This was in a story in today’s Snooze, on a recent wolf attack:
"Acting on both instinct and a knowledge of how to ward off wolves, the two men ran at the attacking pack yelling at the top of their lungs with their arms waving . . . "
Yes, I remember that course. I almost flunked because my yelling was an octave too high and the bend in my left elbow didn’t match the bend in my right elbow. These guys must have aced it!
somthing really does need to happen with this wolf problem.
why does the city seem to be turning a blind eye to it…
ferral cats and off leash dogs are more their concern.
we need a conservation officer in here… and soon
lol i meant the angry mob/posse
but i did see somthing interesting this morning walking my dog. up on rushbrooke ave
a big blue ford truck… with the words conservation officer strewn across the back of the pickup box
oddly enough… halfway up the hill my dogs hackles went up and he started barking at somthing… that deep protective bark…
needless to say i hightailed it back home.
lol ive had enough wolf contact for my life thanks… once was enough.
Am I the only one who suspects the wolves are part of the master plan to rid our town of feral cats and off-leash dogs?
I was just reading something about how the wolves (and other wildlife) have returned and prospered in the Chernobyl exclusion area. Since there aren’t any humans allowed to live there, all kinds of wildlife have returned and a lot of the populations are at the highest and healthiest they’ve ever been. There was a series in Wired magazine about the wolves of Chernobyl.
Anyway, just thought it was interesting 'cause it would be two thing we could do here – protect the wolves with a nuclear disaster.
Funny, I google “wired magazine wolves” and I get this thread on the results page.
Anyway, here’s an article about that:
news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/ … 244626.ece
“The benefit of excluding humans from this highly contaminated ecosystem appears to outweigh significantly any negative cost associated with Chernobyl radiation.”
Humans are worse than nuclear radiation. Awesome. high-5!
hmm, me and my friend were face to face with a wolf a few weekends ago. We were walking home at about 2:30am and I live on the corner of maverick and my friend lives down the street so he took that corner to go round the street and he didnt even notice the wolf standing on the middle on the road. then as he was going to cross the street he saw it and started yelling “KEVIN!!! KEVIN!!!” then I yelled back “WHAT!?” and the looked down the street. then he starts to run yelling “WOLF!!!”. he was about 10 feet away from it. he ran up to me and we were stading outside my house and the wolf was slowly walking towards us. There was another guy walking down the road from crestview. the 3 of us were just standing there waiting to see what it was gonna go, then a car drove down the road and the wolf took off behind that house with the chainlink fencing. then about 5 minutes later the wolf came from behind the house with something in its mouth. It walked over by the bushes by maverick and started to roll on the thing it had. We think it caught a cat, because the next day when i was walking to school there was bloody snow.
found this interesting…
[quote]VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) – An elderly woman was walking her small dog near a park in the heart of Vancouver when a coyote suddenly appeared. A few seconds later the woman’s pet was a meal for the coyote.
Coyotes have found a comfortable home in Canada’s third-largest city. With reports of aggressive animals attacking pets – and even stalking children – wildlife officials say it is the people who will have to adapt.
[/quote]
[quote]“Not all coyotes are bad coyotes,” said Dennis Pemble, a provincial wildlife control officer.
Relocating the coyotes has been ruled out because they are very difficult to capture. “They are very intelligent animals … no self-respecting coyote is going to go near a trap,” Macintosh said.
Authorities use tranquilizer darts on larger animals such as bears and cougars that occasionally wander into the Vancouver area, but they say the coyote’s smaller size makes it almost impossible to shoot without killing it.
In any case, new coyotes would likely move into the city to replace animals that are killed or moved, officials said.
Reacting to a confrontation
Because of the coyote’s thick fur and bushy tail, Lampa said, many people think they are bigger than they really are and are afraid to stand up to coyotes that approach them in search of a meal.
“Don’t look like prey. Stand up. Make noise. Yell at them. If you do that they should high-tail it out of there,” she said.
Officials say if people stop giving coyotes easy sources of food they will turn their attention to rats and other animals that are readily available in the temperate Vancouver area
[/quote]
Sounds like the problem Rupert is facing is being felt by other communities in the Northwest as well…
If you noticed the ladies and the dogs were on a utility road in the woods and what is in those woods wild animals, go figure, and if the same ladies were out for their walk with out there dogs I’m sure it would have played out differently, and the ladies would not have seen the wolves…
It’s the same everywhere, with all types of wildlife, as we develop and spread out we will have conflicts with wild animals. Wild animals will adapt to urban sprawl, finding food easer, Black bears living near towns and cities that have adapted are fatter then bears found in more remote locations.
Regardless there are things we can do to stop attracting wild animals to urban environments.
If you see a wild animal in town you should scare it away throw rocks, sticks wave your hands above your head. Even if it’s a deer, deer don’t belong in a rural and town settings.
What we are being told by the conservational officer is that we need to deal with the above problems first. By doing those things wolves will stay out of town, and will not come in as much. But right now we are giving them every opportunity to come into town it’s a fricken smorgasbord of critters, garbage, animal remains…
Don’t want to believe me walk down wontage road must have been 3 to 4 skinned deer remains right beside the golf course no wonder there near there, people are intentionally feeding them.
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Is that what you do Astro? I remember pics of yourself with a couple of wolf really close. I don’ t want to get on you case ( enough people already are) but what makes the wolf pack habituation to you any different than to others?
those pictures were not in town, i have never came close to wolves in town. never saw a wolf in town…so to that if I saw one I would do the above. hope that helps…
the wolves you seen me with were from a wolf sancutary in Golden BC, that we paid to go for a hike with… so ya…
But Astro, don’t you get close to the Kaien Island wolves? You might not consider this the town but , as a former PR resident, I considered it part of rupertites’ living space. So if someone habituates the wolves in this area, wouldn’t that increase the chance for the pack to get closer to other humans and their pets?
I get what you are saying, but Prince Rupert is only a small portion of Kaien Island, which is in the middle of a rain forest. And with that where do we as human draw the line, remember lines and borders, and rural settings are all human terms and wild animals don’t know the difference.
Sure I have taken pictures of the wolves so have others and yes on a few occasions the wolves came close, but most times the wolves are more than 100 feet away, I got good zoom on my cameras.
The difference here is that habituated wolves are caused by wolves being fed directly or indirectly, not by a chance encounter in the wild.
Like I said if you don’t believe me phone the conservation officer and complain to them… They know my website they have talked to me. They know what we are doing… if people think we are the problem they can complain to the conservation officer. I have nothing to hide…
Would you agree with me that there is now more wolves on the island than, let’s say 10-12 years ago? Now isn’t it true that wolves have a very extended range? So more wolves could lead to a greater range for the pack. The city falls within that range.
Doing the things you recommend will surely help but wouldn’t the sheer number of feral cats and deer in town be enough for the wolves to be interested in coming near? Pets and garbage could be just a bonus.
At the risk of sounding anti-wolf, I would venture to say that the Kaien Island wolf pack is on a collision course with the citizens.