http://www.subletteexaminer.com/v2_news_articles.php?heading=0&story_id=1319&page=72
Gros Ventre wolves kill 3 dogs
Posted: Monday, Nov 23rd, 2009
BY: Joy Ufford
Friday the 13th of November was a bad day for lion-hunting guide Scott Leeper, of Bondurant, and three of his oldest and best hounds, killed within minutes and a half-mile apart by two groups of wolves along the Upper Gros Ventre River.
Leeper, with decades of backcountry experience, was riding horseback with his “outfitter bosses” and a mountain-lion hunter when they set out at daylight in the Slate Creek drainage of the Upper Gros Ventre.
He turned out his old-timers – all small wiry dogs: a little white hound named Candy, the spotted Popcorn and “Buddy the blue tick” – following their progress with a GPS device that tracks the dogs, which wear collars with short
antennae.
“These dogs had been on a track, trailing for about an hour,” Leeper said, explaining the hounds travel together, baying and barking, when they cross and follow a lion scent. They were about a mile and a half ahead of the hunting group.
Suddenly, an icon popped up on his GPS screen that showed Candy had stopped moving – and as they came within sight of her, wolves begin howling. They rode as quickly as they could and found Candy lying there, disemboweled and dead.
From following the tracks, they could see where Candy was separated from the other two and chased by the wolves before they dragged her down and gutted her, eating her heart, he said.
Leeper stayed with her body while the outfitters and hunter rode to track the other two hounds, Buddy and Popcorn, whose signals were briefly blocked by a hill. When the outfitters and hunters got closer to the spot where the hounds were, they watched and counted 16 wolves, 11 of them black, stream up the hill and out of sight.
“The (hunters) went a half-mile and by the time those guys got there, those other two dogs were dead,” he said. “They died within 50 yards of each other. … There were blood trails up and down the hill where Popcorn was dragged.”
Leeper decided he had to leave the bloody, torn bodies behind because bringing them out on horseback wasn’t feasible.
“Candy, she was my girlfriend,” he said last weekend.
The outfitters, who own a hunting camp nearby, have seen their share of wolves fill the Gros Ventre and move into Hoback Basin. They were “both shocked” at the dogs’ brutal deaths and the number of wolves running in that group.
Leeper’s GPS dog-tracking system
allows him to basically see or even follow in their footsteps exactly where his hounds were that morning, he said. He and his companions have extensive tracking experience as well, so they decided to see if the same small group of wolves could have killed Candy and then somehow gotten ahead to Buddy and Popcorn.
What they found were tracks of five or six wolves that had overtaken Candy and after killing her the group continued straight north, leaving the other two dogs.
What the hunting party found when they retraced the path of the 16 wolves that killed Buddy and Popcorn, though, gave them pause.
The large pack had been on the south side of the Gros Ventre and traveled about four miles to a bridge over the river near Goosewing Ranch, crossing the bridge apparently to avoid getting into the water, then ran straight up the other side of the river, heading north again about four miles to run at and kill the other two hounds.
“They were clear on the other side of the river doing their wolf thing and came clear down there because these dogs were barking,” Leeper said.
He imagines the big pack heard his dogs baying – but seeing the “freeway” of wolf tracks crossing the bridge and moving
toward two noisy but small dogs was frightening.
“This is going to be your dog, I guarantee it,” he predicted to hikers, campers, horseback riders or anyone with pets or cow dogs along.
He also believes if the wolves were that intent on getting to his dogs, if the hunting party had been with the dogs there would have been further
injuries.
“I think the horses would have been bitten, and if people had been on the ground trying to stop this they would have been attacked,” he said. “There’s not anything anybody can do to stop them.”
Leeper also said he wouldn’t be surprised if there are many more wolves in the Upper Gros Ventre that federal officials don’t know about, along with uncounted wildlife and livestock deaths of elk, moose, cattle and deer wherever wolves run thick.
Eventually, he thinks a massive overflow of wolves and wildlife decimation will spill into Sublette and Fremont counties, both accessible from major wolf strongholds.
And he questions whether or not, with wolves back under the protection of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and not Wyoming Game and Fish (G&F) management, they can be accurately monitored or controlled.
FWS numbers
Mike Jimenez, head of the FWS’ Wyoming wolf program (and briefly when wolves were delisted, G&F state wolf manager), said Monday G&F had reported the dog killings to him.
“It’s traumatic,” he said, adding he grew up with “black and tan” hounds. “I can totally sympathize with that.”
