“The Fear of Wolves: A Review of Wolf Attacks on Humans”, 2002 (; similar):
Because of the large scales at which large carnivores live, their conservation cannot occur only within protected areas. They must therefore be conserved within multi-use landscapes where conflicts with humans occur. Conflicts are diverse and include depredation on livestock and competition for wild ungulates. However, one of the most serious is the fear of being injured or killed by a large carnivore. Man-killing by tigers, lions, leopards, pumas and bears (brown bear, black bear, polar bear and sloth bear) occurs on a regular basis with hundreds of people being killed annually on a worldwide basis. Although the danger that wolves pose to human safety remains controversial, may people that live in wold range report that they are afraid of wolves. This report attempts to examine the existing data about wolf attacks on humans during the last few hundred years around the world.
This report was financed by the Ministry of the Environment with the purpose of providing a foundation for the process of reducing people’s fear of wolves, and to make some management recommendations to reduce the risks of attacks. The goal was to compile existing literature and knowledge on wolf attacks on people from Scandinavia, continental Europe, Asia and North America, and to look for patterns in these cases.
In order to cover such a wide geographic area a number of colleagues from Europe were recruited as coauthors to summarise data from their country or region. We concentrated on areas where wolf populations have remained relatively abundant during the 20th century, i.e. the Baltic countries, Poland, Romania, Spain and Italy. Unfortunately we were not able to recruit a Russian expert as a coauthor, however our colleagues from Poland and the Baltics were able to provide assistance with Russian literature and we have had email discussions with Russian colleagues. Because this report was originally intended to be used in Norway, we also focused heavily on the Fennoscandian countries, despite the fact that they have relatively small wolf populations. In addition to recruiting coauthors we have availed of our combined contact network through the world, and had a large number of documents translated from their original languages.
The result is not a full summary of all wolf attacks on people, and neither can we vouch for the accuracy of all historical records. However, we believe this is a good overview of the most reliable records that exist, and is at least sufficient to draw general patterns and conclusions.
…We identified types of wolf attack, (1) attacks by rabid wolves, (2) predatory attacks where wolves appear to have regarded humans as prey, and (3) defensive attacks where a wolf has bitten a person in response to being cornered or provoked.
The majority of attacks concern wolves with rabies. Although wolves do not serve as a reservoir for rabies, they can catch it from other species. It appears that wolves develop an exceptionally severe “furious” phase and can bite a large number of people (>30) in a single attack. We have found records from Italy, France, Finland, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, the Baltic States, Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, China, India and North America. The earliest record we found of such an attack was from 1557 in Germany, and the most recent was from Latvia in 2001. Up until the development of post-exposure treatments (first developed by Louis Pasteur in the 1890s and refined in the 1950s) bites from rabid wolves were almost always fatal.
Treatments are presently so good that the majority of victims now survive. However, the severity of attacks by rabid wolves is such that some victims are killed outright, or are bitten in the head so that post-exposure treatments do not have time to act before the disease develops. As the incidence of rabies has been greatly reduced in both domestic dogs and wildlife throughout western Europe and North America, the incidence of attacks by rabid wolves has dropped. In the Middle East and Asia, there are still attacks each year.
The literature contains many examples of wolves being provoked (trapped, cornered, people entering their dens) without attacking humans. However, we have found a number of cases where provoked wolves have bitten people in an attempt to get away. In most cases these concerned shepherds attempting to defend their sheep and trying to kill wolves with a stick. In no case have the wolves directly killed anybody in such situations.
Unprovoked attacks by non-rabid wolves on people are very rare, and the vast majority of wolves do not regard people as being prey. However, we have found a number of incidents where predatory attacks have occurred.
In Europe, the largest numbers of records come from pre-20th century France, Estonia and northern Italy, where historians have looked systematically for records of such events. The most famous event is from the Gévaudan area in France where historical records indicate that over 100 people were killed in the period 1764–31767257ya. The wolves responsible were believed to be hybrids between wild wolves and large shepherd dogs. From these 3 regions several hundred people appear to have been killed from 1750 until 1900.
Additional records from the pre-20th century period come from Sweden, Finland and Norway. In Norway, there is a single record of a 6-year-old girl being killed in 1800. From Sweden there are records of 4 children being killed 1727–361763261ya, and 12 (11 children and one woman) being killed in 1820–1821203ya. This latter episode (Gysinge episode) was believed to be due to a single wolf that had been raised in captivity before escaping.
In Finland (and Russian Karelia) there have been a number of episodes during the 19th century where people have been killed. Most of these events occurred in 5 clusters: Kaukola (1831193ya: 8 children and 1 woman killed), Kemio (1836188ya: 3 children killed), Kivennapa (1839–201859165ya: 20 children and 1 adult killed), Tammerfors (1877147ya: 9 children killed) and Abo (1879–31882142ya: 22–35 children killed).
Predatory attacks from the 20th century are much rarer. There are reports of 5 children being killed in Poland (193787ya) and 4 children being killed in Spain (1957–17197450ya). There are also controversial reports of 36 children being killed in the Kirov region of Russia (1944–9195371ya). While these events remain unconfirmed, the details provided in the accounts make them credible. There are no documented cases of people being killed in predatory attacks by wolves in North America during the 20th century. However, there have been 8 well-documented attacks, mainly in protected areas, where non-rabid wolves have injured people during the last 20 years.
People killed by wolves have been recorded in India since the 19th century. In the last 20 years there have been a number of scientific investigations in 3 regions, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Andhra Pradesh. In these 3 regions there have a number of episodes where at least 273 children are believed to have been killed by wolves.
The victims of predatory attacks tend to be mainly children, and to a lesser extent adult women, indicating that wolves are being selective. In contrast, victims of attacks by rabid wolves tended to be mainly adults, indicating that rabid wolves bite people at random. Attacks by rabid wolves cluster in the winter and spring, whereas predatory attacks are concentrated in the late summer.
…In conclusion, we believe that there is good evidence that people have been killed by both healthy and rabid wolves during the last centuries. The incidence of attacks appears to have dropped dramatically during the 20th century…Even with these numbers of wolves we have managed to only find records of 4 people being killed in Europe, 4 in Russia and 0 in North America by non-rabid wolves during the last 50 years. Respective figures for rabies cases are 5, greater than 4 and 0.