The chilling attack - the first fatal wolf encounter on record in the state - has left locals in the tiny village of Chignik in fear of their own lives, forcing parents to escort their children to school and leading others to mount armed patrols in an attempt to prevent further tragedy. Villagers have reported fresh wolf-tracks in the snow close to their community, adding to safety concerns.
The state's Department of Fish and Game and state troopers now plan to launch an aerial hunt for the wolves using a helicopter and fixed-wing aircraft, but were yesterday waiting for snowstorms to clear.
"We'll stay as long as we can to make sure the public feels as safe as we can make them feel living in Alaska," said Colonel Audie Holloway of the Alaska State Troopers.
Between 7,700 and 11,200 wolves live wild in Alaska and while encounters with humans are generally non-confrontational, several villagers at Chignik Lake had reported "threatening encounters" with them in recent days.
Ms Berner's father, Bob Berner, told the Anchorage Daily News that his daughter - who at 4ft 11ins was "small but mighty" - was listening to her iPod while taking a late afternoon run and was unlikely to have noticed that she was being stalked.
"She was probably not aware of them until they actually lunged at her or attacked her," he said. "She did the best she could, but they figured there were two of them for sure, maybe three ... She put up a struggle. It was not an immediate thing," he added.
A post-mortem examination concluded that the cause of death was "multiple injuries due to animal mauling."
"They were just doing what wolves do. Their nature happened to kill my daughter but I don't have any anger towards wolves," said Mr Berner.
State troopers who investigated the scene found pawprints around Ms Berner's body, which had been torn and partially eaten, and bloody drag marks in the snow. They found that she was probably chased down and attacked for around 150 feet before she went down.
"She was bleeding as she was being moved, being dragged, and there was damage to the throat," said Cpl Holloway.
"The medical examiner concluded that she wasn't killed by any other method and that the damage to the throat was severe. There were animal bite marks on the throat. Wolves, just like big cats, usually attack the wind pipe area and try to control the victim that way."
The US Fish and Wildlife Service, which has authority over the nearby Alaska Peninsula National Wildlife Refuge, has approved a special ten-day permit allowing state-approved hunters to cross the refuge's boundaries to hunt down the wolves - which is usually banned.
The death of Ms Berner has led to new debate by Alaskans about their state's predator control programme, which some say is not protecting citizens enough. Locals in Pilot Point, another community on the Alaska Peninsula, say that wolves have often come into their community and dragged away pet dogs.
But others are against introducing tougher controls that would allow members of the public to shoot and kill wolves at their own discretion.
"To me, it's a pretty bogus issue although I know it strikes at the heart strings of a lot of people who want to be macho and go out there and kill animals," said John Toppenberg, director of the Alaska Wildlife Alliance, told the KTVA television channel.
Shooting at wolves will make them more desperate, he predicted. "They become far more likely to go into towns, to frequent trails, to become problem wolves," he said.
ATTACKS IN THE UNIITED STATES
NEW ROCKFORD , DAK ON MARCH THE 7 ,FATHER AND SON LIVING SEVERAL MILES NORTHEAST OF THE CITY WERE DESTROYED BY WOLVES, THE TWO UNFORTUNATE MEN STARTED TO HAYSTACK SOME TEN RODS FROM THE HOUSE TO SHOVEL A PATH AROUND THE STACK, WHEN THEY WERE SURROUNDED BY WOLVES , AND AND EATEN ALIVE , THE HORROR STRICKEN MOTHER WAS STANDING AT THE WINDOW OF THE HOUSE WITH A BABE IN HER ARMS , SHE WATCHED THE TERRIBLE DEATHS OF HER HUSBAND AND SON , AFTER THEY HAD EATEN THE TO MEN THEY STARTED ATTACKING THE HOUSE, BUT AFTER SOME TIME THEY WENT OF IN TO THE WOODS, THE INVESTIGATIONS FOUND NOTHING BUT BONES OF THE HUSBAND AND SON, THE FAMILY NAME WAS OLSON, WOLVES ARE NUMEROUS MORE NOW THEN EVER BEFORE KNOWN IN NORTH DAKOTA MARCH THE 8 I888
THE CANADA GRAY WOLF IN SNOW
Kenton Joel Carnegie (11 February 1983 - 8 November 2005),
was
