Esteem for, and fear of, wolves is a theme closely interwoven into the history of human civilisation. Many stories have been told. From Little Red Riding Hood and stories about werewolves, right up to the story of the founding of the Roman Empire. I would like to tell another such story now, so that I too can add something to our civilisation. It is a story which starts with a late-night telephone call to the Wild Life Hospital (what could be a more appropriate hour than deep into the night for us to turn our thoughts to wolves?) First telephone call "Hello?" Voice of elderly lady. "Come and get him!" "Who?" "The wolf." "Which wolf?" "That wolf with one tooth. The one that's after Jonah's sheep. If you don't take him away they'll kill him. He's finishing them all off: sheep, goats, cattle. One wolf with one tooth. All the shepherds know him. They've sworn they're going to kill him. He's done a lot of damage…." "But how are we going to catch him?" "I don't know. You're ecologists, aren't you? You protect animals, don't you? Come and get him and protect him." Second telephone call "Hello?" (Voice - probably - of a young man) "Come and get him!" "Who?" "The wolf that is in the boot of my car." This time we went. It was Eddy, from Mt. Olympus. We needed reinforcements, because we never had the equipment - a blowpipe or a stun-gun - for immobilising such an animal from a distance. A veterinary friend of ours ready with his syringe and, carrying his net, the hefty dog-catcher of Piraeus, the last of his profession, which has now been abolished - but at that time the scourge of canines and the cause of their worst nightmares. Eddy, at that time a strapping young wolf one year old, had travelled in the car boot from Elassona to Athens. The person who had reared him - always on a chain - from puppyhood onwards (his mother had been killed in a hunt) gave him as a present to Mr. T., friend of wolves. It was just that after such a long journey in a confined space, Eddy had lost every trace of friendship for human beings. They had picked him up in their arms to get him in the car but there could be no question of using the same method to get him out of it: as soon as the boot lid was raised even a centimetre his growling spread panic far and wide, turning the knees of even the bravest man to jelly. And for good reason… I was alone with Eddy in yard C of the old Aigina prison. The wolf had indicated up to that point that if you showed him due respect he had nothing against being friendly. I trusted him without being able to dispel a subliminal insecurity. Today I know that I had been risking my life - as harmless to people as wolves seem when they are free, in confinement they become dangerous. Not because of the wickedness that is falsely attributed to them. Quite the opposite. They look on humans as members of their pack and when they feel that they are in a stronger position, something which happens as soon as they mature, they try to assert their dominance over the pack, exactly as they would do if they found themselves in a pack of wolves in the wild. We humans, by contrast, without any ancillary defensive or defensive bodily organs, are lost before we even start. We don't have anything like those sharp canine teeth and our throats are unbelievably soft and tender compared to theirs. As for their jaws, forget it….. Anyway, at that time my basic problem was his gluttony. He ate anything and everything and was literally never satisfied. I cut up the food for the other animals and he rushed and wolfed it down immediately. It was impossible to stop him or keep him at a distance. Having read Wolves, Please don't Cry, I thought of trying out a trick. It is well-known that wolves, like dogs, mark out their territory by urinating at certain spots. I therefore marked out my territory using the same method. I described a circle around the area where I prepared the animal feed, hoping that he would understand the meaning of my action and keep away. In fact Eddy did come up and at the imaginary boundary suddenly stopped, bewildered. He sniffed the ground. He looked at me. He glued his muzzle to the ground again and looked at me again, puzzled. Then he did a few circuits of the boundaries of my area, perhaps looking for an opening. He looked at me every now and then, as if he were saying to me: "What are you up to?" Finally he gave up and went away. I had won… But my victory was temporary: Mistake one: I had not realised that smells fade away and have to be renewed several times a day. Secondly at some point, one way or another, the wolf would have challenged them, so as to become himself leader of his werewolf pack. I don't know if Eddy reached the point where he was officially challenging my predominance and if he would have provoked a confrontation. Probably relations between us just turned bad and there was a falling out before that could happen. Twice he launched an attack on third parties to whom for some reason, justified or unjustified - we won't go into that now - he had taken a dislike. The third time, to save the life of his victim, I was forced to smash him over the head with a fish tray. He didn't like that, but he didn't hold it against me. But the second time I was obliged to resort to a two-metre-long iron bar to ward him off in mid-attack. I had no choice: either he had to take that on the head I or had face the prospect of those fangs sinking into a delicate human throat… Soon Eddy had entirely cut off diplomatic relations with the human race apart from small children, whom he loved and wanted for company. When he saw a child in the distance he cried. But who would allow their child to go near him? Due to a series of mistakes, brought about by our inexperience at that time in handling animals like him, but even moreso by our not having access to stun guns - the state bureaucracy would not allow us to use them, though they had some in a storeroom somewhere in their ministry, and though we entreated them to make an exception in our case given the urgency of the circumstances, etc. etc., Eddy manage to drive us out of an entire courtyard of the prison building. At first we used to go in (always two at a time), armed with shields and clubs like Zulu warriors. We took a hose with us too and when he approached, as a first - and "humane" - counter-measure, we turned it on him. He hated water, fortunately for us. That worked for three months. After that Eddy decided to defy both us and our weapons and he forced us into ignominious retreat. From the day of our humiliation, nobody dared to go in there. He was alone, but undisputed lord of his domain. He paced back and forth, haughty and altogether very grand, as we cursed him from the rooftops. We were obliged, to save the other animals from dying, to throw food in to them through the window at the back of the building or to devise various tricks so as to be able to feed them without entering the courtyard: for example a pole three metres long with a chicken impaled on a meat-hook at the end of it, to feed the eagles and the buzzards. We trained it on the little windows in the doorways to the rooms and tossed in the food. But Eddy shoved his paw through the space under the door, pulled out the food and ate it. I don't recall any time before or since having used such imprecations against a living creature… We tried to catch him by mixing various tranquilisers and sedatives into his food. All we achieved was to bring to light the romantic features in his character: he would stagger groggily from one flower to the next inhaling their spring perfumes. But as soon as he sensed the slightest danger his reflexes still worked well enough. He was more than ready to defend himself. Finally we assembled about a dozen people and after repeated conferences and disagreements over the best method for proceeding, we tried to catch him by throwing over him - from above - a huge net weighted down at the edges. The first throw was a failure: instead of getting tangled up in the net, Eddy moved around underneath it without any problem at all. He had soon ripped a hole in it with his teeth, freed himself and put us to headlong flight from his territory. The second throw also failed: the net missed. But Eddy, by now frightened, holed himself up in a room. All that was needed was for the bravest of us to lock the door. Eddy stayed in the room for a week, until a fence had been erected that would allow him to have his own area in the courtyard but would also leave us free to move about and do our work. Now that we have the experience and the appropriate means for handling animals like him, Eddy has been transferred to a fenced-in forest area in Northern Greece where "Arcturus" has assumed responsibility for him. He continues to be the proudest and most handsome of wolves. A born leader.