Wolf at Holy Souls Hermitage! Yikes!

So, never mind any bears or boars or panthers or bobcats or copperheads or timber rattlers or brown recluses or even ninja chickens. Now there’s what seems not to be a coyote, but rather a wolf, lupus rufus to be exact. Nor surprise there, as this particular type of wolf (smaller, thankfully, than the Timber Wolf of my home state of Minnesota) has been heavily introduced into the mountains here by the North Carolina Department of Fish and Wildlife.

This fellow was right at the door of the hermitage the other night, and has been making nightly visits for over a week now. I am reminded of Saint John Bosco’s “Griggio” or “Gray One”. Laudie isn’t quite sure what to make of the new arrival.

I’m guessing that this guy is just under three feet tall at the shoulders, four feet to the top of the nose of a lifted head, and can easily put his front paws on your shoulders without jumping. Probably about 90 pounds.

Where there’s one, there are most likely others. Totally cool. I love it. Unless it gets too hungry and starts looking at me. But I haven’t heard of them attacking people. Timber Wolves can and will people. They can take down, and eat, a moose, cleaning their teeth with the femers. But these guys, the red wolves… Nah! They would surely have to think twice even with a black bear. But if they were really hungry, I wouldn’t bet on the bear. Wolves are super cunning, especially in packs. Bears are almost totally blind. The wolf is going to win, maybe injured, but it will win. With all this going on, a Good Shepherd lays His life down for those He’s protecting. We thank our Lord for shepherding all of us, right to death, and then to life for all of us with Him.