No houndsman will run a bear track when wolf tracks are nearby .
Looking for wolf sign has become as important as looking for bear sign .
manageable . Houndsmen could protect their packs by not releasing them in areas with fresh wolf sign . Years ago , this was possible , but as time has passed a growing wolf population has saturated all available habitat and made hound hunting nearly impossible .
The U . P . wolf population has been on a steady rise since the 1990s . As the conservation vs . preservation chess game has continued , the anti-hunting movement ’ s strategy has been to keep moving the goal posts .
The original objective of 50 wolves in the state quickly became 200 . Though the population is currently , and conservatively , three times that number , and has been for over 10 years , somehow animal-rights extremists argue , with a straight face , that the criteria for gray wolf delisting has not been met .
Michigan ’ s state recovery plan requires a minimum winter wolf population of 200 animals for five consecutive years . Since 2011 , the minimum estimate for the Michigan wolf population has remained stable , fluctuating slightly above 600 in an estimated 136 packs across all suitable habitat in the U . P . This never-ending chase of thresholds acceptable to animal activists has repercussions for wildlife management and the summer training of hounds .
An aggressive wolf is a threat any time of year , to any pack of dogs . In July , wolves are still denned up and pups are not yet independent , which causes the entire pack to be more territorial and aggressive . Houndsmen keep track of how many wolves are in the area and which direction they are heading when looking for bear tracks . Unfortunately , the fate of a hound that runs into a wolf while in pursuit of game is a grim one . Houndsmen have lost entire packs to wolves , with few words to describe the scene they walk into when retrieving collars .
Carl Kronsicki knows all too well the possible outcomes of a pack meeting wolves . It ’ s a dire fate , and one that ’ s hard to live with . The emotion in his voice as he recounted the day he lost two dogs to wolves made that clear .
What started out as a promising bear pursuit turned bad fast when four of the six dogs that were started ended up running back to the truck . With two dogs still out there , Carl and his friend went looking . It took less than an hour to walk into what they could only describe as a massacre . Their dogs had been killed , buried , turned to mush by wolves . That ’ s now the reality of pursuing bears in wolf country . Wolves have brought an overall heightened stress level . There is no such thing as taking your time to get to a tree . If a dog is even 100 yards from the rest of the pack , handlers start to worry and head in that direction . A wayward hound can be a young , distracted dog , an older , slower dog or a dog that doesn ’ t stick under the tree with the rest of the pack . Separated dogs make easy targets for nearby wolves .
Instead of loading up the dogs and family for a traditional summer training chase , most houndsmen leave the dogs at home when looking for tracks . What used to be a fun family outing has turned into a high-stakes game of hide and seek , with handlers checking possible tracks before getting excited . It is just as likely that any bear tracks will have fresh wolf tracks nearby .
For the Bennetts , the danger posed by wolves to their family , their sons and dogs , is too much . Adam recalls taking a lead role in hound handling when he was young , something he can ’ t put on his oldest son ’ s shoulders today because of unmanaged wolf populations .
“ It isn ’ t just going up and handling dogs at the tree anymore . It ’ s making hard , dangerous , split-second decisions while a pack of dogs is potentially in a fight for their lives with a pack of wolves , and how much danger you could be in at that moment ,” he said . “ There are just too many life-altering risks for me to comfortably let my sons take the lead in so many situations . And that ’ s not good for our youth or the future of hound hunting in wolf country .”
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