The horse was in the middle of a pack of wolves: they behaved against the laws of nature

What happens to a horse when it suddenly finds itself in the middle of a pack of wolves? Most of us would think that a negative character from children’s fairy tales would surely pounce on potential prey, even more so in a group. Usually it does, but not this time.

In an Italian region, a photographer managed to capture fantastic footage of a pack of wolves encountering a lone horse and staring at it curiously without any trace of aggression.

As we all know very well, the diet of the wolf is naturally based on meat. Alone, these predators can eat small animals such as squirrels, groundhogs or mice, but if the animal is absolutely hungry, it will not shy away from lizards and frogs.

Large animals are hunted by wolves only in groups. A deer, a wild boar, an elk or a horse can become their prey. Wolves are very resilient and sometimes stalk their prey for several days before exhausting them and then attacking.

Horses are physiologically heavier and larger than wolves, but normally a pack of wolves can easily knock down a horse. But not this time. A unique encounter between these animals occurred in Abruzzo: the horse was surrounded by six wolves, but they showed no aggression towards the mammal.

The horse, in turn, did not seem to be afraid of wild predators and even lay down on the ground in front of them. The photographer was surprised and already thought that the predators were about to attack him. After all, this could have been the ideal moment for an attack by the gray predators. But it didn’t come to that: they just watched curiously as the horse lazed in the snow.

This atypical attitude between the animals was explained by the specialist Jonas Wahlström. He said that horses in Italy rarely meet wolves and therefore do not die from their attacks. The fact is that wolves in these regions do not hunt big game, preferring to eat smaller and more accessible animals, such as hares. According to an expert, wolves in this region are not even aware that they can easily hit a horse. Therefore, they do not attack horses and the latter are not afraid of them.

Source: bbc.com