For generations , the soundtrack of July in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan consisted of the bawl and chop of hounds in pursuit , and the baying of a treed bear . It ’ s a song Adam and Stephani Bennett have listened to for decades , and one they hope to pass on to their boys , Logan and Eli , who were practically born under a treed bruin .
Carried to trees in a front swaddle as newborns , the boys have tagged along with their parents for years , gaining experience every season . Older now , they want to take on more of the responsibilities of dog handling at the tree . It ’ s something past generations would have started to do at about their age , but times have changed , and so have the threats to bear hunters — both two- and four-legged .
In Michigan , the kill season for bears doesn ’ t start until September , but houndsmen are allowed a summer training season . The availability of resources in July makes it the perfect time to run bears . The landscape is full of ripe berries , allowing bears to roam and cover a lot of country . With bears wandering across many roads and leaving crisscrossing tracks for a hound to follow , training opportunities abound . The weather is beautiful with the summer sun blocked by a thick canopy of trees , providing plenty of shade for dogs and handlers alike .
The tracks left by bears may not be the easiest to follow in the heat of July , but this makes for better dogs in the end . If they can puzzle out and follow a hard track during summer training , the cool , damp conditions of the fall hunting season will seem much easier .
A July bear pursuit 20 years ago meant loading up the family and the dogs to look for a track . Kids would hang out the windows looking for a glimpse of bear sign . Strike dogs would ride on the hood with their noses in the air . The whole scene would have looked much like the September kill season .
Today , an unmanaged wolf population has , for the most part , ended that tradition . Sure , there were wolves in the area back then — heck , the Sportsmen ’ s Alliance has been working to delist Western Great Lakes wolves for nearly two decades — but the situation was manageable . Time was spent driving in both directions from a bear track in search of wolf tracks , just to be safe . More often than not , wolves didn ’ t pose an immediate threat , and the dogs could be cut loose . But that ’ s all changed with the rise of the wolf .
Adam and Stephani Bennett want to help their sons develop into houndsmen , but with wolves present in their hunting areas , the couple is concerned about their children ' s safety .
Muting Michigan ' s Summer Season The soundtrack of the July pursuit season rarely has a chance to start anymore . It is a mostly silenced song . A houndsmen must do a great deal of groundwork before he can press play , thanks to the ever-mounting threat of wolves to his pack and family . There are threats of emergency vet bills , threats of legal issues if a run-in with wolves takes place and the threat of a lifetime of regret and the real possibility of coming home short of pack members . Those threats have a real influence on the passing down of the hound-hunting heritage to the next generation .
“ It impacts how the young dogs learn , it impacts how the young hunters learn ,” said Adam Bennett .
While it is true that wolves have long been on the landscape , fewer and smaller packs made the situation somewhat
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