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Thu 1 Nov 2007 7:28
by Kevin McGehee
50° and fair
in Coweta County, GA
5 comments
[Alaska]
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A pack of wolves killed and ate a dog in a residential subdivision in North Pole early Wednesday morning.
The dog, a 15-year-old black Lab mix named Shilo, evidently ran into the wolves while it was out taking care of its morning business, said owner Ed Lesage, who lives off Mavencamp Court in North Pole, a subdivision at the end of Hurst Road on the edge of Chena Lake and the Chena Lakes Recreation Area.
Lesage said his wife, Teresa, both teachers, let their two dogs, Shilo and a 4-year-old husky named Chief, out to go to the bathroom at about 4 a.m. just as they do every morning.
“We let ‘em out, they go to the bathroom and they come back 15 or 20 minutes later,“ Ed Lesage said of their morning ritual.
On Wednesday morning, though, Lesage noticed that all the dogs in the neighborhood began barking shortly after he let the two dogs out.
“Something just didn’t seem right,“ he said.» Wolves kill, eat pet dog in North Pole subdivision
That’s only a few miles from where we used to live up there, from 1995 to 1999. Mavenkamp Circle can be seen here, and the site of our home is within the frame near the upper left-hand corner (at least, it is on my monitor with 1280 x 1024 resolution). Chena Lake has been the scene of previous dangerous encounters with Alaska wildlife, including a family that died of exposure some years back after retreating into the water to get away from grizzly bears.
As for wolves, I can remember at least one or two occasions where they got into yards in outlying areas such as Two Rivers, north of North Pole, and killed several sled dogs. Yet for all the years we lived up there, we never saw a wolf or grizzly bear—and the only wild bears we did see were a couple of black bear cubs while driving on the Dalton Highway after a quick trip to the Yukon River bridge in 1995.
Condolences to the Lesages.
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