Judging from the behavior of the second wolf, one can see what actually happened here.
It’s unlikely that these wolves have learned to hunt people.
It’s not exactly a wolf attack.
The first wolf was trying to cannibalize the dog.
When the first wolf was shot, the second wolf came by and ate it.
These wolves have learned to use cannibalism as a way of feeding themselves.
It’s not that unusual.
Lots of wolves die from other wolves.
I should note here that cannibalism among dogs is quite rare.
When my grandpa was trapping, dogs never ate fox meat.
They would eat skunk meat.
But they wouldn’t touch a fox or an opossum.
We have an idiom in the English language– “Dog eat dog.”
It refers to really bad conditions that cause cut-throat behavior.
Things have to be really bad before a dog will eat another dog.
However, it is well-known that dogs on arctic and Antarctic expeditions were used as a food source for their living counterparts. Some even made calculations on how many dogs they would need on expeditions under the assumption that some dogs would die and become dog food for the living.
I have also read that dogs won’t eat wolf meat, except under extreme conditions.
But wolves don’t have such restrictions. They will eat each other. They will eat dogs. They will eat foxes. They will eat coyotes.
it’s really hard to imagine a predator, substantially carnivorous, passing up dead food. I understand that they don’t always recognize live animals as prey (in the way that some wolves in cattle country don’t attack the cattle). But once it’s carrion? different story.
Now dogs of course, being domestic, get to choose to be very picky about what they eat or don’t eat.
What’s interesting is there are wolves in Eastern Europe and many wolves in Alaska that take to hunting dogs for food and forsake virtually all ungulate prey.
I believe I read that some wolves in Croatia will pass up sheep to eat dogs.
LGDs seem like they would be far too much of an injury risk to be a preferred prey item to a wolf. The SROs, COs, Koms and Kuvaz are pretty stout defenders. Do wolves attack these types of dog or do they snatch the occasional farm dog?
I guess I don’t have a clear picture of the hunting prowess of a wolf pack.
In western Kansas where I grew up we have coyotes. Every third farmer has a truck with a dog box on a flatbed. The box is filled with “coyote dogs”. The coyote dogs are mainly greyhound that have been “rescued” from the dog track in Abilene and interbred with pretty much any agressive/game dog available. Coyotes are coursed brutally. The result of that is that almost ANY dog barking will put the coyote into full scale avoidance mode.
Do wolves ever get to that level of human (dog assisted) avoidance?
A pack of wolves could easily kill a guardian dog.
If they can kill a moose, these dogs would be easy.
However, in the US, the most common dogs killed are hounds.
http://dnr.wi.gov/org/land/er/mammals/wolf/dogdepred.htm
Yeah. Where I grew up hounds run coyotes and if they see a large dog, they take off.
Coyotes in my part of the world aren’t as big a problem as people make them out to be.
They avoid people and dogs at all costs.
Seems like wolves have made a pretty nifty come back in that neck of the woods.
It’s odd to me how viceral the emotions are that wolves stir in me. One part is the fear and revulsion passed on from my homonid ancesters and the other part is the love expressed at the foot of my bed by the snoring sheepdog.
Thanks for the link.
An LGD is an easy prey for a pack of wolves. A single wolf would not dare attack an LGD though, it would be way too risky. Years ago, in mountain-wolf areas, Spanish mastiffs were locked at night with the sheep, otherwise they could be killed by packs of wolves. And people was very careful not to venture outside at night. They were terrified of wolves, with good reason.