Duane Hicks
A couple of months after Kaitlyn Drive residents Kevin and Marla Knutsen reported seeing three wolves eat a young doe in their backyard, there appears to more signs the predators have been prowling the edges of town.
Gord McCabe, who lives on Banta Boulevard, said that back on Feb. 20 he was walking his dog on the trails north of Sixth Street East, between Shevlin and Williams Avenue, when he noticed a deer carcass he’s sure wolves had taken down.
“Two days before I‘d seen the deer carcass, I heard wolves howling,” he noted. “It was way, way off in the distance.
“But I have been walking my dog there in the mornings since 1997. We usually walk about six in the morning, and that is the first time I ever heard that.
“It’s still dark when I am walking off and I’ve never really been worried about going in the bush because the dogs will sense anything, right?” McCabe added.
A few days after the carcass sighting, McCabe said his son, Evan, was walking the dogs on the trails when he saw the remains of some small animal “strewn everywhere,” as if torn apart by wolves.
And this past Sunday night, McCabe said his son believes may have seen a wolf while walking in the bush.
McCabe said the morning he saw the carcass, he noticed children sliding on a hill at Sixth Street East and Shevlin, and it got him to thinking that parents living in that area should be aware of the possibility of wolves.
“Chances are the wolves are going to be long gone, but I did tell the kids, and I wasn’t try to scare them, but I told them what had happened just in case,” he recalled.
“If I didn’t say anything, I’d never forgive myself.
“There’s definitely been signs around,” McCabe added later. “Have I seen wolves? No. But they did take this deer down in the last week-and-a-half.
“And they’re certainly a lot closer to town than they’ve traditionally been.
“I know we had the incident with Kevin’s place there in December, and everybody was kind of careful for a while, but even myself, I started thinking, ‘Well, they’re gone,’” McCabe admitted.
“But they’re not gone,” he warned.
McCabe said he hasn’t heard about wolves from anybody else in the neighbourhood, and knows other people continue to walk their dogs and ride sleds back on the trails.
“Hopefully, nothing’s going to happen,” he added. “But I am sort of avoiding that area.
“I don’t walk my dog there first thing in the morning there when it’s still dark.”
Kevin Knutsen said he hasn’t seen any wolves since December, but on Feb. 20 he saw the same carcass that McCabe did.
“There was a younger deer that was killed, definitely from the night before, in a similar fashion [as the one in his yard in December], with wolf tracks all over the place,” he recalled.
“It was a pretty messy sight, right off the walking trail, kind of behind Kaitlyn and Patcin, more behind Patcin actually.
“It was a younger deer [than in December], but certainly another wolf kill, at least within the past two weeks,” added Knutsen.
“There’s something going on there.”
While some residents are unnerved by the idea of wolves in their neighbourhood, the Ministry of Natural Resources’ management biologist for Fort Frances District said yesterday “it’s not all that unusual to see wolves close to town.”
“The Town of Fort Frances is surrounded by wildlife habitat, so it can be expected that we will see moose, deer, wolves, and other wildlife in the vicinity, or within the town, from time to time,” Melissa Mosley said in an e-mail to the Times.
“Deer numbers remain high in the area, which are the primary food source of wolves around here,” she added.
“Wolves have very large home territories or ranges, and will go after game wherever they happen to be in the wolves’ range.
“Lone wolves may be drawn to game outside of or on the fringes of other packs’ territories—basically, wherever they can get it,” Mosley explained.
“There continues to be deer living in and around the town, although with the implementation of the wildlife feeding bylaw by the town last year, there don’t appear to be quite as many deer around as last year,” she noted.
Meanwhile, the Town of Fort Frances’ bylaw enforcement department said they haven’t received any wolf reports since December, when they and Public Works staff removed the partially-eaten carcass from Knutsen’s property.
“We haven’t had any more calls about them,” said bylaw enforcement officer Arlene Byrnes, adding it’s certainly possible residents have seen wolves but they just haven’t contacted the town abut it.
If residents see wolves in town limits, they are encouraged to call the bylaw enforcement office to respond, not the OPP or MNR.
These calls likely would be treated like a bear call, where the officers would bring lethal back-up (OPP officers) and, if necessary, dispatch the wolves.
The MNR does not have the authority to discharge firearms in town—only the OPP does.
This is similar to how it is with nuisance bears, although there is no formal agreement between the MNR and town regarding wolves like there is with bears.
To report wolf sightings to the town during business hours, call the bylaw department at 274-5323.
If it’s an emergency, call the OPP at 1-888-310-1122.
