Dean Weingarten writes [via ammoland.com]: On 27 October, 2017, an Oregon elk hunter found himself being stalked by three wolves. One of the wolves charged directly at him, in spite of his yelling in an attempt to scare it off. The hunter fired at the charging wolf, believing his life was in danger. The wolf was killed, and the other two wolves ran into cover at the shot. The hunter initially thought the animal might have been a coyote, but examination by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) revealed it was an 83 lb female wolf. From bluemanountaineagle.com:
Further investigation at the site of the shooting indicated the hunter was 27 yards from where he shot and where the wolf died. The wolf was seized and later released to ODFW for examination. The Union County District Attorney’s Office was consulted regarding the investigation, and based upon the available evidence, the case will not be prosecuted as this is believed to be an incidence of self-defense.
It is unlawful to kill a wolf in Oregon, except in defense of human life — and in certain instances involving wolf depredation of livestock.
According to ODFW, this incident marks the first time that a wolf has been reported shot in self-defense in Oregon since they began returning to the state in the late 1990s.
The myth of the “harmless” wolf was created by the intense hunting and trapping pressure applied by hunters and trappers equipped with 19th century technology, extending into the mid 20th century. Wolves are opportunistic top level predators in direct competition with man for the top level spot. It was relentless hunting with modern rifles, trapping with steel traps and snares, and poisoned baits that reduced wolf populations and made them shy of humans.
When these pressures were removed in the late 20th century, wolf populations zoomed. Without intense hunting or trapping, wolf populations grew and their prey species populations dropped. Wolf contact with people increased. Documented attacks were sure to follow.
Professor emeritus Valerious Geist of the University of Calgary, Canada wrote a heavily documented paper(pdf) on the process, as he tried to understand where the model of the “harmless” wolf, that he had believe all his life, had failed. If you wish a shortened version, I have put together an excerpt.
Recipe for “harmless & romantic” wolves (based on Alberta data): License trappers so as to have one trapper per 25 square miles. Give him leg-hold traps, snares, poison and an accurate gun, insist that he live off the land, give him a monetary reward for killing wolves, hire predator control officers to kill all wolves entering agricultural lands, let game wardens poison wolves after the big game season, remove all legal protection from wolves so that hunters, ranchers, farmers etc can shoot them all year long, drop by the ton frozen horse meat injected with strychnine or 1080 from aircraft on frozen lakes all winter long, (note killings of wolves by native people as ongoing).
It is interesting that the ODFW recommends that a warning shot be fired as part of a means to scare off threatening wolves.
“Dangerous encounters between wolves and people are rare, as are such encounters between people and cougars, bears and coyotes,” said Roblyn Brown, ODFW acting wolf coordinator. “They will usually avoid humans and leave the area when they see, hear, or smell people close by. If you see a wolf or any other animal and are concerned about your safety, make sure it knows you are nearby by talking or yelling to alert it to your presence. If you are carrying a firearm, you can fire a warning shot into the ground.”
Dangerous encounters with wolves are still rare. Wolf populations are growing in populated areas. As wolf populations grow, wolves will become more habituated to humans, and wolf attacks on humans will increase.
The way to minimize these attacks is to keep wolf population at acceptable levels. Wolves are very difficult animals to hunt on foot with rifles. More efficient methods, such as steel traps, or hunting from aircraft, may need to be employed.
©2017 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included. Gun Watch
About Dean Weingarten:
Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of constitutional carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and recently retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.
27 yards hardly counts as fair to the wolf. Its home is the woods after all.
If the shooting was a lot closer then where the animal was found dead.
A much closer distance. Bad breath distances or there abouts is more then justifiable and I can understand someone being or feeling threatened.
Me I would never fire a warning shot at anything that could eat or kill me in close proximity.
Waiting for “Bad breath distances” with a predator that size that’s apparently actively stalking you? Yeah, no. I honestly didn’t think Florida had areas safe enough from predators that a person would get such a silly idea.
Hilarious!
If a critter of any species is hungry enough – I’ll not trust a warning shot to work as intended.
