Source: West Side Rag » Raccoon Climbs into 8th Floor Bedroom of West End Avenue Apartment
A few years ago, when New York City’s government (and news) was going through one of its urgent anti-rat eruptions, this time focusing on the number of rats in Central Park, I had what I believed was an enchanting idea: wolves.
Import a small pack of wolves into the park. Bingo! End of rat problem.
I know a lot about wolves. Not so my friends and relations. I was surprised at the objections. “Oh yeah, what happens when the wolves grab some small dogs?”
I made an honest effort to envision my pack of wolves (they had become “my pack,” I was even thinking about naming them both individually and as a pack) attacking a dog being walked by its staffperson, or even a pack of dogs being walked by a dog walker.
Wouldn’t happen. Wolves are far more courteous than that. (Now of course if someone decided to re-institute a herd of sheep in Sheep’s Meadow…that’s a different story.)
I told whoever was objecting to my pack of wolves that when wolves set up a group howl, each of them modulates his or her tone away from the tone of the howl initiator, so that a howl is harmonic, like a chorus of the “Ode to Joy,” say. (I just spent not a lot of time trying to find verification of this–I know I read it somewhere–and couldn’t. But the link up there will tell you some stuff about group howls and at the bottom there’s an adorable picture of a pup making maybe his first howl. SO cute.)
Can you imagine everyone living close to the park opening his windows at night to listen to the wolves, as maybe a prelude to going to the Met and hearing “Nabucco”?
There I go, off on my wolf obsession, rather than dealing with the story about a raccoon who managed to climb eight stories up on a residential building and get through a kid’s window.
Sure, go ahead and read that and since you can think two things at the same time, consider my wolves. In Central Park. Please.