Blue Collar Scientist

Some Alaskans - in particular those who have political favor to pass around - are obsessed with killing wolves. One of the old stories about wolf hunting is that the Natives, back in the day, used something called the “blood knife” to do the job. The idea was, you smear a knife with the blood of a prey animal, stick the knife in the ground or freeze it in a big block of ice so that the blade sticks up, and walk away. Eventually, a wolf will come by, lick the knife, cut its tongue, and bleed to death.

Wolves in Alaska, you see, have no clotting factors. Or platelets.¹
The Anchorage Daily News, which isn’t really known for running evidence-based stories, nor for doing any sort of investigative journalism, has run a story skeptical of the myth. Columnist Craig Medred, the long-time outdoor writer, talked to several scientists and then performs the takedown.

Kudos, ADN.

1. Obviously, I am making this up. [↩]

Tags: ADN, Alaska, Anchorage Daily News, blood knife, clotting factor, Craig Medred, myth, native, platelet

This entry was posted on Monday, January 28th, 2008 at 3:03 pm and is filed under skepticism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.