That goes for two-, as well as four-legged predators. 🤠
So far as I’m concerned, if a predator is stalking me and I scare it off with my gun, what will the next (unarmed) human do when the same predator decides to try their luck with her? No, if a critter is already that brazen, it needs to be culled.
I haven’t run any Tueller drills with wolves, nor do I plan to, so I’m just back of the envelope estimating here.
Figure an adult wolf can top out somewhere around 35+ miles per hour. I’m not accounting for acceleration rate, because I don’t know it, but neither am I accounted for someone’s slowed , wintry and gloved reaction time, either.
Run the arithmetic on that speed, and 27 yards sounds about right. Might actually be cutting it a little close. Absent any evidence that the hunter intended all along to shoot a wolf, as opposed to defending himself, I’m inclined to agree that no charges should be filed.
27 yards that the wolf could have covered in less than 2 seconds if running. If you wait until it gets to you to be ‘fair’, you’re more likely to be killed. If someone was running at you with a knife, would you wait until they got to you to shoot? If so, I have swamp land in Arabia to sell you.
Dude, do you have any idea how fast a wolf is? 27 yards would probably be your last shot at it before it’s on top of you. Here’s an idea, go look up a YouTube video of a German Shepard K9 hauling ass at someone. Then think about what you just said really hard.
I have over twenty-two years of experience with coursing hounds including Borzoi, Irish Wolfhouds and Afghans all of which were used to course or hunt wolves. Many hundreds of years of breeding were involved in the development of these breeds and speed was a primary goal. I’ve never seen a wolf running in the wild but if the speed of the previously mentioned breeds is any indication, a German Shepard isn’t even in the same league.
ShepHERD. German Shepherd. Yes I’m being picky. I train them.
83 lbs is a sack of concrete mix. Just imagine that hitting you in the chest. And they can go faster than 35.
In the book “The German Shepherd Dog” by Rittmeister Max von Stephanitz he states that within the first 10 dogs one of his group bred back to a wolf. They tried to raise a newborn wolf pup to do what they were looking for, a companion animal for livestock farmers, but the wolf would/could never learn not to steal the livestock.
Yeah… Shepherd I know. I’m doing this on a phone.
German Shepherds are without question a superior dog. Currently have three, have owned a dozen in my time. I’ve had all kinds of dogs, GSDs beat ’em all for discipline, loyalty, protectiveness, name it, and bottom line they do what the hell you tell ’em to with just minimal training. With quality training, the sky is the limit. The only dog I’ve got now that can run with my shepherds is a Catahoula Bulldog, CatBull, they use those as hog dogs. She’s fearless, and has stamina to burn, but uses her “doggedness” (so to speak) to contrary purposes, like running my deer or chasing the horses. I love Molly but she won’t mind for shit. I’ve got a lot of dogs, when I holler at ’em the only three that stop what they’re doing and come to me are the Shepherds. Gentle around the grandkids, intimidating to strangers. I’ll own one til my dying day.
Catahoulas were bred to think for themselves and to chase large dangerous game. Shepherds were bred to herd. and take direction. I meant that a GSD’s speed was not in the same league as wolf, an animal that developed over tens of thousands of years into an animal that like a lion or cheetah, runs it’s prey down.
Dude, maybe you should think a little less hard. You’re wound up way too tight and you clearly have no idea what you’re talking about. And quit watching youtube, for Christ’s sake. Every jackwagon with wifi thinks he’s some kind of an expert just because he watched some other jackwagon’s video on youtube.
A very rough rule of thumb is that it takes a generally proficient shooter about 1.5 seconds to present his or her firearm and discharge two rounds into an approaching target. So let’s walk through the math as to how much distance an adult wolf can theoretically cover in 1.5 seconds. This is 3rd grade arithmetic, or as I’m sure you call it, “senior year”, so try to keep up, OK?
35 miles per hour, multiplied by 1,760 yards in a mile, = 61,600 yards per hour.
61,600 yards per hour, divided by 60 minutes per hour, = 1026.67 yards per minute.
1026.67 yards per minute, divided by 60 seconds per minute, = 17.11 yards per second.
