Pro Save The Human Species Article Bear Dogs Killed By Wolves

"The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the greatest liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth." H.L. Mencken Pro Save the Human Species Click Here To Go To Documentary Article Written for the Yooper Spectator - Oct. 2006 WOLF REPORT Bear Dogs Killed by Wolves at Baraga Plains By C. J. Williams photos courtesy of Pete Richardson

Documentary Undue Burden The Real Cost Of Living With Wolves				The following information about bear dogs killed by wolves in the Baraga Plains is from a radio interview of John Alexander of downstate Sanilac County by Bill Moore. The interview aired on Bill’s Oct. 14^th “Outspoken Sportsmen” call-in radio talk show, which can be heard each Saturday morning from 8-12 on Escanaba WCHT, 600 AM. Last August, a group of bear hunters from the downstate “thumb” area arrived in Baraga County where they typically spend as much as two months time at their camp. Two to three weeks are usually spent training their bear dogs in the Baraga Plains and the remainder is spent hunting. This year they brought 15 hounds with them and were looking forward to opening day on September 15^th. On August 29^th, two of John Alexander’s top dogs were running a cold track together about a mile from the Sturgeon River Gorge in the Six-Mile Creek area. One returned alone, which isn’t all that unusual, but in the distance they could hear a different sort of bark from the dog that didn’t come back. It wasn’t a “tracking” bark; it was a “fear” bark. They tracked the dog through its radio collar, which was giving out a very weak signal. They checked along a riverbank and found nothing. Finally, when they stepped on some packed down ferns, they found the dog’s remains and its collar buried in a shallow grave. Wolves had obviously killed the dog and apparently were planning to return and pick the bones since they’d covered it as best they could. The following Sunday, the dogs were being trained to track once again and after awhile headed back to the general area where the first dog was killed. Most came back out, but two more of John Alexander’s dogs didn’t make it. The men could hear strange signals from one dog’s collar that changed between a running signal and a treed bear signal. They went looking for it, but by the time they found the dog, wolves had eaten about a quarter of it and took off when the men approached. They figure the wolves were tossing the dog around and that’s why they heard the odd running and then treed-bear signals. The other dog was killed outright, but not eaten. In both instances, the loss was reported to the MI-DNR who investigated and confirmed that the dogs had been killed by wolves. John Alexander said the wolves would howl and circle the camp at night, coming within 100 yards looking for weak spots to get at the dogs. They saw very few fawns and he suspects the wolves have pretty much cleaned them out. He estimates the pack running where they hunt to consist of as many as thirteen wolves and said there’s a “huge” one around Old US-41. (In these areas and elsewhere throughout the western U.P., a map shows