Wolves Spirit and Mika, residents of the Wolf Sanctuary of PA. PHOTO FROM WOLF SANCTUARY OF PA
Originally appeared in the Reading Eagle in February 2019.
LITITZ - When breakfast arrives at the Wolf Sanctuary of PA in Lititz, you’ll hear it before you smell it. The 52 wolves that live on the premises have noses so sharp, the moment that the truck carrying, say, a roadkill deer, enters the gates, the howling starts. A pen filled with hungry plains wolves, which once was content to bask in the sun like a bunch of giant, furry sausage links, was now getting restless.
“Patience is a virtue, Lucas,” instructs Michelle Mancini, the sanctuary’s education coordinator. “Couple minutes, Luke, couple minutes.”
Mancini, 29, can understand their hunger. She’s always been fascinated with wolves, and the divide between those who fear them and those who love them.
“They were rail thin when they came, you could see their ribs,” Mancini said about one group of wolves.
The sanctuary was founded by Bill Darlington in 1980, as a place to accept wolves that didn’t get the care they needed. Since owning pet wolves is illegal in Pennsylvania, most of the sanctuary’s wolves came to be there in one of two ways; their owners gave them up willingly, or the Game Commission confiscated them. Due to their lack of survival skills, the wolves will never be released into the wild.
“They are not an animal to be feared automatically,” she said. “They’re more shy than anything, for their own survival.
At the sanctuary, there are plenty of stories behind the snouts. There’s the long-lived Cinderella and Swayze, a 15-year-old brother and sister pair. There’s Iron Jaws Houdini, a West Virginia native who escaped from every cage. There’s Lucas’s brother, Lazarus, so named because the sanctuary nursed him from the brink of death in infancy. Between them, Mancini can’t pick a favorite, but one wolf whose journey stood out to her was Chomp, who lost her right ear in a fight with her sister.
“She’s very high-spirited, even though she is not a top ranking wolf in the pack.” Mancini said. “She never let it get her down.”
Every wolf is different. Some are very sociable and love to be touched, while others hate human contact.
“You develop a really strong relationship with all of them.” She said. “You definitely develop emotional connections with the animals, and it feels good to help them in some small way.”
Building up trust with a wolf, something that takes a very long time, is all about body language and knowing when to use your hands.
“I think rather than being exciting or something like that, it’s more being careful and realizing how they’re feeling.”
Moving on through the sanctuary, Mancini comes across two wolf-dog hybrids, Kaya and Luna.
“Luna, what’s going on big girl?” Michelle asks.
The pair is lucky - they’re first on the feeding list - but Mancini cannot understand why anyone would want to breed a wolf with a dog (the practice is illegal in Pennsylvania, but legal in some other states).
“It makes for a very confused animal,” she said. “They have domestic instincts and wild instincts that come into conflict.”
Often, owners adopt “puppies,” only to watch them grow up into hybrids. It’s similar to what happened with Shawnee and Kuzco, two wolves who stood out to Mancini. The two came from different homes. Playful Shawnee (“she loves her Kuzco”) became too big for her owners to handle, while shy Kuzco had a problem many rescue wolves suffer from; separation anxiety. Even if one raises a pet wolf from infancy, their pack instinct will remain. Unlike dogs, who understand that humans sometimes leave the home, a wolf owner can’t even go to the bathroom without the wolf thinking that the pack has abandoned it.
“We’ve been to the circus,” says staff member Russ Stavig. “We’ve seen trained lions, trained people, trained monkeys, trained clowns, but you’ll never see a trained wolf. There are some animals that you can’t love the wild out of.”
Stavig, 71, grew up in South Dakota, with coyotes and Jack London novels, but never real wolves.
“They’re magnificent and misunderstood creatures,” he said. “We’re their number one predator. They’re not the bloodthirsty man-eating animals we think them to be. We like to say that Little Red Riding Hood wasn’t telling the truth.”
Along with learning about the wolves, Stavig has also mastered the art of the one-liner. His first words on an icier-than-usual January morning: “We like to say that our bathrooms are climate controlled - they’re hot in the summer and cold in the winter.”
His favorite wolf is the elusive Taya, so mysterious that she even runs from humans during feeding time.
“My wife calls it a day camp,” Stavig said. “It is as much of a sanctuary for me as it is for the wolves.”
Much like the wolves, whose homes range from Montana to Missouri, people from across the country work at the sanctuary. Stavig’s fellow tour guide is a former policewoman in southeast Florida who specialized in hostage negotiation.
As she checks on Kaya and Luna, Mancini gets a message on her walkie-talkie. A meat donation just came in, and breakfast is on its way. The sanctuary relies completely on donations - recently, one philanthropist donated a bag of chicken feet for the wolves. The wolves will eat anything, except for pork.
“It doesn’t agree with them… to put it nicely,” said staff member Courtney Koval, 28.
Mancini has now moved on to the top of the hill, which is home to a group of young gray wolves. They may be pups, but even Mancini herself is impressed by their size. When talking to them, she suddenly puts on a posh English accent.
“Violet? Are you posing?” Mancini asks, to wolves who are clearly not bothering to move until breakfast comes.
“You guys are lazy babies,” she sighs.
Wolves tend to eat quickly and don’t take time to chew, hence the term “wolf down.”
“When they chew the bones, they crunch them up easily,” Mancini said. “Just like a potato chip.”
According to Stavig, the wolves are never fed live meals, but if a rabbit gets into one of the pens, whatever happens happens.
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