page_title: Wolf attack
section_title: Europe
hierarchical_section_title: Wolf attack / History and perception worldwide / Europe
caption_attribution_description: English: Chart showing the theoretical stages leading up to wolf attacks on humans in 15th-19th century Italy, based on table 6 of Cagnolaro 1992.
context_page_description: Wolf attacks are injuries to humans or their property by any subspecies of wolf. Their frequency varies with geographical location and historical period. Gray wolf attacks are rare because wolves are often subsequently killed, or even extirpated in reaction by human beings. As a result, wolves today tend to live mostly far from people or have developed the tendency and ability to avoid them. The country with the most extensive historical records is France, where nearly 7,600 fatal attacks were documented from 1200 to 1920. There are few historical records or modern cases of wolf attacks in North America. In the half-century up to 2002, there were eight fatal attacks in Europe and Russia, three in North America, and more than 200 in south Asia. Experts categorize wolf attacks into various types, including rabies-infected, predatory, agonistic, and defensive.
context_section_description: In France, historical records compiled by rural historian Jean-Marc Moriceau indicate that during the period 1362–1918, nearly 7,600 people were killed by wolves, of whom 4,600 were killed by non-rabid wolves. However, the zoologist Karl-Hans Taake found evidence that many of the alleged French wolf attacks occurring during the reign of Louis XIV were actually carried out by big carnivores of other species which had escaped from captivity. Numerous attacks occurred in Germany during the 17th century after the Thirty Years' War, though the majority probably involved rabid wolves. Although Italy has no records of wolf attacks after WWII and the eradication of rabies in the 1960s, historians examining church and administrative records from northern Italy's central Po Valley region (which includes a part of modern-day Switzerland) found 440 cases of wolves attacking people between the 15th and 19th centuries. The 19th-century records show that between 1801 and 1825, there were 112 attacks, 77 of which resulted in death. Of these cases, only five were attributed to rabid animals. In Latvia, records of rabid wolf attacks go back two centuries. At least 72 people were bitten between 1992 and 2000. Similarly, in Lithuania, attacks by rabid wolves have continued to the present day, with 22 people having been bitten between 1989 and 2001. Around 82 people were bitten by rabid wolves in Estonia during the 18th to 19th centuries, with a further 136 people being killed in the same period by non-rabid wolves, though it is likely that the animals involved in the latter cases were a combination of wolf-dog hybrids and escaped captive wolves.
caption: Chart showing the hypothetical stages leading up to wolf attacks on humans in 15th- to 19th-century Italy.[23] While these factors are now largely absent in modern-day Europe, they are still present in rural India, where many attacks took place during the late 20th century.[21]
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