Wolf Center says new Liam Neeson film full of ‘scat’

Liam Neeson prepares to fight off wild wolves in a scene from "The Grey." (Photo courtesy Open Road Films via AP)

"The Grey" is the new thriller starring Liam Neeson, who leads a stranded group of oil-rig roughnecks to safety in the remote Alaskan wilderness while being stalked by a vicious pack of rogue wolves.

The film is doing quite well in theaters, taking in nearly $20 million through this past weekend.

But the International Wolf Center in Ely isn't thrilled with the action flick. In the Center's blog Wild Bytes, Jo Tubbs, the International Wolf Center's board chair, calls the movie "dark, depressing, and as accurate a portrayal of wolf behavior as King Kong was about gorillas."

The Center is nominating The Grey for its first ever Scat Award, in the Scare Tactics and Silly Information categories. The educational center's main complaint, according to Tubbs, is that wolves in the movie are portrayed as killers, "when the incidence of wolves killing humans in North America is so rare as to garner huge headlines."

She says only two cases have been documented--a 2005 killing by wolves in Saskatchewan, and a 2010 death near Chignik Lake, Alaska.

There are now about 3,000 wolves in Minnesota. The state's Department of Natural Resources took over management of the wolves last Friday after wolves in the Great Lakes region were removed from Endangered Species list.

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