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Email: timberwolfinfonetwork@gmail.com
Email: timberwolfinfonetwork@gmail.com

AK: Officials can’t verify if wolves killed dog in North Pole

by Tim Mowry

FAIRBANKS — Officials with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game on Tuesday were unable to verify that a wolf or wolves killed a dog in the North Pole area last weekend.

A malamute husky was killed by a “large, dark animal” Sunday about 11 a.m. in the area of Hurst Road, but the owner of the dog said she didn’t see the animal clearly enough to identify whether it was a wolf or another dog.

“We spoke to a woman whose dog was killed, but she’s not willing to say definitively it was a wolf that attacked her dog because she didn’t have her glasses on,” Fish and Game spokeswoman Cathie Harms said. “She said it was a large, dark animal. It could have been a wolf but there are some large, dark dogs in the neighborhood, too.”

The animal tried to drag the malamute away, Harms said. The dog was not eaten.

The woman’s sister posted a message on Facebook saying wolves had killed the dog, which prompted a couple of phone calls to Fish and Game Monday asking what happened, Harms said.

After the report went public Monday, another woman who works at Fish and Game reported she has seen wolves in the area during the last month, Harms said. Two state wildlife biologists went to the area Tuesday to look for tracks but found nothing conclusive, she said.

“That doesn’t mean there weren’t wolves in the area. It just means they didn’t find any evidence that there were,” Harms said, adding residents in the area will keep a lookout for the wolves and notify Fish and Game if they see them.

Harms reminded residents wolves are common in the Interior and it’s not uncommon for the animals to show up in residential areas looking for an easy meal in the form of unattended pets, usually dogs. It happens every few years in the Fairbanks area, usually in outlying areas such as Badger Road.

“It’s happened many times,” Harms said, adding it was much more prevalent 30 or 40 years ago than it is today. “Just a couple years ago on Chena Hot Springs Road we had a pack that learned to eat dogs and we lost two to four dogs total.”

The wolves either moved on or were taken by trappers and the attacks stopped, she said.

While the department is not asking anyone who sees a wolf in the Hurst Road area to report it, Harms said Fish and Game would like to know about any incidents involving wolves attacking dogs or livestock.

“If there’s an incident or people want to learn to be safe around wolves, we’d be glad to talk to them,” she said. “We’d like to work with people to reduce the chances of having a problem with wolves.”

The department has a brochure titled “Staying safe in wolf country” available on its website at www.adfg.alaska.gov. Go to the “species” link and click on “Living with wildlife.”

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