Future Darwin Award Winners.....
Oct. 22nd, 2008 12:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
patgundDancing With Wolves
"Perhaps you've heard of Shaun Ellis before. For 21 years, the British wolf expert has been living among wolves—howling, licking and snarling as one of them, both in the wild and in captivity, in the name of research. He spent seven years on an Indian reservation near Yellowstone National Park studying their distinctive howls, and ultimately publishing a book on the topic, "The Wolf Talk." Later, he was the subject of a National Geographic television special, which documented his experience of raising a trio of cubs abandoned at birth, teaching them how to howl and hunt, and ultimately integrating them into a local pack.
Today, a wild-haired Ellis lives in a tiny trailer on the edge of the Combe Martin Wildlife & Dinosaur Park in North Devon, England, home to a 20-acre wolf sanctuary where he has set up camp. He spends days at a time with the park's resident wolf pack—his "family," he calls them—and for the past two years, he has been training his fiancée, the blond and blue-eyed Helen Jeffs, to become one of them. This means giving up pastries—Jeffs's favorite—to feast on raw meat, kidneys and intestines; and hoping that playful romping with the wolves doesn't get too rough (Ellis recently suffered a concussion). It also means nights spent outside, growling and biting to earn respect, and a whole lot of broken nails (Jeffs still hasn't stopped getting them done). All along the way, the couple is being filmed as part of a new reality series, "Living With the Wolfman," which premieres this week in the United States, on Animal Planet.
Jeffs, 42, is a combination of average gal and wolf enthusiast: When she met Ellis, 44, she was working in a local nursery school, living in a three-bedroom house and volunteering at the wildlife sanctuary where Ellis is the resident wolf expert. On weekends, she did ordinary things: hanging out with friends, getting her nails done and baking her favorite pound cake—lemon drizzle. But for the first six months of their relationship, Jeffs and Ellis communicated with each other by howling—yes, howling—across a two and a half mile valley, from Jeffs's home to where Ellis was living with his wolves."
"Perhaps you've heard of Shaun Ellis before. For 21 years, the British wolf expert has been living among wolves—howling, licking and snarling as one of them, both in the wild and in captivity, in the name of research. He spent seven years on an Indian reservation near Yellowstone National Park studying their distinctive howls, and ultimately publishing a book on the topic, "The Wolf Talk." Later, he was the subject of a National Geographic television special, which documented his experience of raising a trio of cubs abandoned at birth, teaching them how to howl and hunt, and ultimately integrating them into a local pack.
Today, a wild-haired Ellis lives in a tiny trailer on the edge of the Combe Martin Wildlife & Dinosaur Park in North Devon, England, home to a 20-acre wolf sanctuary where he has set up camp. He spends days at a time with the park's resident wolf pack—his "family," he calls them—and for the past two years, he has been training his fiancée, the blond and blue-eyed Helen Jeffs, to become one of them. This means giving up pastries—Jeffs's favorite—to feast on raw meat, kidneys and intestines; and hoping that playful romping with the wolves doesn't get too rough (Ellis recently suffered a concussion). It also means nights spent outside, growling and biting to earn respect, and a whole lot of broken nails (Jeffs still hasn't stopped getting them done). All along the way, the couple is being filmed as part of a new reality series, "Living With the Wolfman," which premieres this week in the United States, on Animal Planet.
Jeffs, 42, is a combination of average gal and wolf enthusiast: When she met Ellis, 44, she was working in a local nursery school, living in a three-bedroom house and volunteering at the wildlife sanctuary where Ellis is the resident wolf expert. On weekends, she did ordinary things: hanging out with friends, getting her nails done and baking her favorite pound cake—lemon drizzle. But for the first six months of their relationship, Jeffs and Ellis communicated with each other by howling—yes, howling—across a two and a half mile valley, from Jeffs's home to where Ellis was living with his wolves."
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no subject
Date: 2008-10-22 09:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-22 10:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-23 01:36 am (UTC)Carry on :)
no subject
Date: 2008-10-23 02:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-23 07:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-23 09:29 pm (UTC)perhaps a little more "mad" than "science" in some ways - but I still respect it.