If we didn't have enough to worry about

SwampDonkey · March 06, 2012, 04:30:15 AM

Our 'yotes do, but in winter is when they are most vulnerable. They run them half way to death and weeken them. The 'yotes pack up in family groups around here. You will hear the hole bunch of them yelping back and forth in the woods. Plus our 'yotes are larger, almost wolf sized, and we call them coy-dogs. That's another problem, and always has been, is domestic dogs running deer around here. Next to reservation land is sometimes bad for dogs. They let them roam about and even the people are at risk sometimes from mad dogs. Mom's uncle was a trapper and there was always dogs roaming out in the woods. Neighbor was missing his dog, said it never left home. Asked mom's uncle if he seen it. Nope, if it don't leave home how would I see it? His dog went on the fur auction as a timber wolf pelt. One less deer runner. ;D

Den Socling · March 06, 2012, 11:07:41 AM

I know a guy who has some pelts from coyotes he took here in PA. I was shocked by the size. They are what I would expect from a wolf. Very pretty fur.

Al_Smith · March 06, 2012, 11:55:18 AM

A few years ago a guy at work got a big male in a wire snare that weighed 55 pounds .I think that's rather the exception than the rule for size though .

I've seen the tracks in my woods but only have seen about 4- or so in my lifetime and those were at night .You can definately tell the tracks from red fox .

I assume they were just fereting out mice and chipmonks for their supper which seem to like to take up residence in my firewood stacks .What they and the fox miss at night the red tail hawks try to get in day light .Then are the big hoots,owls that is the great horned type .They all give it their best shot but so far the vermin are gaining on them .

SwampDonkey · March 06, 2012, 07:18:52 PM

In the fall of the year, around October when the sugar maple seed drop, it's dark traveling to the woods for work. In the early morning hours you see hundreds of mice going for those maple seeds on the roads. You wouldn't believe how many mice there are in the forest. I've sat and ate lunch before and have 4 or 5 mice going in under rotten stumps and roots and leaves having a good old time. There ain't no wiping them out. :D

Al_Smith · March 06, 2012, 07:40:42 PM

The movie "never cry wolf " was an adaptation of an autobiograpy of one Farley Mowat who was a biloligist .

Evidently Mr Mowat did research in northern Canada concerning the decline of the wolf .Much to his surprise they actually had more mice in ther diets than any thing else .He was surprised a carnivore of that size could subsist on nothing but mice .They just ate a lot of them .

I suppose it just like the 'yotes or red fox .They don't care if it's mice or the farmers chickens or in the case of the coyote the cat .They'll eat anything that doesn't eat them first .

SwampDonkey · March 06, 2012, 10:37:41 PM

Mowatt was a biologist up north, but much of his book was proven to be a fraud with quite a bit of fudging the facts. So basically good fiction, but not entirely based on solid science. ;)

BaldBob · March 07, 2012, 01:40:55 AM

Mr. Mowat was a writer with very little biology training , but a very strong passion, who in responding to his critics said "If the facts disagree with the truth, f___ the facts."

SwampDonkey · March 07, 2012, 04:37:20 AM

Life and Times of Farely Mowatt

He did work for the Canadian Wildlife service while studying the wolves.

It was funny, in school his name was never mentioned for reading material. I never heard tell of him until after I was through school.

From Wikipedia:

"Canadian Wildlife Federation official Alexander William Francis Banfield, who supervised Mowat's field work, characterised the book as "semi-fictional", and accused Mowat of blatantly lying about his expedition. He pointed out that contrary to what is written in the book, Mowat was part of an expedition of three biologists, and was never alone. Banfield also pointed out that a lot of what was written in Never Cry Wolf was not derived from Mowat's first hand observations, but were plagiarised from Banfield's own works, as well as from Adolph Murie's The Wolves of Mount McKinley. In a 1964 article published in the Canadian Field-Naturalist, he compared Mowat's 1963 bestseller to Little Red Riding Hood, stating that;

'I hope that readers of Never Cry Wolf will realize that both stories have about the same factual content.'"