When you're wounded on the Alaskan plains

[Katya Mullethov]

And the wolves come out
to eat what remains .
Just roll to your pistol
and blow out your brains .
And die ,
die on your own terms .

Or take a few with you , or scare them all off ,
or just lay there while they gut you , that's your business .



ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – A schoolteacher found dead this week near a remote Alaska village was probably killed by wolves, Alaska State Troopers said on Thursday.

The fatal attack could be the first on U.S. soil in more than 50 years. Attacks by wild wolves, rather than wolves kept as pets, are extremely rare, numbering no more than a handful a decade, mostly in Canada and Russia. Candice Berner, a 32-year-old teacher and avid jogger who traveled to several rural schools in Alaska, was found dead on Monday along a road near Chignik Lake, a Native Alutiiq village about 475 miles southwest of Anchorage.

Snowmobilers found her severely mauled body in a pool of blood and multiple wolf tracks in the snow, according to officials. The State Medical Examiner said the cause of death was "multiple injuries due to animal mauling." Chignik Lake locals had expressed fears about wolf sightings in the area, state troopers said. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game plans a special meeting to hear their concerns.

State troopers said there were no records of deadly wolf maulings in Alaska. Bruce Woods, spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said fatal attacks are extremely rare worldwide.


etf :near blind typing

[theophilus]

1. What better way to cover up a murder on the cheap. Just sayin'. n/t

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

2. You'd still have to be pretty smart about it.

I'm sure the coroners would run some toxicology reports.
Gunshot wounds would still be evident from shattered bones, bullet fragments, or hydrostatic shock.
Knife attack might be risky, wolves lacerate and can't creat incisions or clean cuts.

I don't think it'd be much easier than finding a remote spot and digging a deep hole.
You're relying on chance the wolves take care of any evidence.
Kind of an all-or-nothing bet. :shrug:

[AtheistCrusader]

3. predators capable of killing elk and moose can bring down a human

news at 11.


This is why I carry a pistol AND a rifle in the national forests. There are things there that MAY try to eat you, or kill you for unknowingly entering their market territory.

[Euromutt]

4. They generally don't, though

Animals like wolves, cougars and bears generally don't mess with humans; because we walk on only two legs, we don't conform to their template of food. And the attitude most apex predators take is that, if you're not food, you're something to stay away from. And wolves typically do just that.

They also tend to only get territorial with critters they recognize (correctly or incorrectly) as occupying the same ecological niche. For example, wolves are quite likely to attack a dog that wanders into their territory, because the see the dog as basically an odd-looking wolf (which, when you get right down to it, it is) and expect it to understand wolf etiquette. This does not apply to humans.

Most wolf attacks on humans (and to put things in perspective, the number of documented predatory attacks by non-rabid wolves in North America in the entire 20th century was 19, none fatal) occur in areas where humans have left food lying around; picnic areas in parks, open dumps outside small settlements, that sort of thing. The last human to be killed by a wolf in the US was a rabies case, and that was in far north-western Alaska in 1945.

[AtheistCrusader]

7. Oh I agree. I carry 'in case', not because it's likely to be needed.

Same with the SPOT locator device. I don't plan on breaking a limb and getting stuck somewhere and needing help, it's just in case.

We have big cats around here too. I've never seen a wolf, actually. Just coyotes, and they are as timid as the black bears. They high-tail it when they see me.

[Glassunion]

5. Did anyone else pick up on...

The name of the spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service?

Awesome!

[GreenStormCloud]

6. A few months ago there was a DU thread about a woman killed by coyotes. N/T

[AtheistCrusader]

8. I can't find that damn story.

I vaguely recall it too.

[X_Digger]

9. Here you go..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=118&topic_id=264383

[Euromutt]

10. That was in Nova Scotia, though, wasn't it?

Long way from Alaska.