Big bad wolf conception

Most of us grew up hearing stories about the "big, bad wolf." But wolves are not really big or bad. They aren’t even harmful to humans! Wolves belong to the same family of animals, Canidae, as the dog you may have as a family pet. They are predators that hunt and eat other animals. In some places they are considered a vulnerable or endangered species. There are many wolf organizations and government agencies working to both save wolves and educate people about them.

There are many stories of wolves being "wild dogs" that can be tamed. While wolves and dogs do share many biological traits, they are very different from each other. The dogs we have as pets have been bred to be gentle companion animals to humans. Wolves are still wild animals and should be treated as such. Sometimes wolves and dogs interbreed, and the pups are called wolf hybrids. However, these hybrids usually do not make good pets. There is another myth that some dog breeds, like the husky, are part wolf. But huskies are just another domestic dog breed, like a poodle or a golden retriever.

Wolves vary physically from one another. Desert dwellers like the Ethiopian wolf may weigh only 25 pounds (11 kilograms), but northern gray wolves like the tundra and Arctic wolf subspecies can reach 136 pounds (62 kilograms). Their coat color runs the full black-white color spectrum, with tan and reddish brown thrown in as well. There are two wolf species in North America, the gray and the red. Gray wolves are the most widespread, inhabiting parts of the U.S. but all of Canada as well as Europe and Asia and are split into several subspecies, including Arctic wolves and Australia’s dingoes, a subspecies that lives in just about any habitat there, from desert to rain forest. Ethiopian wolves are found only in the highlands of Ethiopia.