Duane Hicks
A Kaitlyn Drive couple got a shock Tuesday after they discovered a deer being eaten by wolves in their backyard.
Kevin Knutsen said Thursday morning that his wife, Marla, was in their home that afternoon when she noticed some movement in the yard.
Having seen deer in the yard earlier that day, she at first thought it was still them.
But soon she realized it was two wolves eating a young doe, which had been killed sometime earlier but evidently hadn’t been down for long.
She took out the video camera and, standing at the patio doors at the back of the house, captured about 35 minutes of video, from 3:30-4:05 p.m., until the battery died.
Knutsen said the footage is in the process of being converted into a video file.
A little later, a third wolf joined the other two to feed.
After eating less than half the carcass, the lupine visitors left the premises. But Knutsen is wary that if the carcass is not moved, they may return.
“I’ve been checking each day [to see if the wolves return], but no, nothing,” he noted. “But deer keep coming back, and walking around it.
“Our thought is they [wolves] have eaten probably less than half of it right now,” he noted.
“Normally, they tend to come back.”
Knutsen contacted the OPP and the town, both of which referred him to the Ministry of Natural Resources.
He is waiting for a response from the MNR to remove the deer carcass.
If they don’t do so soon, Knutsen said he may have to do it himself this weekend.
Knutsen said while he’s frequently seen deer in the neighbourhood, he’s never seen wolves there before—and was very surprised to see them out in the daylight, tearing apart a deer carcass.
“I’ve seen some big dog footprints that maybe now might not have been dogs,” he reasoned.
“We’ve seen the odd bear walk around once in a while, but not something that was so aggressive,” Knutsen later added.
“They were covered in blood. It was something right out of a movie,” he remarked. “And they didn’t care that we were watching them or making noise.
“That was the part that was a little eerie.
“You’d think they would have taken off. [But] they were there a long time.”
Knutsen said he wanted to bring the incident to light to raise public awareness for the sake of safety, and let other people know, especially those with children and dogs living in that part of town, to keep an eye open.
“I’ve gone to the close neighbours, the ones that I know have kids, and let them know,” he noted. “That was our only concern.
“I have a little daughter, too,” he added. “Kids are always playing back there.”
