sometimes humans. Therefore, people have always sought to destroy these predators by all means and means. Wolves were poisoned, killed with guns, caught in traps and nooses, etc. AT last years airplanes and helicopters, snowmobiles, etc. began to be used against wolves. Despite all these measures, the wolves continue to live. True, in many countries of Western Europe there are no wolves for a long time, but there are few conditions for their life. Wolves are very flexible and live in a wide variety of environments. climatic conditions. They live in the taiga and tundra, in the steppes and deserts, in cities and swamps.

There is a known case when a pair of wolves lived in the center of Moscow for almost two years. Of course, they got there through the fault of a person, but, being thrown out into the street as puppies, they were able to adapt to life in the city. They caught rats, and later stray dogs and cats. People did not even suspect that these dangerous predators live next to them.

Wolves are adapted to hunting large ungulates, but they eat not only the meat of these animals. They catch mice and rats, hares and squirrels, frogs and lizards. During the years of the peak number of mouse-like rodents, wolves feed on them to a large extent, which brings certain benefits to forestry. Scientists, studying the life of these predators, have long come to the conclusion that wolves devour, first of all, sick and weak animals. Wolves have historically been the regulators of the number of many game animals. The role of wolves as population regulators and breeders in biocenoses is undeniable.

However, due to the fact that humans invaded the network of relations between predators and prey, it became necessary to regulate the number of wolves themselves. This means that the number of wolves in hunting and fishing facilities must be constantly monitored. The complete elimination of the wolf in our country is out of the question.

People often ask: is the wolf dangerous for humans? During the years of the Great Patriotic War, when the persecution of wolves almost completely stopped, their numbers increased greatly. The wolves began to lack food. Hunger and lack of fear of man contributed to the attack of wolves on humans, mainly on children. In the Kirov, Kostroma and Volgograd regions, more than two dozen cases of the death of children from wolves were officially registered. Of course, only a few individuals specialized in this trade. After the end of the Great Patriotic War, when the persecution of wolves began again, cases of attacks by wolves on humans became very rare.

It should be noted that the wolf, before which a person has always felt fear, was surrounded by the halo of a fairy-tale character, where the wolf always played the role of a bearer of evil. And it's not just in fairy tales. You can often hear terrible stories about the attacks of packs of wolves on people. The media, which are in great need of sensationalism, also contribute to this. In fact, during checks, all these rumors are not confirmed by anything.

And yet the wolf poses a danger to humans. Animals with rabies are especially dangerous, as they lose their fear of humans. First of all, those animals that hunt dogs and enter settlements should be destroyed.

I must say that even as a child, I often heard scary stories from adults related to these predators. Naturally, I was very afraid of meeting with wolves. Later I had several encounters with these predators.

One day, my mother and I were walking along a path that crossed a wide snowy field. An unfamiliar woman ran up to us and repeated in fright: “Wolves! Wolves! ”, - pointing towards the edge of the forest. There, at a distance of about three hundred meters from us, four wolves were trotting across the field in a chain. Two wolves ran in front, and the rest ran behind at some distance. The animals paid no attention to us. Despite this, we were very scared. After waiting for the wolves to hide in the forest, we continued on our way. For the rest of my life I remember this snow-covered field, along which a pack of wolves runs. It was the time for wolf weddings.

The second meeting with a wolf happened to me in the summer, when I was fishing with a fishing rod in one of the backwaters of the Shuralka River. Hiding in the bushes, I carefully watched the float. My attention was attracted by the splash of water on the opposite bank of the river, where I saw drinking water beast. Fear paralyzed me. But then the wolf turned around and disappeared into the bushes! After waiting, I grabbed a fishing rod and quickly retreated. All the following days I literally lived only this vision, telling about this meeting to everyone I met.

Sometimes the wolves slaughtered the sheep of our neighbors, dragged the dogs, and once our neighbor shot a hardened wolf that climbed into his yard. It was a big event in our village! We ran several times to look at this terrible predator.

At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the wife of the famous test pilot Kokkinaki, evacuated from Moscow, lived in our village. Taking into account the importance of this person, the management of the plant gave her coupons for a couple of liters of milk in the subsidiary farm of the plant. This then exotic lady for us, accompanied by a no less exotic lapdog, went daily to the farm for milk. One day, when Kokkinaki's wife was returning home from the subsidiary farm, a wolf jumped out of the bushes and grabbed a lap dog that was pressed to the feet of the mistress, quickly disappeared. Hunters immediately followed the trail of the wolf, but found nothing but a few pieces of dog hair.

