rickk, I believe there have been humans killed by wolves. Not many very recently at all, but certainly more during our pioneer days and prior to that. To say that there have never been any...well "never" is far too all incusive IMHO.
I can tell you that the info above is true and not misinformation.
I know up in the high country here earlier in the year several wolves were stalking two children waiting at a rural bus stop. A resident noticed it and came down in their vehicle and picked those children up. The woman in the above story was in the process of being attacked when she klilled the wolf.
Wolves are a problem and a danger. They have been reintroduced...and not even the wolves native to this part of the country...and once again we are finding why our forefathers eradicated them from close proximity to their dwelling places.
I had contacted a couple that does wolf research. They and one other source told me that there has been no verifiable cases of wolf kills of human in the U.S. They did mention the Alaskan woman. They were suspicious of the report. They said the Alaska Fish and Game was under heat for their policy of aireal shooting of wolves. I found the Alaska paper report of the killing. The article said the killing may have been wolves. It also mentioned the possibility of a bear being the killer. Papers outside of Alaska, picked up on the story and indicated wolves did the killing.
I am sounding like a defender of wolves. What I am attempting to do is understand for myself. As I said before,there is more misinformation than true information. For example one gentleman on this thread talked about a 80% reduction in elk due to wolves. I have found from a couple of sources,that there are about 110,000 elk in Idaho and only about 1,600 wolves in the entire mainland U.S.
I am reading a book “Yellowstone Wolves In the Wild”. It appears to me that the study taking place in Yellowstone may be the best ever done on wild wolves. This study does claim that the wolf reintroduction revitalized a struggling Yellowstone ecosystem.