Wolf(Ves?) In Wayne County, Mo

[fishinwrench]

I feel like a total jackass for it, but that story about the kid that got accidentally shot in the head totally cracked me up.

Between that and Charley's 29 pound possum....the wolf story blows.

Small town Journalism can be such a hoot !

[ness]

O'Possum?

[Quillback]

O'Possum?

Irish possum. Probably escaped from a zoo.

[fishinwrench]

OMG, I've had a nap and it STILL cracks me up, so surely it isn't just Me.

"The family is prostrated, they started with 8 kids and now they just have one left".

Seriously, there hasn't been journalism of that caliber since the bible was scribed.

That is too much!

[Al Agnew]

Just because it's reported in the local newspaper doesn't mean it was really a wolf, especially back in 1931.

Look, it would be cool to some people if there were wolves all over Missouri, but wolves are lot different animals than coyotes. They live in packs all the time. They howl. They do a LOT of traveling around. They're big, 75-130 pounds. They leave 4.5-5 inch long tracks. If they are there, you'll know it if you spend much time in the woods, even if you don't see them. Given that for a week and a half each November the woods are crawling with nimrods with rifles, on ATVs, driving back roads, and for the rest of the fall the woods still have lots of bowhunters doing a lot of the same things, if there were wolves other than the very rare stray, they'd be seen and shot pretty often. They aren't like cougars, which are very shy, secretive, and almost entirely nocturnal. Wolves like to move around during the day and lie out in the open. They've survived in the north country of Minnesota because they live in huge tracts of dense woodland with few roads. You can't find a place in Missouri that's more than a few miles from well traveled roads on all sides. If nothing else, you'd come across one every now and then dead on the highway, like you do coyotes.

Sorry, there is not and will probably never be a breeding population of wolves in Missouri.

[bigjigjim]

Al, I'm not disagreeing with you. It would be near impossible to miss a significant Wolf population. And yes archived newspaper are more often humorous than accurate. However they do go to show that claims or sightings have been happening for a long time and seem to stay consistent with claims and sightings of today. That being said it is hard to argue that proven Wolf sightings in Missouri are simply an anomaly. As I stated before, there is most certainly at least a migrating population... Should mdc establish an open season and issue public warnings to hide your new borns? No, but they need to admit that the presence is more than the occasional stray.

[Al Agnew]

I just don't see it. One more or less confirmed wolf every 5 or 10 or 20 years, and a few reports from people who probably never saw a real wolf, sounds exactly like an anomaly to me. It sounds like one stray at a time, probably an outcast from some pack from Minnesota or Wisconsin, roaming searching for a mate or another pack to join...if it's not from somebody who thought having a wolf as a pet was cool until reality set in.

[living_waters]

...if it's not from somebody who thought having a wolf as a pet was cool until reality set in.

If I remember right the place we took my daughter while in Branson when she was 15 lost a pair of wolves they had and the female was pregnant. One problem with MDC press statements is that wolves mate for life and the pack is usually made of the breeding pair and their offspring, so technically we have a breeding population.

[Al Agnew]

If I remember right the place we took my daughter while in Branson when she was 15 lost a pair of wolves they had and the female was pregnant. One problem with MDC press statements is that wolves mate for life and the pack is usually made of the breeding pair and their offspring, so technically we have a breeding population.

They more or less mate for life, but packs are often made up of more than just the breeding pair and their offspring. There are strays that join packs, and strays that get run out of packs (when they're not killed) and roam around hoping find another pack or find a mate and start their own pack. The strays are usually submissive wolves, however, that end up not surviving because whatever made the first pack run them off makes other packs do the same. "Lone wolves" are not uncommon, however, and the strays that get pushed out of their pack are almost certainly the wolves that occasionally make it to places like Missouri.

There's a thriving, nearly underground industry in raising and selling wolves and wolf hybrids as pets. But keeping one requires an understanding of the differences between them and dogs. Most people wanting them as pets don't have it, and the animals end up maladjusted and occasionally scary. I've spent a lot of time over the years with wolves in captive situations, and they are really cool animals, but they aren't dogs.

[bigjigjim]

One more or less confirmed wolf every 5 or 10 or 20 years, and a few reports from people who probably never saw a real wolf, sounds exactly like an anomaly to me.

That is my point. All to often MDC will not attempt to verify reports, and when they finally do come out they deny the majority of them. I previously spoke of one instance with in the last decade that I know first hand, where MDC said the carcass was not in fact a Mtn. Lion, yet they took immediate possession and would not release it back to the Farmer that killed it. Not to mention the whole ordeal was swept under the rug after the legal action they threatened was squashed. Phone calls not returned, no record of the gw coming out, and nothing was everpublicized tomy knowledge. like it never happened...

I've also caught a glimpse of what I was certain to be a mountain Lion near Onodaga atop the bluffs of the courtouise(sp) this was just a glimpse, but it would have made for a huge bobcat!

I have heard similar stories of MDC complete denial of iron clad evidence more than once across the state. Just because one or two every 5-10 years is publicized doesn't mean it's not happening.

I think gen pop would freak out if MDC or any authority were to confirm regular presence of these predators. It would have a negative affect on more than one level. So I'm not saying that denial is right or wrong, just that is there.