From: "Scott Brainerd" <scott.brainerd@njff.no>
To: <dyre-nett@tigress.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 09, 2000 1:06 PM
Subject: [DyreNett] ulveangrep i Yakutat, Alaska

> Her kommer en redovisning fra Alaska om ulveangrepet som skjedde nylig i
> Yakutat.  Undertegnede jobbet selv i viltforvaltningen i dette omradet for
> 20 ar siden, og kan si at dette er et skikkelig villmarksomrade med god
> bestand av ulv og fa folk. Det  viser seg at ulven testet negativ for
> hundegalskap. Forst kommer et personlig melding til meg fra assisterende
> direktor i Alaska Department of Fish and Game.  Deretter to pressemeldinger
> fra Anchorage Daily News.  Det viser seg at "myten" om at friske ulver
> "aldri" har angrepet folk i Nord Amerika er feil, men likevel meget
> sjelden.

>

> Scott Brainerd
> Viltkonsulent (Dr. Scient.)/Wildlife Biologist (Ph.D.)
> Norges Jeger- og Fiskerforbund/Norwegian Assoc. of Hunters & Anglers
> Box 94
> N-1378 Nesbru
> NORWAY

> Tel.: (+47) 66 79 22 16
> Fax: (+47) 66 90 15 87
> e-mail: scott.brainerd@njff.no

> ----------

>

> 1) Thursday, April 27, 2000: Wolf attacks 6-year-old near Yakutat  By KAREN
> AHO Daily News reporter
> Klikk her for rapportagen: http://www.adn.com/stories/T00042761.html

>

> 2) Brev fra Matt Robus, Deputy Director, Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game, til
> Scott Brainerd, NJFF.

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Matt Robus <matt_robus@fishgame.state.ak.us>
> To: <scott.brainerd@njff.no>
> Sent: Friday, April 28, 2000 6:25 PM
> Subject: Re: wolf attack in Yakutat

> > Scott-  All I have time for now is a brief note, but I'm interested in
> having accurate information presented on this case, so here goes a mini-summary:
> >

>A lone wolf confronted 2 kids playing at a logging camp at Icy Bay (W of
> Yakutat) 2 days ago.  The children were playing when the wolf appeared,
> snapping at them.  They fled, and the wolf chased and caught the younger
> (6 yr old) one, biting him several times on the back and buttocks.  The wolf
>thentried to haul the child back into the brush (from whence it came).
>Adults, hearing the screams, rushed to the site and began trying to scare the
>wolf off, pelting it with rocks.  The wolf persisted in trying to drag the kid even
>with multiple adults at very close range.  Apparently (this recount is based
>on various conversations I've had w/ reporters and the trooper who
>investigated, but is not official or first hand) the kid's mom reached down and pulled
>her child free of the wolf, at which time it retreated to cover.  Shortly
>thereafter an adult with a predator call and a rifle called the wolf into
>the open and killed it.

>The child was flown to Yakutat for treatment at the local clinic.
>Puncture wounds were not life threatening, but of course the potential for rabies
> was on everyone's mind.  The wolf was also flown to Yakutat.  We have no
> wildlife biologists stationed there, so 2 fisheries biologists were the Dept of
> Fish & Game's people on the scene, along with a state Fish & Wildlife Protection
> > Trooper.  They tried to contact the Div. of Wildlife Conservation staff
> in Juneau, but due to the number of people in the field and bad luck,
> weren't able to reach anyone.  They then contacted our Fairbanks office, talked to our
> > disease and parasite expert, who referredthem to the state virology lab
> at the University there.  The lab asked that the head be shipped for rabies
> testing. The head tested negative for rabies, so that was a relief for the family
> and everyone involved.

> > However, that makes the wolf's behavior even harder to fathom.  It had
> been seen around the camp before, but the investigating trooper said that the
> camp was very clean and that from interviews he didn't think it likely that
> the animal was getting garbage or being fed.  Unfortunately, the body of the
> wolf was partially incinerated at Yakutat because of the fear of rabies and
> the desire to minimize public health risks.  Once we were notified of the
> > situation, we managed to have the remains pulled out of the fire, and
> we're trying to have a limited necropsy done--if we get anything re stomach
> contents, it may clear up whether this was a food-conditioned animal.
> >

> A further interesting twist is that the animal had a radio collar on!
> The only telemetry study we knew of anywhere close to the area was a Forest
> Service study done out of Cordova in the mid-'90s.  After some detective work we
> confirmed that it was one of their animals, captured as a pup in 3/96
> east of the Copper River.  There seemed to be previous locations of this animal
> in the general area where the incident happened.  Unfortunately, when the wolf
> first got to Yakutat and was being examined by the trooper & fish biologists, a
> statement was made that 'the collar was too tight' because hair was
> rubbed off the neck.  This has made it into the press reports and even the state
> troopers' press release despite our advice and protests that no one qualified to
> judge was present.  There is therefore the potential that not only could
> wolves' reputation take an unfair blow from this incident, but so could wildlife
> research practices.  For your information, there's no evidence that the
> collar was a problem for the wolf (after all, it had survived for 4 years since
> collaring), and one person at the camp had stated that the wolf looked
> fine and the collar was not too tight.  As always, though, the facts may not make
> much> difference.

