The man who left his wife and five children to go and live among wolves for 7 years

This is one of those stories that usually only happens in movies. The legend of the werewolf for some is true, and for others it’s just a myth, but Shaun Ellis (58) made it come true. In 2003, the man lived with the wolves for seven years and ended up becoming the leader of the pack.

Ellis’ case has attracted so much attention that National Geographic made a documentary about his life among the wolves. It is the only case in the world of an adult human voluntarily coming to live with these animals until they become part of their community. Indeed, the wolves considered him the alpha male of the pack.

Attracted to wolves since childhood

Shaun Ellis was born on October 12, 1964 in Norfolk, England. Since he was a child he was attracted to wolves. He began to study the subject in a particular way and gradually became more and more interested in it. The first time he saw a wolf was in a zoo and from that day on it was love at first sight.

The man went on with his life, but his love for wolves never went away, in fact, it grew stronger each time. Shaun has become a special forces soldier Great Britain, and whenever he could, he would go to the forest at night to record videos of the animals. Seeing them gave him great satisfaction.

Many years later, Shaun Ellis married and fathered five children. Sometimes he spent more time with the wolves than with his own family. At first, his wife didn’t see this hobby as a problem, but over time she got tired of it. The woman abandoned Ellis and went with her children.

After being left alone Ellis made the decision that would change her life forever., wanted to live among the wolves. Before he decided to get closer little by little so that the animals got to know him, Shaun was able to live with them in the Nez Perce park, United States and he stayed there for seven years, sharing with a group of local Indians and sleeping with the animals . The werewolf always wore the same suit to preserve the scent of the pack.

But it wasn’t easy, it took eight months for the wolf group to accept it. The initiation gesture was a bite on the knee, which in the wolf code seems to be synonymous with welcome: “If you react badly to that bite, they’ll leave you alone,” explained Ellis in dialogue with the BBC. From this experience she has published a book entitled The Speech of the Wolf (2003).

Alpha male

After this revealing experience he returned to England and he found some wolf puppies abandoned by their mother who he decided to raise. She named them Tamaska, Yana and Mats, and went to live with them in Combe Marti Park, where Shaun became her mother.

For a year and a half, Ellis was the mother and father figure of the wolverines, taught them to howl, to eat first by giving them food from the mouth, to hunt and to their hierarchical position within the group. The man’s main goal was to know if his wolves were able to survive on his teachings.

The small pack made Ellis their alpha male.. When he thought the baby wolves were ready, Shaun released them to find his own. Even if he walked away from them, he never lost sight of them. Magazine National Geographic He knew her story and made a documentary about her.

Acknowledgments and controversies

Many scientists, especially biologists, have seriously questioned Shaun Ellis’ experience. This is because the purpose of approaching wolves does not answer detective work. He simply loves these animals and wanted to enter their world to get to know them better.

“It cost me my family, my home, my security, my financial stability, now I have nothing, but you have to believe in what you do, I wouldn’t be in this if I didn’t know I could achieve something,” Shaun Ellis told him in an interview with BBC.

After being shocked by his “skill with wolves”, Shaun started participating in some National Geographic documentaries, he was the main protagonist of “A Man Among the Wolves” (2007) and had a few other sporadic appearances on the aforementioned signal.

The man’s life has changed completely, he has become a partner of a woman who not only accepts his way of living life, but also participates in it. Many consider him insane, claiming that he is interfering with the education puppies should receive, but Ellis has studied these beings all his life. Today he continues his life dedicated to wolves and, together with his new wife, lives loving these animals.