By John Barnes
IRONWOOD, MI — Mythical moments are born from small facts. They can become untruths. This is an example.
The wolf and the dog are nearly nose to nose, perhaps five feet apart, eyes locked.
Normally the small black and white Sheltie would be yapping. Not now. Neither moves. There is no noise.
Until a scream pierces the late-winter morning.
Lori Holm exits her tri-level home’s patio door to see the standoff.
“It was a big wolf,” Holm recalls standing on the same spot on their expansive lawn where the incident happened three and a half years earlier. “When I was screaming at him the wolf turned and took a couple steps. My dog turned to come back, and the wolf did too.
This true incident outside Holm’s home daycare became the foundation of a Michigan myth, an MLive Media Group investigation found.
Here is the horrifying fourth paragraph state senators passed on May 31, 2011, seeking to remove wolves from protected status. The House passed an identical resolution a month earlier.
“Wolves appeared multiple times in the backyard of a daycare center shortly after the children were allowed outside to play. Federal agents disposed of three wolves in that backyard because of the potential danger to the children.”
The paragraph was based on Holm’s experience. But there were no children in the backyard. There was a single wolf, not three. No wolves were shot there, on that day or any day.
This is the story of how Holm’s scare was transformed into something else. It is the story of how Michigan lawmakers embraced an account that never happened, and it is the story of how they sent it to Congress for consideration – opening the door for a hunt.
No backyard shooting
It was March 30, 2010. Holm’s daycare, in Ironwood Township about a mile north of the city’s eastern border, had just opened.
Their yard is expansive, about 20 acres on their 120-acre lot. Looking to her right, she spotted the wolf and her dog, perhaps 20 feet away, close enough to see the wolf was wearing a radio collar used to track pack movements.
“Oh my god, oh man, that was too close for comfort, especially when I have little kids,” says Holm, 44, her brown hair blowing in the breeze as she recalls the moment.
On April 12, 2010, Holm again saw two wolves, running along a brush line at the rear of her property. It was early evening; the daycare was closed. She again reported the incident to authorities.
Don Lonsway, a wildlife wolf specialist with U.S. Department of Agriculture, has shot many nuisance wolves. He confirmed the separate instances, and that no wolves were killed in Holms’ yard.
Lonsway scouted a wolf trail along the five-acre property owned by Bob Butler, a relocated Detroit-area resident and retired banker. Butler’s property is located about three-quarters of a mile from the Holms’ place through the woods.
Lonsway shot three wolves there – one on one day, two on another – three days apart.
“They certainly were not shot in the backyard of a daycare,” says Lonsway, noting he does surveillance on where to take out problem wolves. “Shooting around a daycare center probably would not be at the top of the list.”
So how did an incident involving wolves, killed seven months later, get transformed into the dramatic shooting in the backyard of a daycare where children had just been let out?
A mystery to most
“I have not heard about that specific instance,” says Ironwood City Manager Scott Erickson. Neither had Mayor Kim Corcoran, nor City Clerk Karen Gullan.
Former state Rep. Matt Huuki, R-Atlantic Mine, introduced the resolution with the false tale in the House. “The exact daycare where that was, I know I was told but that was a while ago,” he says, between phone calls from customers at Matt’s Auto Glass and Body Shop, on the Keweenaw Peninsula near Houghton.
He suggested talking to the resolution’s author. “He was very much involved in the resolution, willing to give his experience in the whole process.”
Judge Anders Tingstad Jr. is chief of courts for Ontonagon and Gogebic counties. This is a place where facts matter.
Tingstad clearly recalled the incident, and ghostwrote the resolution. “Some of my finest writing,” he said.
The judge had heard details of the incident from others. Lori Holms’ husband, Jeff, heads maintenance at City Hall.
“She let the children out, after about an hour wolves show up at the brush line where they mow the grass,” Tingstad said. “She finally reported them and the wolf people whacked them all.”
Later, told Holms and a federal wildlife agent confirmed no wolves were shot in the yard, Tingstad is surprised.
“There were no wolves shot in the backyard?” he asks.
“I apologize, because in writing that, it’s the way I understood the story. I’m sorry if I got that wrong.”
State Sen. Tom Casperson introduced the resolution in the Senate. It ultimately passed both chambers and was forwarded to Congress, asking members to remove wolves’ protected status.
Casperson, R-Escanaba, has been the Legislature’s foremost proponent of the upcoming hunt. He said he was shocked to hear the incident described in his legislation is not true.
“That wasn’t what I was told. That’s how we got it from the city,” Casperson said, adding he’d renounce details in his own resolution if he can confirm the inaccuracy.
“I would be happy stand up and retract that, because I am convinced we have got to be telling the truth.”