Every year, there are more than a million collisions in the U.S. between drivers and deer. The result: hundreds of deaths, thousands of injuries, and billions in damages. Enter the wolf …
You've probably heard this story before.
Once upon a time, there were three little pigs.
Each pig is building a house.
The first one builds a house from straw, the second one sticks, and the third one from bricks.
Why do these three similar seeming pigs use such different building materials?
The original story doesn't tell us why.
If you had to guess, you, you might imagine that cost is a factor.
And who knows, maybe supply chain issues.
It could also be that the three pigs have different risk preferences, because a house isn't just for sleeping in.
It's also protection against you know who.
Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?
Big bad wolf Big Bad Wolf who's afraid of the big bad wolf?
The three Little Pigs is an english fairy tale which was later turned into a short animated film produced by Walt Disney.
But the Big Bad Wolf also shows up in german folk tales like Little Red Riding Hood from the Brothers Grimm, and in the russian musical story Peter and the Wolf by Sergei Prokofiev.
And centuries earlier, too, in one of Aesop's fables, the boy who cried wolf.
All these fictional wolves have something in common.
They want to eat you and ruin the things you treasure.
How accurate is that view of wolves?
Well, I don't know about fairy tales, but I know that the colonial history of wolves wolves in the United States would suggest that at that time, wolves were really problematic.
Jennifer Rainer is a natural resource economist at Wesleyan University.