I also had an encounter with wolves in adulthood. It happened on a vast snow-covered clearing near the village of Chorkiny Borki, Tambov Region, where I hunted hares. Being on a hill devoid of vegetation, I saw a herd of four elks running through a clearing, pursued by two wolves. Drowning in deep snow, the wolves sought to catch up with the moose. Running away from the wolves, the moose made a semicircle and I saw how two more wolves rushed across them, who managed to approach the moose at a distance of 40 meters. By this time, the moose ran not far from me and disappeared into the forest. The wolves, noticing me, stopped in the distance. Despite the long distance, I made a couple of shots at them and they scattered. So for the first time I witnessed the hunting of wolves for moose.

In 1983, after leaving the police for a well-deserved rest, I was visited by the director of the Visimsky State Reserve, D.S. Mishin, who offered me a job in the reserve. The forest has always attracted me. Sometimes I even dreamed of living in the forest, where I could observe the life of the inhabitants of the forest in private. The opportunity presented itself and I agreed.

My friends and colleagues at work were perplexed. How could a person with the rank of lieutenant colonel and a law degree, fame and respect in society, agree to work as a forester. Therefore, I spent most of my time here in the forest. Communication with naturalists, studying the wildlife of the reserve, observing the behavior of animals in vivo helped shape me as a naturalist.

Now my meetings with wolves have become regular. I gradually exchanged with my fellow workers about encountering wolves and their behavior. They kept a record of these predators in their tracks and a record of the elks bullied by them. The primary scientific data collected by me on the flora and fauna of the reserve has always been highly appreciated by the scientific staff of the reserve.

ON THE WOLF TRAIL

On a cold November day, when approaching my winter hut, I discovered a wolf path leading from the depths of the forest towards the clearing, which is on the southern border of the reserve. It was clear that many animals had passed along the path. The trail passed ten meters from the winter hut and again deepened into the forest. Taking off my heavy backpack, I followed the wolves along their path with a gun in my hands in order to find out the purpose of their visit around me.

Closer to the edge of the wolves dispersed and fanned out into different sides. A search began for moose that often rested here. Soon they managed to find a moose calf with a yearling calf lying on the bed, and the flock began the rut. Fleeing from the wolves, the moose ran out into a vast clearing. Following the trail of the pack, I found tufts of elk hair and splashes of blood in the snow. Continuing the trail, I stumbled upon the corpse of a calf killed by wolves.

The snow around him was compacted by wolf paws and stained with blood, to the side, about fifty meters from the scene, there was a moose cow, which carefully looked in my direction. Apparently, the calf's mother witnessed a terrible massacre against her offspring. At that moment, just ten meters from me, a wolf jumped out of the thickets of grass and began to run away rapidly. At the moment when the predator jumped over the thick deadwood, I shot him with small shot. Grabbing his ass with his teeth, the wolf ran on headlong. At the second shot, I had to make a miss, as high and thick clumps of reed grass interfered. At that moment, I saw wolves jump out of the thickets of grass and quickly run away.

I especially remember a very large wolf, which seemed huge to me. Apparently it was the leader of the pack. In total, there were about seven animals in the flock. The shots made the moose cow run away. After examining the track of the wolf I had wounded, I was convinced that the small shot could not cause him much harm. He ran away as briskly as other predators, although droplets of blood were visible on the snow where he ran.

Following the racing path, I could not imagine that I would be able to see the wolves, as I knew their caution well, and therefore I loaded the gun with small shot. After examining the calf, I came to the conclusion that the wolves first of all tore open his stomach and began to devour his insides! Huge wounds gaped on the thigh and in the throat area. Having quenched their hunger, the wolves made a bed here.

Turning the calf over on its other side, I made sure that there were almost no traces of wolf teeth here. Knowing that the wolves would not return to their trophy, I took out a knife and cut more than twenty kg of pure meat, which was then in great short supply. Busy with this work, I heard a short, but deep-pitched howl sound off to the side. Matery announced the gathering of the pack. For better preservation from mice, I placed elk meat in a closed metal tank and used it in the winter. The wolves never came close to their trophy.

In the morning I again discovered fresh traces of this flock, on the very path along which they had passed near the winter hut. The remains of the elk went to the ubiquitous crows, who in the evening fed in large numbers on the wolf trophy.