Remember, smartmouth, the rule of thumb calls for 1.5 seconds required. So, 1.5 seconds, multiplied by 17.11 yards =…….. wait for it………25.68 yards!
And, what, remind me, was the wolf’s distance from the shooter, cited in the article? Hmmm? 27 yards was it? Yes, that’s it. 27 yards.
And what I posted, which your hammerhead idiocy prompted you to admonish me to think hard about, was what, again? That 27 yards sounds about right; possibly even cutting it close? Or in other words, an informative, insightful, and useful post on my part.
That 27 yards is the distance at which the wolf died. So it’s possible he started off farther away, maybe even ran a little after being shot. Bottom line is that the hunter was perhaps only a second and a half away from being pounced upon. Righteous shoot.
We’re talking bare minimums here, which if you were familiar with the Tueller drill, you would already have known, before shooting your mouth off. With your kind of muzzle control, you shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a gun or a blog.
Now, how about you scamper off with your tail between your legs and go yap yap somewhere else? The adults are talking here. Come back, pup, maybe when you get a little bass in your bark.
Jonathan-Houston,
Hank was responding to Jay in Florida and saying basically the same thing that you said.
Jonathan-Houstan
I know you’re on a roll here but most third graders would just google it.
Hey johnathon.. you do realize you just agreed with me right? Maybe tone down the attitude and read harder next time.
Dang guy. The dude was agreeing with you. You didn’t have to lay into him like that.
Decaf.
One and one-half second to live. And “That’s not fair to the wolf”? Would you like to “take a second” to decide whether or not you will shoot? She’s one car length away. Do you miss? Where do you wish to have what little they find of you, buried?
One’s fondness for large predators varies proportionally with distance.
Your comment is stupid enough that I actually think you may be a subtle troll. In the off chance you’re not, go do some research on how quickly a dog/wolf/coyote can close on you from 27 yards.
And why would you want to be “fair” to a predator that is stalking you?
Jay I hope this is the dumbest thing that I read all week. My kids turds have more intelligence in them than this mistake of an opinion. Are you serious Clark?
Wolf?? What Wolf?? I didn’t see no Wolf!
“Werewolf!”
“Where? Where wolf?”
“There! There wolf”
There, wolf. There, castle.
Why are you talking that way?
Thank you! One of the two best movies of 1974.
I would have fired some rounds in close proximity to the animals before shooting at them. Not many critters are sticking around after loud gunfire.
Yeah, good plan. Most people do not hunt elk with an AR-15. While you are repeatedly working the bolt on your .300 WinMag, are you going to take on the responsibility to spread some Ketchup on your tasty parts?
Hahaha.
Instructions unclear, ketchup in rifle
Great plan Mlee. Pop about two or three rounds into the distance while the wolf closes in to leap on your chest and bite down on your throat. That will reduce the number of idiots with a gun, by one, while feeding a wolf pack for a couple of days – so – win, win. In real life, an incoming threat (human or animal) needs two (if there is time for 2) warning shots placed center mass. When hunting, you have time to carefully locate a good kill shot. When threatened by an oncoming wolf, there is NO time. Wolves run about 20 yards in a second, and are usually quiet enough to get within 30 yards of you before you hear or see them. One to two seconds and you are DEAD if you do not hit center mass FAST.
The Oregon Dept. of Fish and Wildlife reports that there are “at least” verified 112 wolves in Oregon, mostly in the north east corner of the state, with ten or fewer in the southern part of the state north of Klamath Falls. Neither of these areas is terribly populated by humans. There are maybe 6 wolves in Northern California, all in the northern Sierras. The risk to humans or depletion of game is essentially nonexistent.
Further, in non-cattle grazing areas, wolves generally prey on the old, the ill or injured, and the young, generally strengthening the herds. That was the result of a study conducted when wolves were reintroduced into the Yellowstone National Forest.
But cattlemen will always hate them and desire to hunt them into extinction.
Ansel Adams would have hated that you called the Sierra, the sierras, he wouldn’t have corrected you but he’s turning in his grave right now. Just sayin’
That would be 111 wolves.
