Surplus Killing

There is a disturbing cycle of violence that occurs when a wolf gets loose – unchallenged - amongst a flock of domesticated sheep.  The wolf proceeds to kill or maim as many sheep as possible, as fast as possible – far beyond its need for food.  This “surplus killing” as it is called, only occurs amongst domesticated animals, and is partly responsible for wolves’ historic reputation as a blood thirsty killers.  Such killing sprees are often misinterpreted as killing for sport, but in reality, it is merely the wolf being a wolf. 

The behavior lies not in the wolf, but in the prey.

You see, in the wild, prey animals – be they sheep, elk, bison or the like, have strong defense mechanisms against predators.  They have horns, speed, and heightened awareness, and they often band together to protect each other – ringing the young, and presenting the attacker with a natural defensive phalanx.  In the natural order of things, the taking of prey by a predator is a risky business, and to be successful wolves must often work hard to cull a single animal from the flock just to survive.  But when offered domesticated sheep, who’ve been bread into a state of total helplessness, no such deterrence exists. 

To compound the problem, when an attack occurs, an uncontrollable panic reaction sets in.  The sheep flee in all directions in abject terror, often abandoning or trampling their young, running headlong over cliffs, or even crushing each other to death against walls.  These “sheep wrecks” as they are called, are as destructive to the flock as the wolf.

I am struck by how similar this cycle is to what we, as a society have become.  The wolves are out there – more than ever in fact – whether we like it or not, whether we want to call them what they are or not.  And they will prey, mercilessly on the sheep given the opportunity.  The issue is not the wolves, but in how like the sheep we have become.  Absent a protector – a sheepdog – we have allowed ourselves to become helpless victims.  And to compound the problem, whenever an attack occurs, rather than coming together in a unified way, we panic – reacting in all the wrong ways.  We clamor for yet more gun control, expanded “safe zones,” and politically correct appeasement measures that only serve to embolden the wolves.  These responses are utterly useless in preventing the next attack and, in fact, only reinforce the vulnerability that virtually guarantees an escalation to the cycle of violence. 

Interestingly, a wolf pack may be deterred by the mere presence of a single, lonely sheepdog – a combatant willing to do battle with the wolf regardless of the odds. This predatory logic lies at the core of the wolf mentality – whether lone or in a pack.  A hard target simply poses too much potential for failure, thus the predator naturally seeks the soft target, the way water seeks the path of least resistance down a mountain.  Such is the case with human predators; most of the time you don’t have to be better – just willing – to protect yourself. 

Willing to acknowledge the threats for what they are; willing to recognize that managing fear is a far cry from achieving actual security; willing to realize that sacrificing liberty, for the illusion of security is the surest path to more victimization; and willing to understand that personal security is, ultimately, an individual responsibility. 

Willingness, though, is a state of mind.  Ability is a statement of fact.  One begets the other. 

I’m not suggesting that we all become proverbial sheepdogs – most people simply aren’t equipped or wired that way.  What I’m advocating is that we take a lesson from nature.  If we come together, we stand a far better chance of protecting ourselves – no matter what the attack – than if we panic and trample each other in our own blind ignorance.  

Even though sheepdogs and wolves look alike and even have much the same capacity for violence the difference between the two could not be more stark.  Where the wolf mercilessly preys on the sheep given the slightest opportunity, the sheepdog would lay down his life to protect the flock.  But the sheepdogs of society, to make a difference, need to have teeth!   It’s way past time for us as a society to accept once and for all – wolves eat sheep.  And you cannot protect yourself by declaring this a “wolf free zone.”   

We may not all be sheepdogs, but we can all decide to grow a pair (of horns) and start taking more personal responsibility for our own security.