> >

> > That's about all I know at this point.  This note wasn't so short after
> all. The troopers will be writing up the investigation of the incident, and I
> don't know what form that will take.  If it is possible to do a necropsy on
> what's left of the body, I'll know the results in a few days.
> > MHR

> 2) No rabies in wolf, test finds Results puzzle experts hunting cause of
> attack. By ELIZABETH MANNING and CRAIG MEDRED Anchorage Daily News
> reporter.

> The wolf that chased and attacked a child in a logging camp near Yakutat
> did not have rabies, according to tests completed Thursday. That was good
> news for 6-year-old John Stenglein, who was back home at the camp Thursday
> on the west side of Icy Bay after suffering 15 puncture wounds to his back,
> legs and behind the day before, according to his father, John Stenglein Sr.
> But the test results puzzled biologists, who say wolf attacks in North
> America by nonrabid wolves are extremely rare. They're not sure why the
> attack occurred. The 77-pound male wolf, with a radio collar fastened to
> its neck, had been seen hanging around the edges of the logging camp
> recently and off and on since 1998. But it wasn't so tame that it ate
> garbage or went close to humans, said Fish and Wildlife protection
> troopers, who interviewed people at the camp Thursday. The boys didn't
> provoke the animal, troopers said. "It makes it very interesting and
> puzzling as to why this wolf attacked," said Matt Robus, deputy director of
> the Alaska Department of Fish and Game's Division of Wildlife Conservation.
> "And it seems the wolf really persisted in the attack." Stenglein said his
> son John and his 9-year-old friend Keith Gamble were playing Wednesday
> morning at being loggers, cutting down small trees at the edge of the
> woods, when they first saw the wolf about 10 feet away. The animal seemed
> to be stalking the boys, he said. "It just popped its head out from the
> woods and looked at them," Stenglein said. The boys ran and the wolf
> attacked, Stenglein said. A neighbor's dog rushed in and tried to bite the
> wolf, but the wolf fought off the dog and then went after the boy a second
> time, according to Stenglein. The dog tried to bite the wolf again, he
> said, but by then the boys were screaming, which sent the camp carpenter
> running over. The carpenter and Keith's mother, Teresa Thompson, threw
> rocks at the wolf until Keith's dad, Mike Thompson, came with a gun, walked
> into the woods and shot it, according to Stenglein. The entire incident
> happened about 150 feet from the family's trailer, Stenglein said. After
> the shooting, the boy and the wolf's body were flown to the nearest town,
> Yakutat, where the boy was treated. Because he thought the wolf was rabid,
> the trooper began burning the wolf carcass after severing the head for
> shipment to the state virology lab in Fairbanks, where it was tested
> Thursday. The boy received seven stitches and five surgical staples,
> troopers said. With the wolf remains still smoldering, a fisheries
> biologist in Yakutat heard from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in
> Juneau that the department wanted to perform a necropsy on the wolf. The
> remains of the carcass were shipped to Juneau on Thursday, Robus said.
> Biologists hope the wolf's stomach contents and the amount of fat on its
> body could provide some clues about why it attacked. "This was a terrifying
> but extremely unusual incident," Robus said. "It's not pleasant, but you do
> have times when predators are really stressed for food and they're going to
> reach out and get whatever they can. Wolves don't have a rulebook that
> prevents them from preying." Dave Crowley, the Fish and Game area
> biologist, said mountain goats are plentiful in the region so it's unlikely
> the wolf lacked prey. People who saw the wolf said it appeared healthy. The
> wolf wore a tight radio collar, which led some biologists to wonder whether
> it had trouble running and hunting normal prey. Troopers said no evidence
> exists yet to say that the radio collar had any bearing on the wolf's
> behavior. The U.S. Forest Service collared the wolf in March 1996 in the
> eastern Copper River Delta, when it was a 10-month-old pup. They tracked it
> until September 1997, when it left the area, Crowley said. He thinks it
> split from the pack and first showed up around the logging camp in 1998. He
> didn't know whether the wolf had joined another pack. Wolf attacks in North
> America are rare, biologists said Thursday. Often the attacking wolves are
> found to be rabid. Only two wolf attacks in Alaska history have been fatal,
> Alaska State Troopers said. Both attacks were by wolves believed to be
> rabid and occurred in the early 1940s, according to information provided to
> troopers by Fish and Game. Bears attack people an average of twice a year
> in Alaska and dogs have killed at least 38 people here through the years,
> troopers said. One account of a wolf attack, reported in the Daily News on
> Jan. 27, 1950, told of wolves stalking a pastor and his dog team as he
> traveled from the Wasilla Children's Home to Chitina. The wolves tracked
> the Rev. Everett Bachelder for five days and then attacked, tearing one of
> his dogs to shreds. The encounter led to a headline proclaiming "Ravenous
> Wolves Attack Missionary," though Bachelder himself was never actually
> attacked. Five people have been attacked by wolves in Ontario's Algonquin
> Provincial Park since 1987. The last of those attacks came in fall 1998.
> Algonquin rangers later wrote about their growing concerns with "friendly
> wolves." In Canada, at least one person has been killed by wolves in the

> past 50 years. A 24-year-old woman was attacked by a pack of five at the
> Haliburton Forest and Wildlife Reserve in Ontario in 1996.

> 3) For mer informasjon om Ontario-tilfellet, se
> http://www.wolfpark.org/Articles/Wyman.html .  Se ogsa:
> http://www.iup.edu/~wolf/attack2.html ,

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