TRACKS: Wolf prints are a common sight at Myrtle Point Golf Course. The alpha male print is as large as a grown man’s hand.
Conservation officer talks about experience with packs in area
by Chris Bolster |
Published: Thursday, January 2, 2014
More eyes in the bush and less accessible
food sources may be the reason for an increase in the number of wolf
sightings, said Powell River conservation officer Gerry Lister.
“I
don’t know if there are more wolves or less food so they are being seen
more frequently,” said Lister, who works for BC Conservation Officer
Service.
Lister has been stationed in Powell River for the past six years and has worked throughout the province during his career.
“When
I first got here, there were very few wolf complaints,” he said. “They
seemed to go up, a spike of them, about two years ago.”
Now,
Lister said the conservation service is not receiving public reports as
much as they are just hearing of wolf sightings through the rumour mill,
most of which do not ring true.
“Go online, read about wolves,”
he said. “They are not going to be walking down a street with cars going
by in the middle of the afternoon—unless the wolf is rabid. It’s not
what they do. They’re illusive.”
Lister thinks people may have spotted coyotes, which have not been reported in the area for many years.
“Maybe
it was just someone’s dog without a collar that was wolfy-looking,” he
said. “How many wolves have most people seen in the wild? We’ve had way
more issues with cougars than we have had with wolves.”
However,
there have been reports of wolf attacks on dogs, with most reports
coming from people who live on the periphery between the wild and
people’s homes.
Lister said that only alpha males and females are
allowed to breed in the pack which forces younger males to break off
from packs in search of a mate. Male dogs the wolf may come across are
treated as either a threat or as food, he added. “When he comes across a
female dog in heat, he doesn’t care what sub-species of dog that is,
it’s just a canine in heat,” he said.
Over the years, Lister said
there have been reports of wolf sighting and attacks on dogs in the
Zilinsky Road area and wolves have been commonly seen at Myrtle Point
Golf Course since it first opened 15 years ago.
Lister said that a
pack lives near the golf course and hunts mice that live under the
greens. Golfers commonly see wolf prints in the sand traps near the
sixth and seventh holes.
“There’s always been wolves and I think
there are more people out in the bush now,” he said. “Seeing a wolf is
no different than seeing a cougar or a bear in the bush. They are a wild
animal and part of the natural ecosystem and they belong there.”
Despite
the sightings, wolves pose very little risk to human safety and try to
stay away from people, he added. As for attacks on humans, “it has been
very few,” he said. The ones that have been recorded were usually
because the wolf had become habituated with the animal being
deliberately fed by humans, or livestock security measures had not being
taken.
Through conversations he has had with people in the
community, Lister thinks there are probably one or two small packs of
five or six animals and perhaps some younger males wandering around on
their own.
Wolves hunt at night looking for food, so dog owners
who live in areas where wolves are more commonly seen need to be more
aware of not letting their dogs out at night.
“If the deer
population gets too low, wolves may come in and start killing
livestock,” he said. “But where we’ve had several wolf sightings over
the years in that Zilinsky Road area we don’t have any reports of wolves
coming in and killing anyone’s livestock. The only reports of wolves
killing anything are a few dogs and that’s probably from more of a
protective point of view.”
Lister said that the conservation
service will take action by setting leg and neck traps when wolves start
to pose a risk to an area. “One attack on a dog by a wolf doesn’t
necessarily warrant a response, but several attacks in a neighbourhood
may indicate that the wolves have become habituated and they are not
going to be leaving the area,” he said.
Conservation officers
expect farmers to have certain safeguards put in place to protect
livestock from wolves. Safeguards include ensuring livestock is brought
inside at night, fence-lines are not built next to the edge of forests
and, if necessary, protection dogs are used.
To report a conflict with wildlife—wolves bears, cougars or otherwise—readers can call 1.877.952.RAPP (7277).
source
Defenders Takes Action Against U.S. Forest Service for Allowing Wolf Eradication:
Idaho Department of Fish and Game has hired a hunter/trapper to kill
two entire wolf packs in the massive, remote and livestock-free Frank
Church-River of No Return Wilderness Area. The state wants these wolf
packs killed by a hired hunter/trapper simply because an outfitter complained to an Idaho Department of Fish and Game commissioner.
The U.S. Forest Service administers this wilderness area and has
policies to restrict predator control in wilderness. Yet the agency
gave permission to Idaho to use its facilities for this killing effort
and did nothing to stop Idaho from implementing its anti-wolf agenda in
this federal wilderness area.