Mark wake up your dreaming. Yellow Stone had 19k elk in 1995 now down to 5-6 k, where did they all go (vacation) wolves eat meat nothing else, go back to your parents basement and look it up
Wolves are also insanely hard to hunt from what I’ve been told. I don’t live near them but we got lots of coyotes here and they’re hard as hell to hunt too.
Pffffft. That’s a common trope of wildlife biologists, shrub-snugglers and others who champion the return of these predators.
Here in Wyoming, we heard all of this ripe BS about how “difficult” it would be to hunt wolves. When hunters were actually turned loose, hunters filled the quotas in many counties or management areas well ahead of the allotted time. It turns out that the wildlife biologists vastly underestimate the skill of humans as hunters (probably because wildlife biologists are mostly cubicle dwellers who talk a good game about the “great outdoors” but don’t know much about the reality of outdoors).
Here’s a little news clipping from Wyoming’s last season:
http://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/wyoming-hunters-close-in-on-wolf-hunt-quota/article_921ac0d2-40ef-11e3-aefb-001a4bcf887a.html
In my own defense for what little it’s worth. I haven’t the slightest clue how fast a 4 legged anything can run. I for one would never be in the woods voluntarily. Under any circumstances!!!!!!!!
Wolf = 20 yards per SECOND.
Black Bear = 12 – 15 yards per second (limited distance)
Brown Bear = 15 – 16 yards per second (burst only)
Kodiak Bear = 12 – 14 yards per second (reportedly able to sustain speed for up to 300 yards)
Coyote = 15 – 17 yards per second
Cougar = 14 – 16 yards per second (over distance)
Cougar = 23 -26 yards per second (short burst up to 3-4 seconds)
Badger = 12 -14 yards per second (limited distance)
Bobcat = 10 – 14 yards per second (plus leap up to 5 yards)
White tail Deer = 22 -28 yards per second (vertical leap up to 5 yards, distance leap up to 12 yards)
Mule Deer = 18 – 24 yards per second (vertical leap up to 3 yards, distance leap up to 8 yards)
Elk = 22 – 26 yards per second (vertical leap up to 6 yards, distance leap up to 8 yards)
Moose = 16 -18 yards per second (limited vertical leap, distance leap of up to 5 yards)
Human Olympic Record = 10 yards per second/ 100 yards max sustained
Normal human = 6 – 8 yards per second, sustainable for up to 40 yards.
In other words – you are the slowest thing out there, so whether it’s an angry Moose, or a hungry wolf, you don’t have time for anything more than one kill shot and a very fast prayer!
I smelled bacon and the pig fired a warning shot…
I ate bacon for weeks!
Come to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and see how “rare” your wolf encounters will be. True, I’ve never been hunted by them, at least not with my knowledge, but they are becoming like rats.
Growing up, it would have been something to see, a real live wolf in the wild, but now they are so common you almost yawn. Only a fool would enter the deeper north woods unarmed and unready to defend yourself. You might just end up as a nice supper for our canine friends….Warning shot, my ass…
I think I’d have warned it, too. Right between the eyes.
“Fire A Warning Shot At Wolves”
Here, i have a better one:
Fire A Warning Shot INTO Wolves!
It seems like this was handled well by all concerned.
So the other two got the warning shot and left.
Best answer.
Saw some really big wolf tracks while elk hunting this year up in the northeast corner of the state. Heard them one night.
Just do what the government asks…fire the warning shot. But personally, my warning shot would be fired after my other shot/shots.
just curious what ‘dangerous’ should be considered, so i actually looked at some numbers.
wolves detect prey by scent. their detection radius is 1.75 miles. i’m not a dog expert, but given this range, 27 yards means the wolves have been on to him for a while – meaning he did not sneak up on the dogs or inadvertently chance upon them in all likelihood.
wolves have a run speed between 31 and 37 mph, obviously with some variance in individual wolves. so here, i’m going to look at the very slowest the wolves could run.
