Study
Wolf attacks on humans: an update for 2002–2020
Linnell, John D. C.; Kovtun, Ekaterina; Rouart, Ive
NINA Report, 2021
A systematic compilation of documented wolf attacks on humans worldwide between 2002 and 2020, classifying each by cause — rabies, provocation, habituation, or predation — against the size of the wolf and human populations sharing the same landscapes.
- Studied in
- Canis lupus
- Sample size
- documented wolf attacks on humans worldwide over an 18-year window
Attacks are very rare relative to the number of wolves and people sharing the same areas. Over the review period the great majority of attacks causing death were rabies-related, and these were concentrated in regions where dog-mediated rabies persists. Non-rabid predatory attacks were exceptionally few, and habituation — wolves losing wariness through food association with people — was the recurring factor in the remainder.
What it means
The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.
How the authors put it
The risk to an individual person from wolves is very low but not zero, and the practical control on it is preventing habituation rather than reducing wolf numbers.
How NatureHQ reads it
This is the paper that lets a wolf page answer "are they dangerous" without either reassurance or sensationalism. The honest answer has a shape: the risk is genuinely very low, it is not zero, most fatal cases historically involve rabies rather than predation, and the variable that actually matters is whether wolves have learned to associate people with food. That last point makes it actionable — feeding wildlife is the mechanism, not proximity.
- Compiles reported incidents; under-reporting in some regions is likely and unquantified.
- Attribution of cause is retrospective and sometimes uncertain.
- Rates cannot be converted into an individual risk figure without exposure data that does not exist.
What this study is used for on NatureHQ
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