Dogs, not wolves, most likely to have caused the death of a British tourist in northern Greece

Abstract

Wolf (Canis lupus) populations have recovered and expanded across many parts of the world thanks to conservation efforts, including improved legal status and restoration of their prey. Concurrently, public concerns regarding the risk of wolf attacks on humans and livestock are increasing as wolves occupy human-dominated landscapes. We examined a unique case in Europe allegedly involving wolves in the death of a female British tourist, aged 64, in northern Greece in September 2017. This incident received extensive international media attention and yet many fundamental details of the case area are lacking, including whether local livestock guarding dogs played a role. To assist in resolving the case, we conducted an extensive literature review which documented 13 criteria linked to the risk of either a wolf and/or a dog attacking a human. We also conducted a camera trap survey (October to December 2017) soon after the fatal attack to calculate the activity overlap among humans, dogs and wolves. Sufficient data were available for assessing 11 of the 13 criteria. For the remaining two, the required data were either not analysed (i.e. canid DNA collected from the attack site), not appropriately collected (i.e. DNA from the mouths of suspected dogs) or were collected, but misinterpreted (i.e. the post-consumption patterns of the victim’s corpse). Via this combination of evidence, we conclude that this case involved a fatal dog attack. This assertion is supported by evidence such as the: a) high dog-human activity overlap at the attack site which peaked during the attack time as opposed to near zero wolf-human activity overlap at the same time, b) presence of a large pack of unsupervised dogs, c) high ratio of male dogs in the dog pack, d) close vicinity of the attack site to dog owner’s property and e) previous documented aggression of these dogs towards humans. The consumption patterns, time scale and location of the victim’s remains indicate a posthumous consumption of the corpse possibly by the same dogs and/or by wild scavengers including wolves. A multidisciplinary approach, such as this one, in the assessment of putative wildlife attacks on humans can reduce misidentifications of the responsible species by forensic authorities and, therefore, prevent unfounded decrease in public tolerance for large carnivores.

Spatiotemporal Patterns of Wolves, and Sympatric Predators and Prey Relative to Human Disturbance in Northwestern Greece

“…Thus, we focused our research on grey wolves, a species protected under European legislation (Habitats Directive of the European Union 92/43/EEC). Wolves are widespread in Greece (60% of the mainland) [22], where wolf-human conflict is a major management concern [23]. Thus, understanding the spatiotemporal activity patterns of wolves and their wild prey is a necessity to inform wildlife management and wolf-human conflict mitigation, and to guide future research efforts.…”

Wild Animal Attacks on Humans in Croatia

“…As an example of biased reporting about wild animal's attacks on humans, Arbieu et al (2021) note the death of a British female tourist in Greece in 2017, who deceased after being attacked by an animal, at first unclear whether it was a dog or a wolf. This tragic event attracted a lot of media attention (Iliopoulos et al 2022), and most Greek media blamed the wolf for the death of the tourist, believing that an attack by a wolf on a human would attract more public attention than an attack by a dog (Arbieu et al 2021).…”