31 mph means 45.666667 feet/second. 27 yards = 81 feet.
distance = velocity * time
time = distance/velocity = 81 feet / 45.666667 = 1.78 seconds.
i dunno how fast you can shoot, but as an untrained civilian, 1 aimed shot per second is kind of my limit. that means at 1.78 seconds, if the other 2 wolves don’t abandon ship, i can kill 1 more wolf before the last wolf starts chewing on my jugular. that’s assuming i won’t miss even though my life is on the line. if i miss twice, all 3 wolves are on me. furthermore, i don’t know every single bump the wolf sees; if there is a slight hill or minor obstacle, the wolf’s trajectory can vary – if i shoot just as the wolf jumps over a log, for example, that’s a miss i really can’t afford. if this were my son or daughter, i would’ve considered 1.78 seconds an egregious error that almost cost him his life.
That’s a really interesting breakdown, thanks for posting it.
I have sometimes wondered if many people who carry an AR for defense in areas which contain predators, have a bayonet fixed. After that analysis, it strikes me that I would sure like to have one if charged by 3 wolves. Of course, if you’re hunting elk, carrying an extra rifle with bayonet is a bit impractical, I would imagine.
I encounter coyotes pretty regular in my favorite hunting spots. In my favorite quail hunting area I rounded a blind spot in the trail and encountered a large, dead coyote with a massive head wound.
About 10 feet from the yote I found a spent 20 ga. shell that had contained a load of number 8 shot. At knife fighting range that load of 8 shot tore that yotes head nearly off. Made a canoe out of it.
In spite of what I have in my hands, shotgun or rifle, I have a knife on my belt and a j frame in my pocket.
The four legged critters don’t make me near as nervous as the 2 legged skeevy types I run into on occasion. Any critter that’s stalking you is a danger. Period,
Death is 100% , I’d rather be killed by a wild animal in the wild, then a “wild animal” in a church. I’d trust a wolf before I would a human.
At 27 yards, from low-ready to sights on-target. At 15 yards, finger on trigger. At 10 yards, 240 grain JSP .44 Magnum, bull’s-eye!
If I was condemned to only have one handgun, 44 mag would be my choice.
Does a warning shot count if it is center body mass? Multiple times?
Wolfen, 1981, Albert Finney, Diane Venora, Edward James Olmos (I’d forgotten he was in it.)
typical pig, making up bullshit to have an excuse to break the law himself. when the F&G says you can’t shoot wolves except in self defense, you better not unless you want to get some tender lovin’ from Bubba.
it’s against the law, ok mr retired cop and army guy?
Self defense is against the law? Not even in CA.
Funny you just posted that, I just got off phone with Oregon Fish n Wildlife friend I have. He said the story is fishy, their main complaint was he talked to buddies( legalities, as he stated to F&G, “I didn’t want to get in trouble, they told me I should call.’) about it before making call to game department.
His main complaint is that the victim sought advice before reporting the attack?
I tried to edit, didn’t work. He told F&G that “buddies” told him he could get in trouble and had better call. Anyway F&G has suspicions, but no proof. They take defensive shootings of protected predators pretty serious,
This pile of steaming horseshit is pretty much what today’s loser Americans want: some know-nothing to tell us what we want to believe.
I don’t know how the hell we got to be so weak, I really don’t. When you’re not weak, you don’t just let people tell you what to think. For example, when you’re not weak, you don’t say, “Yeah, you sure told them!” you say,
“Hey, Dean Weingarten: Why the hell would anyone care what you think about wolves? None of your work, none of your studies made you one bit smarter about wolves than anyone else. You should have done what you were qualified to do: Interview a bunch of people who ARE smart about wolves.”
Dear Reader, please don’t just sit there and stare at your screen and wait for some effing guy…including me or Dean Weingarten…to tell you what The Truth About Wolves..or most things, really… supposedly is. You should already know.
You should have been reading just a little bit about wolves, just every once every few years, just little stories that gave you the views of people who are smart about wolves..
We should all read about new ideas and new subjects for a few minutes every day. For just a few minutes a day, read publications that have some people share your opinion and some don’t. After a while, when a gasbag like Dean Weingarten tries to get you to swallow a pile of his horshshit opinions, you’ll tell him you know already know better.