Of all this story, I was most struck by the fact that the wolves made such an imprudence, letting me close to them, although in the future I will still meet with such behavior of wolves. Of interest is the fact that, having lost the calf, the moose cow returned to the place of her son's death and, putting herself in danger, apparently still waited for the calf to return. However, having enough food, the wolves did not pay any attention to it.

AT THE WOLF CONCERT

On a warm August evening, together with A. Galkin, an employee of the reserve, we went to the protected zone of the reserve to listen to the wolves, which at that time often broke the silence with their howls. And here we are on a huge overgrown clearing adjacent to the reserve, where we heard the howl of a wolf pack more than once. Having taken places convenient for observation, about a hundred meters from each other, we began to wait.

The approach of autumn was felt everywhere. The thickets of reeds and fireweed covering the clearing have already withered, and the first yellow strands of autumn have appeared in the crowns of birches. In the rays of the setting sun, the blood-red berries of the wild rose glowed invitingly.

The stillness of the evening was broken by the sound of breaking branches. It was a hundred meters away from me that a bear approached and began to break thick branches of bird cherry in order to get to its berries. The presence of a bear was not part of the repertoire of a wolf concert, and I felt apprehensive that a clubfoot might ruin our evening. I couldn't see the bear himself, although against the backdrop of the bird-cherry bush I saw a head and a paw several times. But it was clearly visible how the branches of the bush were shaking when the bear tilted and broke them.

At that very moment, a long howl was heard, which echoed from the further wall of the forest. It was Anatoly who made it with the help of glass for a kerosene lamp, imitating the howl of a wolf.

After that, the bear disappeared without a trace, and a few minutes later, an answering howl was heard from the far corner of the clearing. It was the she-wolf who answered. The next sound, similar to the howl of a wolf, was made by me. And again we heard the answering howl of the she-wolf. The wolf moved closer. The sun went down over the horizon and the valley of Scalia, from where the she-wolf gave a signal, was covered with fog. Making sure that we are not in a hurry to meet her, the she-wolf again went closer. Unfortunately, it began to get dark and it became clear that there would be no need to wait for visual contact with this predator.

Soon behind me, where along the edge the forest is coming path, the clatter of wolf cubs came running here. A few minutes later, the silence was broken by the overflowing voices of a wolf brood. “To visit such a concert in Canada, for example, tourists pay a lot of money, but here you can listen to it for free as much as you like,” I thought. When not far away several young wolves began to howl at the same time, I felt a chill run down my back.

The howl of a wolf involuntarily causes an unpleasant feeling in a person. It is not difficult to imagine how our distant ancestors perceived this howl. I had a loaded gun in my hands, but I could not see the wolves, and I did not shoot at the sounds and rustles. Wanting to lure the wolves to him, Anatoly made an attempt to call, but his voice broke and instead of a mournful howl, there was a major grunt. The she-wolf, who was close to Anatoly, frightenedly whining, rushed to run. I heard her whining and the rustle of dry grass two or three dozen meters away from me. The wolf youth also fled.

In the ensuing silence, one could hear how far, near the Shaitan road, a seasoned man howled in a bass voice. So that evening ended the wolf concert in the protected zone of the Visimsky Reserve.

WOLF IDYLL

On a sunny March morning, I was skiing through the southeastern sector of the protected zone of the reserve. For several days now, the weather had been clear but frosty, contributing to the formation of a strong crust on the surface of the snow, which covered a small layer of freshly fallen snow. This made it possible to move easily and silently.

Attention was drawn to the guttural cries of ravens, which circled to the side above the trees. These black heralds of death behave this way when they find someone's corpse. Having changed the direction of movement, I hurriedly went to the place of accumulation of these birds.

Having crossed a large forest clearing, I approached a fir-tree clump, behind which I could see another, smaller clearing. At that moment, about two dozen of these black birds rose into the air with screams to my left. Glancing in that direction, I saw that something else was darkening in the snow, which I took for a elk killed by wolves, which I decided to examine. To my great surprise, I realized that I was not seeing a calf, but a wolf lying in the snow.

The wolf lay with its back to me, lazily gnawing on a moose shoulder blade. He was only ten or fifteen meters away from me, and I mentally cursed myself for not taking my gun with me. For several minutes I carefully examined the predator lying in front of me. But then the wolf jumped up and, turning, stared in my direction. For a few seconds we looked into each other's eyes. I saw the hair rise on the back of the beast's neck. A moment and the wolf flattened out in a quick sweeping run. He was wonderful. And this picture with a beast running through the snow will forever remain in my memory.

