What Caliber For A Wolf Pack?

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A couple of years ago

I posted a thread "don't pet the wolf or we will have to shoot it"
it was a ginormus thread about a dumb gal that stuck her hand into a wolf cage at the zoo to pet it, they had to shoot the wolf to make it let go.
Everyone here was saying "shoot the dumb hippie chick, not the Wolf"
pages and pages about how it was her fault , not the Wovles fault.
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=50007&highlight=wolf
I think they are wonderful creatures, but I couldn't allow one to bite me because then of course you become a Standing Wolf :neener::neener::neener::neener:

But seriously folks, the OP said unusual climate conditions are making them extra dangerous...so yeah NORMALLY they are not a problem NOT NORMAL conditions can make them as dangerous as a Pack Of Hungry Wolves

The last wolf I saw was like 7 foot long and huge, I wouldn't want anything less then a .308 or a 30-06, we are not talking hunting we are talking self defense.
 
After reading the linked story I can only conclude that this pack has found easy prey and will NOT go away. Like any predator that figures out that eating domestic animals is easy with almost no danger, the problem just gets worse.

Eventually the elderly and little kids will be on the menu. The solution is simple but unpalatable. Kill the entire pack with a concerted eradication effort.Period. Dont wait for a mountain biker, jogger, or 10 year old walking home to become the main course. Kill them all now. Even if you kill most of them the rest will go away and find less dangerous prey.

The fact is wolves WILL attack people. Just because it is rare does not mean it doesn't happen. THIS IS ONE OF THOSE RARE SITUATIONS.
 
I used to pet the wolves at the zoo in Garden City, KS. One of them would lay its head up alongside the chain link so I could scratch it behind the ear. Then after a few minutes it would turn around so that I could scratch it behind the other ear.

We also used to have some hybrid wolves that we used to pull sleds in the snow.

I like wolves. I even like some people. Doesn't mean I wouldn't shoot either one that was trying to kill me. ;)
 
Dunno

"Wolves rarely attack people" or "No documented case of a wofl attack on people" always brings to mind the phrase "Dead Men Tell No Tales" :scrutiny:

Wonder how many cases out in the wilds (both 19th Century and present day) we've never heard about.
 
Model 29 S&W & a reload or two. Wolf , bear , zombie , martian , human ... A .44 Rem.mag w/ hot loads will make anything change it's mind. You're going for a bike ride ,not a gun fight.

The wolf is fighting for dinner. You are fighting for your life. Kill one or two - make a lot of noise and they'll go looking for a vegetarian.
 
Wonder how many cases out in the wilds (both 19th Century and present day) we've never heard about.
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I ran across and article that quoted a few confirmed wolf attacks from the 19th century, I'll look for it again later.

Theres a statue of a woman that fought off a pack of wolves with an axe when the pack went after her children. Its in one of the old colony states, forget which. I read of that years ago in a chapter of a Hunting history book.
There were hundreds of attacks on the early colonials and records of American Idian villages being attacked by packs of wolves in those days. They called these the Wolf Winters.

Wolves were a lot more numerous and had never faced firearms before. After concerted efforts to kill them out only those smart enough to avoid man lived to have offspring.
 
me or my dogs

if it was me i am carrying my 9 mm or my cz52 i as 1300 defender.

i dont care if its after me or my dog, i am gonna shoot and and not care.
my dogs are just like my kids. god help the man or anim al that goes after either.
 
That's so weird when I lived in Palmer and we had a low snowfall season the northern lower 48 states always got hammered with a harsh winter. I used to run a trap and snare line and always carried my old mossberg 500 with 4 buck. Make sure you kill the alpha male. I wish I had this one with me up there at the time. PC170082.jpg
 
we are talking about animals the size of large dogs (100lbs max).
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A little bigger than that, actually. The ones up here can get enormous. And while they usually are very shy, these latest encounters indicate a change in that pattern likely arising from a lack of food. I'm not worried about them learning that people are good to eat. We'll never be as good as moose. Neither will our dogs. But this is shaping up to be a "wolf winter" as another poster said.

I am just asking that the members of THR not run out and try to find them to shoot.
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Going out and hunting wolves with a firearm isn't going to net many wolves. They're too clever for that. You may get lucky, but the way wolf numbers are seriously reduced or driven into extinction is through systematic trapping and poisoning by experts.

Afterall, as noted above, they are Federally protected. Shoot one and it is a five year sentence in a Federal prison, and $100,000 fine.
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Not here they're not. Though hunting of them isn't allowed in the Anchorage GMU, you could shoot one in DLP if you had to.

In the mean time, we still have way too little snow and the cold is coming on strong. We're hitting sub-zero temps. The moose have plenty of open ground to run on and plenty of browse, so I suspect we'll be dealing with hungry wolves for awhile yet.
 
Guys, the simple truth is that I am NOT likely to see a wolf in the wild, much less several, much less have to worry about being din-din for the critters.

HOWEVER, I have been stalked by a pack of domestic dogs turned feral - IN THE CITY. And that was NOT a good feeling...
 
Those of you suggesting shotguns...I see your point but this one case where I dont think long arms are the answer. A handgun or even a pair with as high a mag capacity as you can find would be the answer here. 9mm would be a minimum, but the fact is if they attack they are going to be all over you, biting and chewing and snarling. You will probably only have time for a few aimed shots before they close, and once you have one latched onto your ankle and on one or both of your arms you wont be able to use a two handed weapon. At point blank range even a 9mm or higher is going to do plenty of damage to a wolf, and one good hit will probably take them out of the fight. The emphasis is on laying down as much fire as possible both to scare them off and to do damage. Caliber is not as important as long as you are scoring hits. Above all, pray that this never happens because unless you are wearing a police dog trainers suit or head to toe plate mail, your chances are not good, even armed for bear (wolf?).
 
