Posts Tagged With: werewolves

My guest today is Mitzi Flyte. Mitzi enjoys saying that she got her first writing rejection more than fifty years ago at the age of 12. (Now you know how old she is) That rejection didn’t stop her from writing. Even being a Registered Nurse didn’t stop her. Mitzi’s been published in short story and poetry anthologies and in the local newspaper. She also had an erotic novella published under a pen name (she was still employed at the time). Retired from nursing, Mitzi spends her time online and writing. And, oh, yeah, she’s returned to school to get a BA in Professional Writing. Mitzi lives in rural Pennsylvania with her husband and daughter who are also writers, an assortment of cats (not enough to be called “crazy”) and a dopey hound dog.

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Before we get to Mitzi’s post, I’d like to put in a small promo for the Winter Wonderland Scavenger Hunt put on by Night Owl Reviews. A group of authors, including me, are offering gift baskets to lucky winners. Prizes include gift cards, signed books, eBooks, jewelry, swag and even a Kindle. This is your chance to find great authors and books and win something too. Visit their site and sign up.  http://www.nightowlreviews.com/v5/Pages/Articles/Winter-Wonderland-2013

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“Who’s afraid of The Big Bad Wolf?”
“I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down.”

“My, Grandma, what big teeth you have…”
“All the better to eat you with…”

We grew up with these tales of wolves.

But are wolves really bad-actors?

Throughout history humans have feared the wolf because it is a large predator. At 100 pounds for a male and slightly less for a female, a wolf is about the size German Shepherd. They are usually a mottled gray in color but can be black, reddish brown and even white. They are pack predators that can and do target domestic herd animals such as goats and sheep. However, since records started being kept in the 1800s there has been no documented case of a healthy wolf attacking a human—any recorded attacks were by a rabid wolf or a wolf-dog hybrid. Wolves are naturally afraid of humans and tend to “disappear” into their surroundings when humans are nearby.

Throughout American history wolves have been feared by the farmer and rancher. Over the years that fear decimated the wolf population in North America, which is slowly returning. In parts of Europe wolves were hunted to extinction.

The wolf is a pack animal; the pack consists of an adult pair and their offspring. It takes a pack to raise the pups. The alpha pair may even “adopt” offspring of other wolves.

They have a wide area for hunting prey, are very territorial and will defend that territory to the death.

Humans have taught the wolf survival skills. During the 1800s when the bison were being exterminated by hunters, wolves learned to listen for the gunshots, wait until the bison was skinned and then they would go in to feed on the carcass. In more modern times when wolves were hunted from the air, they learned to avoid wide-open spaces when there was the sound of an airplane.

Once on the endangered lists, their numbers are growing; however, there continues to be a backlash against these animals. To learn more and to help in the preservation of wolves in the wild, go to:

https://www.facebook.com/wolfwatcher.org
http://www.lakotawolf.com/
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lakota-Wolf-Preserve/249291433960
http://wolfsanctuarypa.org/

Inescapably, the realization was being borne in upon my preconditioned mind that the centuries-old and universally accepted human concept of wolf character was a palpable lie… From this hour onward, I would go open-minded into the lupine world and learn to see and know the wolves, not for what they were supposed to be, but for what they actually were.

-Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf

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The Guardian Prophecy by Mitzi Flyte– release February 2014

If everything we were told about wolves is false, then what about what we were told about werewolves.

Zoologist Kate Riley has spent several days testifying before Congress about the effects of climate change on North American animals and returns home to help an investigation of an unusual death, possibly done by a wolf. Kate owns a wolf preserve in the Pennsylvania mountains and can account for each one in the preserve. Patrick Brendan, another specialist, is brought onto the case and believes that the killer may be more than just an animal.

As the death toll mounts, Kate finds herself being stalked by memories of a distant past and a chilling evil. She begins to doubt Brendan and her own scientific knowledge. Is the killer more than an animal? Is Brendan more than who he says he is? And why is she drawn to a man who could be a murderer?

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You can contact Mitzi at:

http://www.mitziflyte.com/
https://www.facebook.com/MitziFlyteAuthor
https://twitter.com/mitziflyte

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