Having examined the place around the dead elk, he was convinced that the pack consisted of three adult wolves. By the time I arrived, one of the wolves was resting on a pile of hay crushed by snow, overlooking the steep slope of Mount Raspberry. Apparently, he was the first to detect my approach and, leaving a weighty piece of meat on the bed, quietly fled. Another wolf was resting under the Christmas tree, close to their trophy. Apparently, his duties included protecting meat from annoying birds. Seeing me on the way, he also ran away, which allowed the crows to immediately go down to the meat.

Thanks to the strong crust, which was able to hold the wolves well, it was not difficult for the wolves to catch the elk, which fell through the deep snow. Having caught the elk, the wolves indulged in a serene rest for several days, until my appearance interrupted this idyll.

Of interest is the fact that this very cautious and sensitive animal allowed me to approach him at such a close distance. Of course, this was facilitated by the constant cries of ravens. While still at the scene, I heard in the direction where the wolf that had made a mistake had run away, there was a short invocative howl. It was the leader of the pack who gave the signal to gather.

After my departure, the wolves returned to their trophy a few days later, passing here I did not find any ravens or wolves. And where the carcass of an elk lay, on the powdered surface, several shreds of elk hair darkened.

ON THE WOLF HUNTING

Actually, it cannot even be called a hunt, since the meeting with the wolves, where I used the weapon, was purely random. The staff of the reserve more than once arranged battue hunts for wolves, but I always evaded this on various pretexts. This time I was walking from the city of V. Tagil to my winter hut, located in the quarter. 84 reserves.

It was a rainy October evening. Approximately only a thirty-minute walk to the winter hut, I decided to rest under the dense crown of the Christmas tree near the clearing adjacent to the forest. Further, I had to follow the path, overgrown with tall and wet grass. Therefore, I gathered all the rifle cartridges that were in my pockets and put them in a plastic bag and hid them in my backpack. It was about an hour before dark. Having rested, I had nothing to do, folding my hands like a mouthpiece, and let out a long, wolf-like howl.

When I was about to leave, a loud cry of a nutcracker was heard not far from me. Nutcracker, like a magpie, seeing in the forest large predator or a person, seeks to communicate this to others with his cries. The cry was repeated and I decided to postpone my departure. In less than five minutes, in the direction where the nutcracker was screaming, I noticed the head of a wolf slowly walking in my direction. Lowering its head, the beast carefully studied the smells of the path, apparently in search of traces of the one who issued a summoning howl here. Following the leader, the backs of two or three more predators could be seen from the grass. The excitement of the hunter made me feel great excitement, because I was sure that the hunt would be successful.

I noticed that against the background of withered grass, the wolves were hardly noticeable. The color of their fur was surprisingly similar to the light of yellowed grass. When the wolf walking ahead approached 25-30 meters, I raised my gun and fired a shot. Grasping its buckshot-affected side with its teeth and growling fiercely, the beast began to spin rapidly. For this reason, I missed the other barrel. Instead of reloading the gun, I jumped out of hiding and ran close to the wounded wolf, hastily looking in my pockets for cartridges.

Realizing that the cartridges were in the abandoned backpack in the shelter, I decided to finish off the beast with the butt of a gun. The beast dodged the blow and darted into the bushes, where it continued to whine and growl. Quickly returning to the shelter and taking out cartridges, he again ran to where he had left the wolf. However, everything was quiet now. Deciding that the wolf could die, I began to search. Soon it got dark and it began to rain. This made me rush to the winter hut. I scolded myself for my mistakes, but hoped that in the morning I would be able to find my trophy.

However, the search in the morning turned out to be fruitless. I decided that the wolf either died from his wounds, or recovered and would continue to live, which I hoped more. And yet the wolf died. As I learned, he was noticed by a hunter driving a car not far from this place on the road. The wolf was severely weakened and unable to run away. So my wolf hunt ended in failure, where I, as a hunter, showed myself not from my best side.

AT THE WOLF'S LAIR

Back in early June, being in a clearing adjacent to the reserve from the south, near Sakalya, I discovered a clearly visible wolf path in the grass. Here the path ran into a small stream flowing into the Sakalya, on the banks of which there were many wolf tracks. So the wolves often came here to drink. To find out where they went from, I decided to check the trail in reverse side. I had not gone fifty meters, as the path led me to a warehouse, "forgotten" by lumberjacks, logs, under which a manhole was clearly visible, leading under a heap of rotten wood.