Well, since you insist, I’ll repeat these words from people who are smarter than me or Dean Weingarten. I first read most of them many years ago, and no one has proven them wrong to me so far:
(1) In the forest, the most dangerous animal is always man.
(2) There isn’t even one record that one human being has ever been killed by a wolf in the wild, even once, anywhere in The Western Hemisphere, ever*.
(3) Sometimes, in-captivity wolves do kill people: their keepers. Why? Can you promise that you would never,ever kill a human being who kept YOU captive your whole life long?
(4) I like dogs a lot more than I like people, so it breaks my heart to say this, but if you bring your dog canine into wolfpack canine territory and wolf canines see your dog, they may think it’s an outsider wolf and try to chase it off or even kill it. I hate to admit that truth, but I don’t have the right to deny it.
(5) In the forest, the most dangerous animal is always man.
(6). The White Man came to America and killed all the wolves,and that’s the reason why so many of our livestock are now killed by coyotes, mechanical injuries, and bad water*.
(9) In the forest, the most dangerous animal is always man.
* My comment is too long as it is, so I’ll keep more details out of it. I have them all written out, so if you want them, ask, and I will add them to the COMMENTS section of this article.
Sorry to bust your bubble, Scotty, but people have been killed in the western hemisphere by wolves.
Just as the noble savage was a construct of people that had never actually met the savage in question this whole “nature is in harmony” is a Disney construct, for the most part.
Nature is violence and destruction. I have witnessed animals being eaten while they were still alive. And while I agree with you about man being dangerous never discount the violence that animals are expert at giving out.
This is a murder trial, and you’re the prosecuter, so you have to give the jury murder-trial-level evidence. I’m sure you could prove that human liquor-store robbers have killed people in one second flat, right? Right. You’re a very good writer, and you are a damned good expert on guns too, but right here, you have to prove your claim.
This isn’t a murder trial, it’s self defense. It’s not human against human, it’s human against animal.
Do you even have the ability to make a proper comparison or argument?
What a terrible reply. You have not an ounce of logic or truth in you.
1) Just because man is the most dangerous animal doesn’t mean he would never encounter a dangerous animal that needed to be dealt with. You want to “hug it out” with a bear or a wolf? You actually might you doofus.
2) That’s a complete lie, dude called you out like 2 posts below.
3) You further weaken your miserable case with this fact. You’re admitting that wolves have the ability to kill humans when given the chance. Kind of like someone with a brain kills a moron in an argument.
4) Off topic, we’re not even talking about dogs. We’re talking about a man defending himself from 3 wolves out in the woods.
5) Still stupid reasoning 4 points later.
6) Oh so now it’s about race. You have literally no focus and you should be ashamed for even attempting a list-based argument.
9) You can’t count to 7 and you’re rehashing the same poor reasoning. Shame on me for arguing with a pre-school student on the internet. Not even a starving wolf would try to digest this abortion of an argument.
You’re just the kind of guy I described with these words. “…pretty much what today’s loser Americans want: some know-nothing to tell us what we want to believe…. We should all read about new ideas and new subjects for a few minutes every day. For just a few minutes a day, read publications that have some people share your opinion and some don’t.”
Look at Duane when he disagrees with me here. He’s smart. Look into that sometime.
Oops, copy-and-paste errors there. I did notice that I messed up the grammar a little bit, but the message is still what it is.
I read actual books and things written by folks I don’t agree with all the time. They’re published and I learn about their opinion and view even if I don’t agree.
You’re only published on the internet and all I learned from reading your drivel is that you get your feelings hurt easily and you’re easily distracted. You didn’t offer any comebacks or refutations even though I took your shit apart point by point. You just wished I did it more delicately, like your boyfriend Duane.
Wolves are apex predators. Unarmed humans are prey to apex predators, period, regardless of which predator we’re talking about, or where in the world we find these predators.
