From the Herald Sun.
A female special education teacher was mauled to death by a wolf while jogging in Alaska, authorities told local media.
The body of 32-year-old Candice Berner, originally from Pennsylvania, was found Monday night off a road leading to the Chignik Lake airstrip, The News Tribune reported.
Police investigating the case believe she was killed in an “animal attack, possibly a wolf attack” after locals reported wolf sightings.
The people who found the woman’s body while returning from clam digging say that a wolf stalked one of them earlier in the day, the Alaska Dispatch reported.
The woman’s death is still under investigation and her body is being taken to Anchorage for an autopsy, police said.
My guess is this is a fatal wolf attack. If this is confirmed, this would be the first documented, no doubts about it, fatal attack by a healthy wolf in North America.
I am convinced that Kenton Carnegie was also killed by two wolves as he walked near an illegal garbage dump belonging to a mining company. This attack happened in 2005, and there was a major scandal. In 2007, a jury inquest found that the wolves had indeed killed Kenton. However, there are still people who doubt the findings.
But does that mean wolves are especially dangerous to people?
No.
Sharks have attacked more people than wolves have, and we are land animals who would be easy prey for a wolf. Part of the reason is that centuries of persecution have made wolves very nervous animals. If they smell us, they leave– just as coyotes normally do.
This video show the normal reaction of Arctic wolves when they are confronted by a person:
But any death is a tragedy.
It is little comfort to the family to know that she was either the first or second person to be killed by a wolf in North America (if it is indeed confirmed).
If it is true, then I am convinced it is the 2nd fatality, because the Kenton Carnegie incident in Canada seems purty obvious to me. For those who haven’t looked that incident up, the two wolves involved had been hanging around a dump scavenging for quite awhile(and getting too habituated to humans–in a bad way– in the process) AND had “tested” two hikers just previously to this attack, who drove them off with sticks and shouting. There having been TWO of the hikers together may be why the wolves did not attack then. Examination of the scene after Carnegie’s death(remember, Canada. Winter. Snow. Easy tracking, in other words) indicated that the wolves approached Carnergie(out for a walk), and at some point and attacked and drew back, leaving Carnegie bleeding profusely while the wolves waited for him to weaken–CLASSIC wolf predatory behaviour with large prey. Then at some point they closed in and pulled him down, and ate a significant amount from the body. Remember, these conclusions were from experienced trackers reading the sign. A lot of nonsense from people who just DON’T WANT TO BELIEVE this could happen, and keep saying a BEAR is responsible, although NO BEAR TRACKS were found at the site of the attack, and again, people, Canada. Winter. Snow. All the bears are SLEEPING at the time of the year this occurred! A renegade bear out of hibernation? Not impossible, but again, remember–zero bear tracks in the SNOW(even an idiot tracker could hardly miss THAT!). I am convinced, alas, it was indeed a wolf attack fatality.
This is one of the wolves that I think killed him: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/dd/Man-wolves.jpg
Look at that! I wouldn’t want to have just a big club when confronted with that animal!
Nowhere on this blog do I say wolves have never killed people. Nowhere do I say that wolves don’t kill other wolves over territory– and sometimes for food.
I’m very pro-wolf, but people have to be real. Remember the Indian wolves that took to taking children from peasants’ houses in the 90’s?
There was an incident in Alaska either last year or the year before where a wolf followed some women walking their dogs and attempted to snatch the dogs. It would not surprise me at all if one of these wolves killed a human.
And it explains why Coppingers self-domestication theory is crap. Large predators that habituate to humans predate on humans.
….And, of course, parts of Carnegie were found IN the wolves–some people STILL wanted to insist that a bear did it, and the wolves just scavenged the remains. Isn’t it BIZARRE how people will readily accept bears mauling and killing people and still want to protect and preserve them, but they are afraid to admit wolves might also be capable of this for fear everyone will turn against all wolves and not want to protect them(where it is appropriate to do so)? What we need to understand to protect and accept and live with ANYTHING, is to understand the possibilities and take the necessary precautions in areas where such incidents might occur. Carnegie might not have gone on a hike alone by a dump with dangerously habituated wolves had there been any understanding of this possibility, instead of the “starry-eyed-wolf-lovers” view that NO WOLF EVER is capable or desirous of attacking any human ever! It has always amazed me how “wolf experts” accept that wolves(the same species) in EUROPE have and do sometimes attack and eat people, but they won’t (EVER) in North America. Well it just depends on the circumstances, and our circumstances in North America now are that it CAN happen. Is it likely? Hardly, just as with any large, potentially dangerous predator. But this simply means that people in this country out in the territories of these animals, must realize, like it or not, they ARE MEAT(or just irritating interlopers), and they may have to defend themselves, and should be prepared to do it. The sooner people wake up and realize this, the less likely these occurences are going to happen, and the less resentment wolves and other dangerous animals will create, and the better chance we have of preserving and protecting them(where appropriate).
Check this out: https://retrieverman.wordpress.com/2009/02/09/proof-the-modern-wolves-a-bit-psychotic/
You know domestic dogs won’t eat the flesh of another dog unless they are starving. That’s why we have the term “Dog Eat Dog” for cut throat conditions.
According to my grandpa, they won’t even eat the flesh of foxes that have been trapped.
How wolves evolved cannibalism and why dogs generally avoid it is a question that I have long thought about.
Don’t disagree with any of that.
Although I’m interested in every wolf attack. Every one I read about, I want to know things. The ones from Medieval and Early Modern Europe totally fascinate me.
I wrote something on the Beast of Gevaudan that you might find interesting:
https://retrieverman.wordpress.com/2008/11/28/the-dogue-de-bordeaux-and-the-beast-of-gevaudan/
That also raises another interesting set of inquiry.
