This has bought them back into contact with humans and their livestock, and increased legal protection has granted them new immunity in areas where they have always existed side by side. Livestock conflict and its resolution has been well documented elsewhere, but the rise in wolf-human incidents has not. Wilderness recreation is a growing industry, and many more people each year spend time in wolf country than when wolves were driven from these forests and mountains. The returning wolves find themselves safe from human guns and traps, and in many instances encouraged to frequent campgrounds by free handouts of food, whether intentionally provided or not. This, in some instances, can lead to an association of humans with food, causing a wolf to overcome its natural caution and approach people.
Wolves becoming accustomed to humans appears a major factor in attacks in recent years.
There are many reports of wolves entering camps and 'stealing' brightly coloured or shiny objects, including sleeping bags, a result of their natural inquisitiveness. Two of the attacks listed above involved people sleeping outside in sleeping bags, in at least one case the wolf initially tugged on the bag, and attacked the sleeping man only when he awoke and shouted at the wolf. In the case of the attacks on children in India, research showed that the adults in a village spent a lot of time supervising their valuable livestock to protect them from predators, while young children were often left unwatched on the edges of villages, close to long grass and scrub which could easily conceal an opportunistic wolf. In parts of India, wolves rely heavily in livestock in the absence of natural prey, and may have been forced to take children when denied access to domestic animals. The fact that wolves are protected in India and the villagers where not allowed to kill them may also have contributed to the wolves' boldness in approaching close to human settlements.