Someone else brought up the case of the special ed teacher who was killed and partially eaten by wolves. She’s hardly the only case. Here’s a more comprehensive study of wolf/human incidents going back decades:
http://fwp.mt.gov/fwpDoc.html?id=10996
You said:
“In the forest, the most dangerous animal is always man.”
As long as that man is armed, or is willing to lay waste to huge swathes of forest by use of fire to extirpate competing predators, yes.
When I’m in the woods, yes, I’m the most dangerous animal there is. I will shoot other predators that want to eyeball me, and without hesitation. That’s what apex predators do – eliminate competition. When wolves were re-introduced to Wyoming, the first thing the wolves did wasn’t start in on the elk the FWS wanted the wolves to reduce in population. No, the first thing the wolves did was eliminate coyotes from their hunting grounds. There is no animal that suffers a bigger threat from wolves than a coyote. The wolves want to eliminate competition.
So it is with humans who have their heads screwed on straight. Other high-level predators are competition – and the eons-old instinct should be “kill them.” Less competition means a) less threat from these other predators and b) more food for us humans.
To Scott you might have to rethink.
Report confirms wolves killed Alaska teacher
By Dan Joling / Associated Press Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
Dec 6, 2011
ANCHORAGE, Alaska – At least two wolves chased down and killed a teacher who was jogging on a road last year outside a rural Alaska village, according to a report released Tuesday by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
The body of Candice Berner, 32, a special education teacher originally from Slippery Rock, Pa., was found March 8, 2010, two miles outside Chignik Lake. The village is 474 miles southwest of Anchorage, on the Alaska Peninsula.
Biologists ruled out reasons for the attack other than aggression. Investigators found no evidence that the wolves had acted defensively or that Berner was carrying food. They found no kill site that wolves may have been defending, no indication that the wolves had become habituated to people, and no evidence of rabies.
“This appears to have been an aggressive, predatory attack that was relatively short in duration,” the report concluded.
Plus there have been other wolf confirmed wolf attacks.
Duane, you’ve got the right stuff. You were right and I was wrong. How I wish everyone in COMMENTS sections were more like you.
Still…
Wolf-attack deaths in the world since the White Man came to America: One.
Deaths from being struck by a bolt of lightning in that time: At least three million*.
How much time should people spend worrying that a bolt of lightning is going to come out of the sky and kill them?
* It’s easy to get facts these days. Demand them, Readers.
I got my fact on lightning in one second flat on Google: https://aclenet.org/template/default/publications/bibiography/The-Number-of-Documented-Global-Lightning.pdf
Why are you guys arguing with Scotty, you never argue with an idiot, they will bring you down to there level and beat you with experience.
Nature has only one rule, the strong survive, the weak die. There is no such thing as a “fair” fight. No law of man can change this reality. The only one who knows if this was a life or death situation is the hunter involved and I am not qualified to judge him.
Hunter should have gone all Jeremy Renner, “The Bourne Legacy” and hand wrestled the alpha male into a submission hold for a dose of tracking pill. Let the Air Force drop his furry carcass with a Hellfire.
I have a moral objection to dropping tons of poison, let alone onto bodies of water. I’d argue this case took three wolves not afraid of people and turned them into two wolves afraid of people. That’s how you do it. Attack us and die, so avoid us. Similar to other self defense values I hold true….
Just to toss it out there, I don’t think ODFW was arguing that this guy should have fired a warning shot, as far as I’ve heard they’ve cleared him on this without hesitation.
I don’t see an issue with cranking off a warning shot as soon as I see a wolf, unless its close enough to already be a threat to me. It just sucks to have to justify that threat, whereas with cougars… as long as you’ve got a tag in hand… its just a matter of notching the date.
I have lived in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, Have seen wolves in the wild twice, It is very concerning to see how fast and stealthy these predators are. When snowmobiling, I spotted a large wolf running through 5 feet deep snow. It moved through that heavy snow like it wasn’t there. If you are on foot and not armed and one of these killers wants you, I don’t care how big and bad you think you are, you have no chance. It’s not like a big german shepard, these wolves are killing machines. When dealing with wolves, it’s best to apply the triple “S” doctrine, “Shoot, Shovel, Shut up”.
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