Gray Wolves Rebound, To Neighbors' Unease

"HARRISON, Wis. — David Schoone, a farmer in this lush region of northern Wisconsin, says a lone gray wolf sneaked up on his school-age daughter three years ago as she bounced on a trampoline in his backyard.

More recently, Mr. Schoone was chased into his pickup truck by a wolf, and his cousin's wife had to run from two wolves that descended on her from opposite sides of a shed. This month, he lost two young steer to wolves.

"We gotta watch all the time," said Mr. Schoone, 43 years old, who carries a loaded rifle when he works in his fields or goes for a walk, even though he can only legally shoot a wolf in the act of attacking a human. "They don't show any fear of us."

We have a couple plotts, 14 year old & 4 year old. They are just house dogs though. You can't hunt bear or lynx with dogs in rural Alaska or you just feed the wolves. Another local guy shipped up two blueticks from Montana, lost them too. No roads to get around here and rugged thick country. Bear can go 5-10 miles at times.

Plotts are real good family dogs, better than any other coon hounds we ever had back east. We have had past problems with local drunk Indians kicking doors in at 2 am. The plotts cured all of that junk quick. Indians all said I should shoot those maneaters. I told them: Why would I want to do that, they are such good judges of character. Actually, most of the local Indians are super decent, good sharing, non-judgmental people, got to like them. They just have a tough time with the booze and puts them outta their minds. But they sure paid attention to my plotts after I put them on them that night. Plotts are great family dogs, once you can get them to stay around the house, have that insane desire to hunt.

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