DNA Confirms Wolves Killed Alaska Teacher (Anchorage, Metlakatla: home, closing, live)

[Marty Van Diest]

This is a very sad case where this teacher was killed by wolves last year. But it is also one of the few absolutely open and shut cases there wolves actually attacked and killed a person. Many of the wolf defenders were closing their eyes to this case but it's been confirmed by DNA

DNA samples confirm wolves killed Southwest Alaska teacher: Wolves | Alaska news at adn.com

[blueflames50]

finally confirms what most of the locals said!....

[starlite9]

There has more than likely a lot of people killed by both wolf and bear that are never reported, simply put, nobody missed them or didn't know where they went.

Found a cabin up Peters Creek (north of Anchorage) in the late 1960's that was fully intact, open the door and it was just as the gut left it back in the 1930's. Was about 8' x 8' and maybe 7' at the ridge pole. It was rotting, but still standing.

The owner was keeping a diary, the last entry was he was headed out to check his trapline up the valley... It was the last entry. Wish I'd kept it, but the kid and I that found it were moose hunting and didn't get back there for a few years. Place had been stripped and part of the roof had caved in by then.

Whomever he was, disappeared up the valley somewhere in the 1930's and I'm sure nobody went looking for him.

Bears and wolf were pretty populated back then.

[dcarrot]

No real surprise in this final report. Wolves are predators and will attack what they perceive as prey. Just shows we need to be alert when out and about. Fortunately we don't have packs of pitbulls running around.

[Glitch]

Originally Posted by dcarrot

No real surprise in this final report. Wolves are predators and will attack what they perceive as prey. Just shows we need to be alert when out and about. Fortunately we don't have packs of pitbulls running around.

Fortunately? Wolves are by far a bigger threat than any domesticated dog. Although that threat is more against children and small women than against adult males.

The last adult male to be killed by wolves in the US was James Smith, from Waterloo, Iowa, in 1910. Wolves attacked him whilst he was alone in a wood, waiting for the return of his brother. When the latter returned he found his brother's bones. In the center of a circle of five dead wolves, was an empty repeating rifle, showing that he had been overpowered before he could reload his weapon.

Source: Wolf attacks on humans - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Metlakatla]

In parts of Eastern Europe, formerly domesticated dogs do roam in packs. In some cities, dogs were outlawed. The people had little choice but to turn them loose or kill them. Most turned them loose.

[starlite9]

Originally Posted by Metlakatla

In parts of Eastern Europe, formerly domesticated dogs do roam in packs. In some cities, dogs were outlawed. The people had little choice but to turn them loose or kill them. Most turned them loose.

About twenty five years ago there was a pack of Ferrel dogs romping around Nenena. A friend was out running his trapline and while working his traps with the snowmachine shut off, he heard dogs barking, about a hundred feet away in an opening behind him ran a moose with the pack of dogs barking and chasing it, then It stopped to make a stand.

Mike pulled out his 22 semi automatic rifle and dropped about nine of the dogs before the rest knew what happened. The last few ran off and that ended the ferrel dog problem for a lot of years.

As a pack, they were a match for most of the smaller wolf packs in the area, but when whittled down to four or five, their odds changed a lot.

They had killed a lot of moose and small game in the area, but never cleanly like
Wolf do, and many weren't eaten by the dogs either, they were killing for sport. Many would go home to their owners at night an get fed then pack back up in the day to go hunt.

[Metlakatla]

Yeah, I've seen that same thing in the Upper Su, Mark. The Eastern Europe dogs were different though; they were out to survive. Not as dangerous as wolves in a way, because they still had roots as domestic dogs. More dangerous in a way because they were right in town.

[LittleJazzyP]

Dogs that go home to their people at night are not true ferals, they are pets with irresponsible owners.
The Eastern European dogs sound more like real feral dogs: once-domesticated animals that have left human society and begun to breed in the wild or on the street.

In any case, I don't dispute the seriousness of the problem. Many rural areas have dog packs that occasionally attack livestock. The thing that offends me is to see a single breed labeled as the sole source of the trouble. It's not about pit bulls, it's about people who abandon pets, let their animals breed unchecked and then run wild, or just don't go to the trouble of controlling their dogs.

[RayinAK]

I guy was killed by wolves in Canada about a year ago. Also, several people have been attacked by wolves in Canada, and a couple in Alaska. Of the two Alaska cases I know of, one was a woman, and the other a child around the age of 7.