Message #151876

[the Coming Darkness]

Suggested species

Richard H. Thompson, author of Wolf-Hunting in France in the Reign of Louis XV: The Beast of the Gévaudan, contended that there can be satisfactory explanations based on large wolves for all the Beast's depredations.[5] Though wolves in the wild usually avoid contact with humans, they will attack livestock when their natural prey runs out. Conversely, the beasts themselves were said to have preferentially taken human victims, ignoring the livestock present in the area. Some experts, however, state that wolves at the time may have been more aggressive than their modern-day counterparts, saying that today's generation of shy wolves is the result of natural selection favoring animals which were less prone to attacking humans with firearms.