DNRE: 43 such attacks since 1989
From the Iron Mountain Daily News,
215 E Ludington Street, Iron Mountain MI 49801
By MICHAEL
H. BABCOCK
June 14 , 2010
L'ANSE - Thirteen-year-old Colton Lahti of L'Anse lived a nightmare recently when his 8-pound bichon frise dog, Burban, was ripped from its chain and taken away by a much larger animal, that, by Colton's description, could only be a wolf.
"I heard a yelp, and it was an unusual yelp from my dog," Lahti said. "I've never heard that yelp before, I ran to the door and opened it and looked where it usually is, and there was a wolf standing there, with my dog in his mouth."
Lahti described the animal as big, "real, real big," with brown or grey scraggly short hair.
"I looked at the head and the head was really big, and the ears looked like a dogs ears and they were back," he said. "I've seen a coyote before, and they are small, that thing was huge."
"My dog was in its mouth, limp; it was hanging like a ragdoll."
The Department of Natural Resources and Environment couldn't confirm that it was a wolf that ate the dog, but couldn't deny the fact either.
The reported attack isn't the first one the DNRE has heard. Dating back to 1996, there have been 43 confirmed wolf-to-dog attacks, leading to 33 deaths, including one in the eastern U.P. this past January.
"These are isolated incidences where it's just kind of the wrong place, wrong time; we really haven't had a lot of domestic pets lost to wolves," DNRE wildlife biologist Brian Roell said.
The population of wolves has grown since the DNR began tracking the wolf population in 1989, when the U.P.-wide population of wolves was just three. Estimates in 2009 had the population at 577, a number that grew every year from 1989 to 2009 before finally dropping in 2010, as early estimates put the population at 557.
"It's just a natural process with any wild animal, you'll have up and down years, and whether it will continue down or go right back up we don't know," Roell said. "There are a lot of things that can have an effect on the wolves such as declining habitat, hard winters, disease, virus - the kind of things that everyone inoculates dogs to, wolves are fully susceptible."
Roell thinks the population could finally have found a healthy number after 20 years of steady growth.
"We're probably reaching what we call a 'carrying capacity,'" he said. "It's basically that wolves are reaching a point where they've saturated the natural habitat and the social habitat of what Michigan people are willing to put up with."
That's exactly what Colton's father, Brian Lahti, is worried about.
"I think they are getting out of hand; I've heard nothing but more and more people complaining about them," Lahti said. "It's just so frustrating being that close to your home and having it happen like that."
Lahti is concerned that the animals are moving to easier prey, and he hopes that prey never includes humans.
"What day is it going to be when it takes a kid, or some other human; I hate to see that day and hope it never comes, but the wolf has to come off the endangered species list so the DNRE can control it," said Lahti.
Grey wolves were added to the endangered species list in 1978, but in April 2009 they were temporarily removed from the list in the Midwest, until the removal was reversed in September.
Roell doesn't see the wolf as a threat to humans or pets at this point, saying incidences have been few and far between.
The first wolf-to-dog attack in the U.P. was reported in 1996, when there were 116 wolves documented in the U.P. It wasn't until 1999, when the population reached 174, that another attack was reported.
The reported attacks have remained inconsistent.
In 2007, with the population of wolves topping 500 for the first time, five attacks were reported. However, in 2008, there were no reported attacks.
"There really doesn't seem to be any correlation between the number of wolves and the number of dog (attacks)," Roell said. "It seems to be these isolated incidences that occur, albeit they are very unfortunate."
"We don't have an explanation of why they happen."
Roell also said that 52 percent of the reported kills were between wolves and bear-hunting dogs, leaving only 16 dogs in the U.P. killed since 1989 when documenting wolves in the U.P. began.
Roell offered several bits of advice for pet owners who are worried their pet could be victimized:
- Avoid feeding pets outside, which could attract wild animals.
- Put your dog in a kennel rather than leave it on a chain overnight.
- Learn how to recognize dog, wolf and coyote tracks, and alert the DNRE of any sightings.
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