S.M. Belekurov
2012:The Paranormal Cookbook (Convergence of Reality and the Supernatural)

I think the move from threatening werewolves to “de-clawed” werewolves in pop culture mirrors our cultural relationship to wolves and conservation. Younger generations are growing up celebrating the return of wolves to Yellowstone and the like. We root for the wolves now, not against them as we did in the past. The underdog status of wolves (couldn’t resist, sorry) makes it harder to rework the wolf we cheer for into the villain we fear in popular culture.

As for that Blitzen Trapper song, I hiked 17 miles through the mountains last week and listened to it probably a hundred times. Definitely the stand-out track on that album.

As for the wolves, what I meant was that dogs interbreed with wolves and the offspring might be more docile, even if they look like wolves more than they look like dogs. I think the domesticated dog came with humans over Bering Land Bridge, and the interbreeding with Canis lupus in Americas commenced at that point. And then Europeans brought more dogs, which also probably caused more interbreeding. I think the density of humans in North America will begin the domestication process on native wolves even if humans are not actively trying to domesticate. That’s my 2 cents, at least. As I mentioned in my first post, I bet a decent molecular biologist could find some interesting alleles to look at if he/she had access to fur from the period.

By the way, I just love your blog name. Brilliant.

But back to the topic — wolves. As colonization of North America progressed, introgression of dogs and wolves probably progressed, too, so the wolves of the late 1800s were probably less fierce for a reason. That’s just a hypothesis, though. You could test it by examining wolf pelts over that past 500 years…look for evidence of alleles that are only known from European dogs.