Habituated wolves: A sign of induced abnormal behavior

It appears to me that habituation of Mexican wolves is a direct product of the wolf program management itself. Few people who wildly support the program and who dismiss the protests of the local people (the ones who are actually affected and whose opinions on the issues should carry more weight) have a clue what habituation entails and how dangerous habituation of a predator is.

Most people are not aware that wolf pups born in the wild are generally caught up and brought into captivity to be examined, have DNA samples taken, are given vaccinations and, when old enough, collars. They are fed by humans while in captivity. All this happens during the most impressionable period of a wolf's life.

Then, periodically wolves are trapped in the wild and are brought back to captivity to be reexamined, get more vaccinations and have their collar batteries replaced.

Of course wolves are fed by humans while in captivity - they do not have the opportunity to hunt at that time. Because canines have a sense of smell thousands of times stronger than humans it is unreasonable to expect that a wolf would not smell human scent on the food it is given in captivity and thereby come to associate the smell of humans with food [note: a dog has more than 220 million olfactory receptors in its nose, while humans have only 5 million].

Wild wolves have natural fear of humans, but wolves in captivity for any length of time, particularly cubs, are going to lose that fear simply through constant proximity. Between association of human scent with food and loss of fear through proximity wolves become habituated to humans. Every Mexican wolf so far that has been a source of problems has been extensively handled by humans - the wolf program management itself.

The Mexican wolf program has set itself up for failure, and the ones who suffer the most from this mismanagement are the humans in wolf country and the wolves themselves. Is there some valid reason why the non-habituated, non-problem, truly wild wolves out there just can’t be left alone to propagate this gray wolf subspecies? Is there no way to stop the madness of the program’s creating habituated wolves and turning them loose to get into trouble?

Does anyone with any rational mind really think it natural for wild wolves to leave the millions of acres of wild lands to sleep on people’s lawns and defecate on people’s porches? We aren’t seeing the creation of a healthy Mexican wolf population, folks, we’re seeing a sick circus disguised as benevolent protection of species.