Attention was drawn to the area in front of the manhole with a diameter of about four meters, thoroughly trampled down by wolf paws, on which even grass did not grow. Apparently, wolf cubs played here in the absence of their parents. There was no way to inspect the lair hidden under a thick layer of logs, since for this it would have been necessary to scatter heavy logs. Not far from the den, I found a lot of wolf excrement containing elk hair, but there were no bone remnants here.

Satisfied that I managed to find the wolf's lair, I left. A few days later I again came to the lair, hoping to see the wolves. However, there were not even fresh traces of these predators here. Apparently, the wolves, knowing that their lair was discovered, took their already grown wolf cubs from here to another place.

A couple of weeks after this visit to the lair, I was walking along the Shaitan road, about 1.5 km from the wolf lair. Vehicles no longer went along this road, since during the spring flood it was washed away by melt water in many places. When approaching the stream, Berezovy, which also flows into the Sakalya, drew attention to the abundance of wolf tracks and excrement here.

When I reached a stream that crossed the road, I sat comfortably on a log lying on the side of the road and began to rest. I was covered on all sides by tall grass, and the trees standing nearby created a good shadow. Soon a thud was heard. Someone big was approaching me along the stream, loudly splashing its paws on the water. I was worried about the possibility of the appearance of a she-bear with a cub, traces of which I saw there.

Raising my head above the grass, I was more surprised to see three wolf cubs lying on the carriageway next to me. Their fur was wet. One of the puppies got up and tried to grab the gadfly circling above him with his teeth. After a few minutes, the cubs got up and slowly walked along the road. They were teenage wolves: big-headed and long-horned, as it seemed to me, with exorbitant long ears and thin tails, which gave them a funny look. Forty meters away from me, the cubs again lay down on the road. After waiting, I stood up and began to examine them through the binoculars. Seeing me, the cubs rose to their feet and stared at me with their muzzles. The tips of their raised ears still hung down. I slowly walked towards them, but the cubs continued to stand. It was evident that, when they first saw a person, they did not feel any fear towards him. It was difficult to see only curiosity in their behavior. I had not gone even ten meters, as a formidable roar was heard to the left of the road, after which the cubs seemed to be blown away from the road by the wind.

In August, in the direction where this meeting took place, I often heard their "songs" after dark. Once, when the first snow cover fell on the ground, this trinity, having lost or lagged behind their parents, having met the path, ran at night straight to the winter hut in the quarter. 84 reserve, in which at that time one of the researchers was sleeping sweetly. Running up to the winter hut and seeing an unfamiliar building, the wolves were confused and howled in unison. Hearing a heart-rending wolf howl under the windows, the frightened employee grabbed a stick and began to hit the bucket with it, which, in turn, frightened the wolves. The behavior of the wolves was not difficult to recognize by the traces they left on the fresh powder.

MEETING IN THE NIGHT

One sunny May morning, walking along the road that runs along the slope of Makarova Mountain, I recalled the person whose name this mountain is named after. Forty years ago, at the top of this not very high mountain there was a base of the Kosulinsky timber industry enterprise, at which Makar worked as a watchman. When the timber industry spent all the resources of the nearest forests, he moved to another area. Makar was left without a job, but he did not leave his beloved place. He lived in a hut left to him as an inheritance from the forestry. He beat a cedar cone, picked raspberries and mushrooms, selling the booty in V. Tagil. Then he began to graze calves here, which were brought to him by the inhabitants of V. Tagil. After fattening, the owners took their bulls and heifers, and Makar received a reward.

And so lived this man who had strayed from society. By old age, Makar moved to relatives in the city, where he soon died. I knew this gloomy but quiet man well. In the history of geography, there are many names of mountains, rivers and lakes that were named after ordinary people.

On the day when I passed along this road, the bird cherry blossomed profusely, filling the air with the aroma of their flowers. The song thrush clearly beat the roulades, inviting the inhabitants of the forest to "drink tea", the finches whistled loudly. But then a hare jumped out onto the road and quickly hobbled in my direction. I froze, afraid to move. When the hare approached at a distance of several meters, it stopped and, rising on its hind legs, began to carefully examine me. He moved his ears in a comical way, but could not understand what kind of stuffed animal was standing on the road in front of him. I stirred, and the hare darted into the bushes like an arrow.

