Mighty Wolf

I gently walked down the quiet path. The moon was high. It was midnight; maybe past. Like generations of wolves behind me, I felt the urge to howl at it. A song so deep in my throat, that it overflowed with joy and passion. I was known as the Nashoba to the Choctaw, Wahya to the Cherokee, and just plain wolf to the Americans. Or the gray wolf. Or even Canis Lupus. But what I wanted to be known as was the wolf.

I am an Ice age survivor, my kin used to live all across the planet, able to find us enough food for many days. Of course, there are few of us now, and we don't have as much territory. It is sad to think about, but I always do. Me and the others, we lived to survive. We're not extinct. Yet. There's always a big "yet".

People hunt us for game sometimes. How would you feel, if you saw your friend hurt and couldn't do one thing about it, but you would have to run, feeling like a traitor? How would you feel? Would you seriously do it to them? Then why us? I just don't understand. Those kind of people - they disgust me.

I and my species are capable of covering several miles trotting at a pace of six miles per hour, and sometimes even faster. We can travel in almost any temperature. In the cold we have bristle hairs and blunt claws that enhance our grip on slippery surfaces and special blood vessels that keeps our paw pads from freezing in the harsh weather. For the snow, we have slight webbing in between our toes which makes it much, much easier to travel. We survive in harsh conditions; the cold, the heat, sandstorms, all sorts of weather. I bet most of you have never have to deal with that. We have to keep moving around to survive, hunting, while you’re probably served your food on plates, on tables in your homes. Out in the wild, we don't have that. We hunt to survive, we move to survive. We protect those we care most about, traveling in packs and feeding the youngest.

Just look at a wolf pack. A female wolf, the pups, and a few males. We're a big happy family. We play. And for a while, we don't act like wolves... we have fun. We act like the pups we are truly, inside. We love it. We enjoy it. While we can at least. But for those moments, for a while, our hardships and troubles just melt away. Most of you just see the bad in us.

I may not be a dog, living in a cozy home with loving family of humans, or a pedigree stamp on a bunch of papers. But I do know one thing: I am a survivor. I feel, I care, I love. I'm a living thing, all through my body and all through my soul. So why would you hurt me like this? I just don't get it.

A loud bark called me back to my pack, so I turned, trotting back up the path. We quickly burst into a run across the snow.  - Lauren, 11, Oklahoma (PenPal #13455)