I’ve always been fascinated by the fact that the Spanish used mastiffs as a tool of genocide and subjugation against indigenous peoples. Indeed, in some Amazonian languages, the word for a dog is the same word for jaguar.These people had no dogs until the conquest, and the dogs used in the conquest were these mastiffs.
All very interesting stuff, Retrieverman! I will beg to differ a bit on dogs not being cannibals–I think it depends on the circumstances. Lots of accounts of sled dogs on expeditions eating dead dogs–eagerly!–those treacherous(in my dog-loving view) explorers often PLANNED the number of dogs they used, fully intending to use a certain number of them to feed the others, to conserve on how much food they had to haul in weight! As for foxes–foxes are RANK! My wolf dogs hunted and killed and ate a lot of local game animals with enthusiasm, but they wouldn’t think of eating a fox! And this includes both red and grey foxes. If they had been hungry enough, I’m sure they would have, but I think most predators only eat fox if they have no choice!….The “Beast Of Gevaudan” is a fascinating(if horrifying) account–I have always assumed it was a Wolf Dog cross of some sort–the most likely explanation. One certainly can learn to distinguish between wolves, dogs, and their crosses if one knows what to look for, but most laymen often cannot(and in modern times, when people tend to be LESS familiar with the critters, AND with T. V. and movies portraying wolves with malamutes, Siberians, and painted German Shepherds, it is little wonder people don’t know the differences!). And indeed, wolf hybrids can be extremely different in appearance and temperment–glad to see you acknowledge that variety, Retrieverman!;)–I have some photos of wolf X collie crosses from a natural occurring(not done purposely in captivity by humans, that is) cross back in the days of the massive wolf eradication campaigns out West–these photos are in “The Wolves Of North America” and “Last Of The Loners” by Stanley P. Young–and they are not what I would call very wolflike! And another of a wolf-foxhound cross–definetly not very wolflike in appearance! Plus, you can get a lot of variety in a single litter, especially when you start having litters from a wolf hybrid bred to another wolf hybrid–some can be very wolflike, others quite “doggy” in the same litter! Have you ever read about another famous “wolf” maneater in France(I think he was in the 1400’s)– Courtaud?(“Cut-tail” in French–supposedly this animal had a docked or partially amputated tail)–Daniel Mannix wrote a very plausible and realistic novel based on this animal’s possible biography titled “The Wolves Of Paris”. He made Courtaud a wolf hybrid(with a VERY interesting birth and development!) . The paperback copy I have has a lurid cover like a horror novel, but it isn’t about werewolves, but real wolves based on an actual historical incident, and is a great nature/animal story. I think Ernest Thompsom seton wrote an account of this animal, too, but I have yet to get ahold of a copy of that. Also, have you read the fairly recent book, “Wolves In Russia”?
I did know that they did do that, but I wonder if they had to condition the dogs to eat the bodies. It’s pretty easy to do– run ’em hard and don’t feed them anything else.
it doesn’t disprove the self-domestication theory at all; in fact, quite the contrary. Obviously wolf predation of humans is extremely rare. Most wolves don’t, haven’t and never will kill a human, however easy it would be for them to do so.. Therefore the wolves that self-selected for adapting to human domestication also are not likely to kill a human. Notice that we haven’t domesticated bears, lions or tigers (nor have those animals domesticated themselves…)
The instances of dogs killing humans in the US has been remarkably consistent over the last 30 years or so of documentation, about 25 +/- 5 per year, with a very high percentage of victims being young children and a very high percentage of perpetrators being chained unsocialized dogs. These killings are highly sensationalized, but dogs are not even close to the most dangerous animal we live with.
The problem with Coppinger’s theory is that the dates don’t line up. The oldest agreed upon dog skull is from Germany. It is 14,000 years old. The people who lived there were hunter-gathers. They weren’t small farmers living in villages.
http://www.thebark.com/content/wolf-who-stayed
The genetic evidence suggests even older origins than that.
Don’t EVEN get me started on Coppinger’s EXTREMELY ignorant doggy domestication theory–it has a kuhzillion holes in it(great, huge, gaping holes) far beyond whether or not wolves/dogs getting habituated to humans could produce “self-domestication”(see comments section in Dog History subject on this blog–the one with the old painting of the dogs fighting the bears–this is the date refutation mentioned by Retrieverman above–BASIC ARCHAEOLOGY 101!). Should I go on and start listing the Zillion other refutations that this “expert”(Coppinger) managed to not think through or overlooked?…….???(WARNING: This could lead to MASSIVE responses on my part–this is one of my GREATEST pet peeves!) And don’t take this personally, Emily S.–laymen on the subject can’t be expected to know better–Coppinger is GREAT at sounding convincing! I’ve even heard in person he is a funny and really nice guy! But his dog domestication theory REEKS! Majoring in Anthropology in college, having great interest in ALL types of domestication, a dog and wolf fanatic, as well as a passionate student of all types of “primitive” cultures, I am perhaps in a more unique position to see right through this very poorly thought out “theory”(which has, at least it appears, earned Coppinger a decent payback in revenue!). The fact that I in my unofficial status can recognize all the flaws so easily, means there really is no excuse for this drivel to have continued and duped so many people for so long, with all these “experts” out there!…..
Coppinger is wrong about that.
He’s also wrong that inherited motor patterns in domestic dogs limit their ability to behave.
It’s like pointers will always point and can’t learn to hunt, which is news to pointer trainers who have to be careful to stop their dogs from learning how to flush birds. Of course, pointers can be taught to flush on command.
[…] like to see examples of wolves hunting people, check out The Wolves of Paris, The Wolf of Ansbach, this fatal wolf attack in Alaska, and the story of child snatching wolves in India. The last two involved modern wolves of both the […]