A Man Among Wolves






Interacting With the Subject






Learning the Language



He chose to forego normal human contact, sometimes for days at a time, as a tutor to the three wolf pups at Combe Martin. Thanks to his previous work, Ellis said he had learned to distinguish elements of wolf language. Some of the first lessons the three pups got were in howling.

"The first call I usually give them is what we call a locating howl -- very high in pitch -- and it tells the young pups that no matter where they are, if they hear that, they come to me very quickly."

Every pack member develops a signature howl that is unique to that animal, Ellis said. "If the position that it holds in the pack changes, then its howl will change. Everything depends up on the social positioning…that these guys hold, and the howling is no different."

'Intimate Associations'

One of the pups, named Tamaska, was particularly vocal. "His reaction to being in trouble or getting hurt was to scream like a big child. And he'd come running over to me very quickly and I'd have to pick him up, put him under my neck and give him warmth. Warmth is one of the ways that we use to say to the wolf that everything's okay, you can calm down."

Conservation biologist Dr. Chris Darimont of Canada's Raincoast Conservation Society and the University of Victoria said that although the pups would have learned to howl on their own, "Shaun could have taught them certain howls, absolutely."

Darimont has mixed feelings about the nature of Ellis' work. "I'm of the opinion that the best teachers of wolves are their parents and their older siblings in a traditional wild setting…What Shaun is doing is not traditional Western science, but it doesn't detract as much as one would think it does from what he's been able draw from his very intimate associations with wolves that has rarely been done before."

Darimont said he was impressed by scenes of Ellis eating at a deer carcass with the wolves, and growling to guard his portion of the kill and enforce the hierarchy of the pack.

'I Was Never Healthier'

"To be side by side, next to these carnivores with 1,500 pounds per square inch of biting pressure in a highly competitive environment -- this is a feast or famine lifestyle," Darimont said. "I've seen his expressions, modifying his facial features, and it's the same thing that the wolves are doing. It mimics wolf behavior close enough that it's very, very effective."

Ellis wasn't eating raw meat from the animal carcasses, which were purchased and brought into the sanctuary for the wolves. He had the organs he ate precooked, wrapped in plastic and placed back into the carcasses. He then claimed and defended his food.

"I was never healthier," Ellis said. "Colds, flus, upset stomachs, internal problems never really became an issue. I did pick up two bouts of worms, I have to admit that one."

He also suffered what he said were accidental facial bites that resulted when two wolves on either side of him snapped at each other. On such occasions, he left the compound briefly to see a doctor and receive stitches for the wound.

"In the early stages I would get stitched up, come back down again, and come in with the guys," Ellis said. "But very quickly they could smell something in the wound, so…the wolves would just pluck out the stitches, very gently with their front incisors. And [I] just sat there and let them do it because it's their world. They would…open up the wound and thoroughly lick inside. Every few hours they would come over and inspect the wound and clean it thoroughly, so much so that it would heal in a fraction of the time."

Montana wolf biologist Dr. Kyran Kunkel said those healing powers wouldn't be unusual. "They would have, within themselves, opportunities to heal in a way that's evolved over time and that works for them. So it would make sense, too, that it might also work for humans."

The Human Family

Dr. Kunkel said that Ellis was not taking the type of risk involved in a famous incident in 2003, when a naturalist and his girlfriend were killed by a grizzly bear.

"In terms of inflicting real harm," Kunkel said, "I don't think that was as big a concern with captive animals, and certainly not the concern you would have with a larger carnivore with claws like a grizzly bear."

Ellis has four children from a long-term relationship that failed. He said the work he does with wolves put a strain on his human family.

"You have to drive yourself away from human emotion," Ellis said. "When you leave here and try and join your family's society, your emotion doesn't come out with you. You're into a role that you provide with the wolves, and it takes a long time in the early stages to get out of that character and go into another one."

Ellis said that in his dreams, he is sometimes a wolf instead of a human being. "It's almost like the wolf brings out the subconscious in you, a way of dealing with the world. If I had a dream that caused me a problem or an anxiety, I would often find in that dream that I would appear as the wolf to deal with that problem. If there was no anxiety, then normally [I] would be in human form."

One way of dealing with the world and maintaining the pack structure while Ellis lived with the wolves was to keep a set of unwashed clothes that carried the odors of the pack -- the scents they knew him by. He described it as a kind of wolf newspaper. "This clothing actually contains all the information that surrounds their territory: where I've been, how have I fed, have I made a kill?"

'That Was His World'

Ellis did grow nostalgic for human contact. In a visit to a pub near the wildlife park, he met and struck up a friendship with Helen Jeffs. She said that the smell of Ellis' work didn't deter her. "When I met Shaun, that was his life, that was his world. I knew that. I could put up with that, no problem."

Ellis couldn't telephone her when he returned to the wolves, but Jeffs, who lived on the other side of a valley, was game for different types of communication.

"Shaun would howl with the pups, and then I would respond and howl back to him. So we communicated by howling across the valley."

Jeffs now lives and works with Ellis at the park.




New Alpha Wolf