a Canadian geological engineering student. A judicial inquest carried out by the Provincial Government of Saskatchewan in 2007 concluded that he was killed by wolves on Tuesday 8 November 2005 at Points North Landing, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Although there were no eyewitnesses to the attack, there had been several previous incidents in the region of wolves and black bears acting aggressively toward people. The official investigation initiated by the Chief Coroner of Saskatchewan was carried out by internationally renowned carnivore biologist Dr. Paul Paquet and Royal Canadian Police forensic anthropologist Dr. Ernest Walker, who concluded that Carnegie died as the result of a violent predatory attack, either by wolves (Canis lupus) or an American black bear (Ursus americanus).[1] Bear expert Dr. Stephen Herrero[1] came to the same conclusion, although Herrero believed the responsible predator was likely a black bear. An independent investigation by the National Geographic Society (NGS), led by animal behaviorist Dr. Jane Packard and forensic anthropologist Dr. Gary Haynes, concurred with the equivocal results of the official investigation. Similarly, bear specialist Wayne McRory concluded that a black bear was the probable predator after reviewing the physical evidence.[2] Later, private investigations conducted on behalf of the Carnegie family by ethologist Dr. Valerius Geist,[3] and wildlife biologist Mark McNay[4] strengthened the case for the wolf theory. The conclusions of a third investigation commissioned by the Carnegie family and conducted by wildlife biologist Dr. Brent Patterson[5] were equivocal, although Patterson believed wolves were most likely responsible. Among the various investigators, only Paquet and Haynes visited and carried out an onsite assessment of the accident scene.
war on the wolves of the french alps
In the early 1990s, after an absence of over fifty years, wolves reappeared in the French Alps. In 1992, sightings in
Mercantour National Park were confirmed. Led by the French wolf advocacy organization Groupe Loup, conservationists
were encouraged by the recolonization and were optimistic about the future of the species. Natural prey such as red and roe deer had increased in numbers, while the rural French population had been in decline for decades. But if the conservationists though this would diminish the chances of wolf-human conflict in France they were sorely mistaken.
Currently there are between thirty and fifty wolves in the Alpine region -- an area where sheep in the tens of thousands are pastured for five months out of the year. Shepherds claim that wolves have killed at least 5,000 sheep in the past few years. Their protests resulted in a recent proclamation by the French national assembly that the return of the wolf to France was "incompatible with the maintaining of French pastoralism." Anti-wolf forces called for the establishment of wolf-exclusion zones as well as wolf culls. Environmentalists challenged the claim that wolves were solely to blame for the livestock losses, shifting much of the responsibility to a large contingent of feral dogs that populate the area. They argued it was unlikely that such a small population of wolves could account for so many dead sheep, especially considering the presence of a more than adequate natural prey base. But the French shepherds would not be swayed from their determination to force the government to choose between them or the wolves. The war was on.
The government adopted certain measures to appease the livestock owners. They created a plan that would compensate shepherds for confirmed wolf kills of livestock. They encouraged the use of guard dogs such as the Great Pyrenees. These dogs, raised from puppyhood with sheep, are fiercely protective of the flocks, and have proven to be effective deterrents to wolf depredation. Electric fencing has been donated to create "harborages" where flocks can be sheltered for the night. Aversion devices such as noisemakers have also been used. By and large, though, these measures failed to placate the shepherds. Some insisted on the complete extermination of wolves, while others argued that wolves should be restricted to the two Alpine national parks, Mercantour and Queyras.
A similar conflict has arisen in Spain, where a healthy population of about 2,000 wolves has caused an escalation in livestock losses. And recently wolves have returned to the French Pyrenees. DNA analysis of hair samples in 1999 indicated the presence of wolves in the eastern portion of that mountain range. This was not news to shepherds in the Pyrenees, who had reported increased predation on flocks grazing near the Nohedes Nature Reserve for several years previous to the finding. Wolves had been absent from the Pyrenees since the 1920s -- and most shepherds there wish they still were.
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