Before I had time to move, a wolf jumped out onto the road, in the very place where the hare had appeared. At first he wanted to run hare trail, but, noticing me, he hid behind a bush, from where he began to watch me. I didn't move as I looked at the beast through binoculars. It was a large wolf, on the dark skin of which hung lighter tatters of winter wool. This gave the beast a not very neat appearance. The wolf also could not understand what it was there on the road. He came out from behind a bush and began to look intently in my direction. At that moment, I abruptly raised my hand and the wolf disappeared.

It was not difficult to understand that the hardened one was scouring his lands to get food for the wolf cubs. Later, I had the opportunity to get acquainted with his offspring.

It was already at the end of August. When I was walking along this road, a couple of wolf cubs ran out to meet me because of its turn. Frightened, they whined and rushed into the bushes. It turned out that the wolf cubs had come running to quench their thirst in one of the puddles, where their traces and clouding of the water remained.

The next meeting with the family of this hardened, happened to me already late autumn. Circumstances forced me to follow this road in the dark night. The night was very quiet, and there were no signs of anything out of the ordinary. But then I heard a loud cracking of branches and the clatter of the hooves of a running elk off the side of the road. The moose season was not over yet and I thought that the moose was breaking in my direction, having heard the rustle of my steps. I froze, trying not to make any sound. I saw the dark carcass of an animal flash across the road not far from me. And almost immediately after him, across the road, the figures of wolves chasing the elk flashed in gray shadows. Roaring and screeching hoarsely, the pack of wolves followed the trail of the elk fleeing from the wolves. After waiting for the sounds of pursuit to subside, I continued on my way.

I must say that this meeting in the night caused me an unpleasant sense of danger, because I did not have any weapons with me. Of course, even a pack enraged by the persecution could not attack me. I had many other visual encounters with wolves during my time at the reserve, but they were all less impressive than the ones I have described.

AT THE WOLF WEDDING

AT THE WOLF WEDDING

On a sunny February day, while on the territory of the Visimsky Reserve, I discovered a fresh wolf path laid by a pack of wolves in my bypass. And since February is the time for wolf weddings, I had no doubt that the wedding procession laid the path. Rutting is a special period in the life of animals when their behavior changes dramatically. I had to watch the "scuffle" at hare weddings, see the mating tournaments of black grouse, listen to the "whisper" of capercaillie love, be a witness to moose fights, but I have never been to wolf weddings. Therefore, forgetting about all my affairs, I immediately went to wolf path even though I didn't have any weapons with me.

Tracking animals in their tracks gives the naturalist the opportunity to better understand the behavior of the animal. And now, moving along the wolf path, I carefully examine the tracks of animals left in the snow recently. Judging by the tracks, the pack consisted of two hardened wolves and a she-wolf, two over-flyers and three young wolves, as the hunters call them, who are not yet a year old. Pereyarki are wolves that are more than a year old, but have not yet reached puberty. Seven wolves is already quite a large pack.

Flocks with a large number wolves are a rarity. Therefore, talk about wolf packs, in which there were dozens of wolves, is nothing more than stories. Wolves live in families, and therefore they are very jealous of the appearance of strangers in their hunting grounds. In addition, during the rut, the leader of the pack does not let anyone near the she-wolf, even his grown-up children.

And now, young people are dragging their parents at a considerable distance. You can't get close to loving parents. Here is the playground where the parents were engaged in love games, and the rest of the family carefully watched them from a distance of about 50 meters. Soon the wolf and she-wolf laid down in the snow, and the rest also lay down to rest, at a distance from them. Moreover, the three young people all lay down side by side, and those that are older are a little away from them.

My appearance did not scare the wolves very much. Rising from the bed, they slowly went on. Breaking away from me at a considerable distance, the flock came across a resting elk. Before the elk had time to run even two tens of meters, one of the pereyarkov caught up with him and snatched a large tuft of wool from the elk's skin. But, the initiative of this wolf was not supported by other members of the family and he was forced to return and take his place on the trail.

The excitement experienced by the younger members of the family at the sight of the love games of their parents was higher than the hunt. Young wolves could not understand why their parents drive them away from themselves. They could not know that from now on they would have to live on their own, that the hardened ones would soon retire and lead a secretive lifestyle. Young people have already grown up and can already stand up for themselves. Now the leader of the pack will be one of the pereyarkov.

Throughout the day, until late in the evening, I followed the trail of the pack, I had to raise the wolves from their bed three times, but I did not manage to see them. The wolves managed to detect my approach and leave in time. Tracking helped me understand better family relationships wolf pack.

http://www.ecosystema.ru/01welcome/articles/piskunov/index.htm