Unfortunately, people on public lands cannot shoot wolves to defend their dogs as they can with livestock, he said.
Jimenez said the territory the hunters were in Nov. 13 belongs to the Buffalo Pack, which dens in the corner of Yellowstone and in winter ranges to the Gros Ventre.
Although the FWS 2008 annual wolf report stated that pack had seven adults and two pups in December 2008, apparently this year two Buffalo females had litters totaling 12 to 15 pups, according to Jimenez.
He estimates there are now 17 to 20 wolves in the Buffalo Pack at this time; winter counts will be done next month.
“It’s unusual, not unheard of, but unusual, to have a double litter,” he added.
As to whether there were two separate dog-killing packs near the river on
Nov. 13, Jimenez hazarded a couple theories. One is that some wolves might be splitting off from the main Buffalo Pack to start their own.
“My guess is it’s all the same pack,” he said. “A pack that big doesn’t all hang out together.”
Jimenez also provided a “preliminary” estimate of Wyoming’s overall wolf status outside Yellowstone with at least 29 or 30 packs, 19 to 20 breeding pairs and 180 to 200 wolves.
In December 2008, the report listed (outside Yellowstone) at least 19 packs with a minimum of 178 wolves and 16 breeding pairs.
Jimenez said after trapping “a gazillion wolves” he can say the average male adult weighs 100 to 105 pounds, an adult female is about 10 pounds lighter and a healthy pup born in the year weighs 70 to 80 pounds.
Lion hounds and guard dogs unfortunately fall prey to territorial wolves, he said. While numbers of dogs killed vary by year and state, he said hunting dogs tend to be running off a ways from their owners as opposed to a cowdog or pet with a hiker.
“Wolves respond (to dogs) in the same way as they do to an unfamiliar pack,” he said.
Thus far in Wyoming for 2009, three guard dogs protecting sheep and one pet (near Cody) were reported killed before this most recent incident. Jimenez said he was unaware of previous years’ reports of the Daniel Pack killing four cow dogs on Cottonwood Creek, as reported in the
Examiner.
Should hikers, campers, bikers or horseback riders use caution when traveling with their dogs in these lupine strongholds?
Jimenez said he doesn’t think there should be a great concern.
“But you should probably be aware of it, if you’re with a dog,” he said.
Manage wolves
Gros Ventre outfitter and rancher Brian Taylor’s family bought the Falers’ hunting camp at the head of the river in 1952 and has had three generations of cattle ranching by Lower Slide Lake.
Taylor is outspoken about what he sees happening on the Gros Ventre with wolves back in the mix. He wants to organize a field trip into the head of the Gros Ventre to show people what the reality is like when wolves aren’t managed.
“At a very, very conservative guess there’s 20 and probably closer to 30 wolves in the Gros Ventre,” he said Monday.
Leeper’s dogs were victims and there are plenty of others, according to Taylor – the mountainous region’s wildlife. This fall, he and his father and a hunting guide did not see a single young spike elk in Hunt Area 82, he said. He also believes the moose population is being decimated by wolves and fears the day will come when seeing a moose is a rarity.
FWS needs to manage these wolves or hand management back to the state before wildlife populations are damaged beyond a tipping point, Taylor stated.
“They (G&F) can’t manage anything else if they can’t manage the wolves,” he said.
For the complete article see the 11-24-2009 issue.
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Ontario man killed in wolf attack, coroner's jury finds
First documented case in North America of a healthy wolf killing a human in the wild
Last Updated: Thursday, November 1, 2007 | 4:03 PM CT
CBC News
A coroner's jury in Saskatchewan has determined that Ontario university student Kenton Carnegie was killed in a wolf attack.
Carnegie was 22 when he died in November 2005 near Points North Landing, Sask. On a work term for a company at the mining exploration camp, located about 750 kilometres northeast of Saskatoon, Carnegie went for a walk and didn't come back.
Searchers later found his body surrounded by wolves.
Witnesses told the inquest that wild animals had been feeding at an unregulated garbage dump. Concerns were expressed that wolves in the area had lost their natural fear of humans.
Paul Paquet, an expert on wolf biology who studied the case for the coroner's office, told the inquest earlier in the week that it was more likely that a black bear killed Carnegie, although a wolf attack was also a possibility.
He said he based his findings on all the evidence, including the way the body had been consumed and moved around.
But his evidence didn't jibe with what people on the scene observed. No one reported seeing a bear in the area.
Another wolf expert, Mark McNay, who had studied the case for Carnegie's family, told the jury he was convinced it was a wolf attack.
