Man who lives with wolves starts eating dinner with them in crazy video
Topics: Animals
Anish Vij
Featured Image Credit: Nine Network
Topics: Animals
A wild video shows a British researcher chowing down with a hungry pack of wolves.
Shaun Ellis has spent more than 20 years studying wolves in the wild and is nicknamed the 'Wolfman'.
Watch below as he sits down for dinner with the wolves:
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Having been fascinated with wolves from a young age, Ellis wanted to get a closer glimpse into their lives.
That's when he eventually decided to go to Nez Perce National Park in Idaho and live with them.
After living with local tribesmen, he learned more and more about the way the animals work and it took eight months for them to accept him as one of their own.
Their welcoming gesture was a nibble on the knee.
Becoming part of the wolfpack meant that Ellis would regularly hunker down on raw meat with them.
"Just to be a part of that for a small period of time, you get see things that many people don't," he told CBS.
"Everybody sees the stereotypical wolf, but there's a majesty to them, a true symbol of the wild.
"And when you're with them, it's one of the last places on earth where people aren't in charge. And that's a lovely place to be sometimes."
On getting the wolves to trust him, Ellis said: "For me that was never the case.
"I work on a need basis with these guys because I have to because of the lower rank that I hold, and every day I have to maintain that need, and I don't take anything for granted. The respect has to be there.
"I want them to feel that I'm there doing a job for them, doing a function, a service, if you like."
As long as the wolves know you're not a threat to them, they won't harm you, Ellis says.
It's important to act calm no matter what.
"These guys were classified in the early stages certainly by the native people, as teacher," he added.
"And I think that's their connection to us.
"I think they still have an awful lot to offer us and having spent that time with them, they've taught me an awful lot about me, about the world that we live in, about what this world is going to become.
"And maybe even a glimpse of how they could help."
Ellis lived with the pack for 18 months and initially found it difficult living with his own species again.