The jury's finding is significant, because there are no documented cases in North America of a healthy wolf killing a human in the wild.
The jury made a series of recommendations on how to prevent similar incidents. Among them is a requirement for the Saskatchewan Environment Department to provide proper fencing and supervision at all landfills where there are known to be wildlife feeding.
Read more:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/saskatchewan/story/2007/11/01/wolf-verdict.html#ixzz0llmysxna
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http://www.myphl17.com/la-na-wolf-attack13-2010mar13,0,4716005.story
Wolves kill teacher in Alaska
Villagers in Chignik Lake on the Alaska Peninsula take precautions after the first known fatal wolf attack in U.S. in modern times.
By Kim Murphy
March 13, 2010
Candice Berner was attacked while jogging and listening to her iPod Monday evening. (March 11, 2010)
Reporting from Seattle - Hunters were combing the snowy brush around Chignik Lake, Alaska, on Friday in an attempt to hunt down up to four wolves that killed a 32-year-old special education teacher in the first known fatal wolf attack in the U.S. in modern times.
But the wolves were elusive, and villagers were hoping that state game officials would send in a helicopter to help track the animals, Village Council President Johnny Lind said.
"They've been looking and scouting around, and the wolves are definitely still around, but they're smart, and they take off before you can get close to them," Lind said.
Candice Berner, a special education teacher who traveled among several rural schools on the Alaska Peninsula, 475 miles southwest of Anchorage, was attacked while jogging and listening to her iPod Monday evening on the deserted, 3-mile-long road that leads out from the village to its small airstrip.
A native of Slippery Rock, Pa., she had been working in Alaska only since August. Her body was found by snowmobilers a short time after the attack. It had been dragged off the road and partially eaten, and was surrounded by wolf prints.
"Our investigation points to wolves being the most likely culprit. It is the only predatory animal that is active in the area that we're aware of, and we also believe the wolves have been increasingly threatening to people in the area," said Megan Peters, spokeswoman for the Alaska State Troopers. "They've been getting too close, circling, making people fearful for their safety."
Christi Aleck, another resident of the village, said that while there are always wolves in the area, three to four have been lingering unusually close over the past week or so and have been sighted again since the attack.
"They come in at nighttime, not very far from the village, and they're just kind of watching," she said. "They're waiting for somebody else to go out again, I guess."
She said villagers are driving their children to school and keeping them indoors during recess.
"People are scared. Oh yeah, they're scared," she said. "Nobody's walking around anywhere. I mean, wolves have always hung around in the wintertime, but they've never attacked anyone."
The only known previous fatal wolf attack in North America over the last 100 years occurred in 2005, when a young geology student was attacked and partially eaten by a pack of wolves in northern Saskatchewan.
In at least two other cases, there were attacks -- in Alaska and again in Saskatchewan -- that were halted by rescuers before they became fatal.
"What the research shows is that in the last 10 or 20 years, as wolves have kind of re-colonized areas where they were extirpated around the turn of the 20th century, and as people have also developed more habits of going out into national parks and wilderness areas, we've had more aggressive encounters," said Mark McNay, a retired Alaskan wildlife biologist who has studied wolf attacks.
Wildlife attacks in Alaska are relatively common. "Certainly we have bear maulings, we have people bitten by wolves, we have people that are stomped by moose," Peters said. "Having an incident where a human and animal cross paths and it doesn't end well, that's normal. But we don't have any other case on hand that we're aware of where someone was actually killed by a wolf."
Peters said state troopers had ruled out the possibility that Berner had died from any other cause and was later dragged away by wolves.
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http://www.hotspotoutdoors.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/1976555/1
Yesterday evening, my 16 yr old son was brush hogging some of our trails. He was out in our ~12 acre field when 2 timberwolves attacked and fatally wounded our best friend, our dog Cara. My son was about 150 yds from them when it happened and the wolves weren't bothered by his presence. He called up to the house on his cell phone and I immediately went out there to find the wolves standing over my Yellow Lab. I chased them off with the truck and came back to check on the dog and go tell my wife the sad news. She was on her way out to the field so I turned around and the wolves were already on there way back to my dog. Our dog suffered a terrible abdomen wound with her insides hanging out.We took her to the vet but she was missing a big piece of her stomach muscle. They were unable to perform surgery and had to be put to sleep. Our dog was just like one of our kids and it has been a very hard day for me, my wife and four kids.
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Those should get your blood boiling. Kill'em all!!!