Wow. C'mon fellas this is rediculous. Its a large damn dog sized animal that was almost hunted to extinction because of losers.

Enough said.
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While true in the Lower 48, they have never been endangered in Alaska and most of Canada. Just like brown/grizzly bears, bald eagles and any number of other critters.

Conservation, like all things, is contextual.

In most Game Management areas of AK, if there is a hunting limit and a trapping limit, as there usually is for wolves, you can fill both limits.

The attacks in the Anchorage area are primarily in non-hunting/trapping sections, but if a wolf goes "dog-fishing"* and I'm around, that wolf will fall in defense of life and property.

That said, I have no sympathy with the idiots who walk/run their dogs off leash, whether in town or the woods, and then are surprised when their "voice control" doesn't keep Fluffy from chasing a "bait wolf" straight to the pack's dinner table.

* "Dog fishing" - a single smart wolf steps into plain view (which they just don't do normally) fifty to a hundred yards away to entice a dog to chase it, drawing it away from its human (fortunately most still do see adult humans as threats) and straight into the jaws of the pack.



The attacks in Fairbanks are a little more concerning to me as the packs are approaching occupied structures to take dogs. Coming into a yard after a dog in winter is not a giant step from coming into the same yard after a child in the summer, once you learn there are easy meals to be had.

Idiots walking their pets off leash are asking for it, that situation will resolve itself one way or another.
 
Wow just got this on TV, here is an article
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/6420ap_ak_bold_wolves.html

For those who hate links:
Bold Anchorage wolves attack dogs, circle joggers
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- A wolf pack surrounded three joggers and attacked one of their dogs in the latest of a series of bold attacks near Alaska's largest city.

A dog on a chain also was killed Thursday and a spokesman for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game said the same pack may be responsible for both attacks.

The dog in its own yard in Eagle River on Anchorage's north side was killed first Thursday morning.

A few hours later, the second attack occurred less than a mile away as three women and their dogs were running on a well-used stretch of road.

It was so quick, the three friends at first didn't know what was happening.

"They were so quiet. They just came right up on us. They were quick. The dogs had no clue. They didn't smell them or hear them - nothing," Alycia Beiergrohslein told KTVA-TV.

At least seven wolves surrounded the three women and their dogs as they jogged on Artillery Road. The lead wolves came within feet, circling the women as they tried to get away. They were only slightly deterred by pepper spray.

"I was rainbowing my pepper spray, and they fell back a little bit," said Camas Barkemeyer. "But as soon as we would turn our backs to try to go, they would run up on us, and we would turn around and start screaming again, and I would spray my pepper spray.

"We just kept pulling, and they were so big, and they started howling, and they were circling us. And it got us really panicked, and we kept screaming."

Beiergrohslein, Barkemeyer and the third jogger were more than a mile and a half away from their cars. The women had read the warnings about other wolf attacks and kept their dogs on leashes.

As the wolves circled, the women walked backward, screaming to keep the animals away, and trying to keep everyone safe.

"I love my dog with all my heart, but I can't jeopardize my friends. And if that's what they wanted, I didn't know whether to leave him," Beiergrohslein said.

The women held tight to the leashes, and were able to keep the wolves at bay, but not before the pack attacked Barkemeyer's American bulldog, Buddy.

"My dog was attacked by the wolves, three wolves," Barkemeyer said. "He fought his way out as I was pulling."

The women were not physically hurt. Buddy underwent surgery to mend gashes and bites left by the wolves. Barkemeyer said she worries the pack could attack again.

"They were not afraid of us," she said. "And I'm afraid that if I was out here by myself, they would attack me. They were not afraid."

Wildlife experts say wolves learn quickly.

"If they figure out that dogs are easy to kill, and good food for them, then they can just come to the conclusion that there is a lot more dogs than moose, and 'Let's just start eating the dogs for now," said Rick Sinnott, a state biologist. "I'm not sure they have quite reached that point, but they are working on that concept right now."

A dog accompanying two people on the northern edge of Anchorage was killed in late November. Earlier this month, a wolf carried off a 9-year-old Nova Scotia duck-tolling retriever that was trailing 30 feet behind its owner on a road on Fort Richardson Army Post, also on Anchorage's north side.

Sinnott said dogs were attacked 13 years ago by the same pack. The wolves stopped attacking dogs when key pack members were trapped and killed.

State officials are encouraging the military to scare the wolves from the area with rubber bullets or pepper balls. They also are warning people to keep out of the area and to keep dogs inside.
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I dont care if its after me or my dog, i am gonna shoot and and not care. my dogs are just like my kids. god help the man or animal that goes after either.
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True,and I love my dogs too. But they are to protect me. Doesn't mean I won't shoot another animal that attacks my dogs,but if my dogs have to take one for the team so I can survive by running away or climbing a tree or whatever,then that's the way it goes. I'm not gonna fight a wolf pack to save my dog's life. My dogs are my best friends and I hate to say this,but in a life-or-death scenario they are expendable.

It's a good thing they can't read...
 
As important as a sidearm might be, I think a good accessible knife could prove to be *more* important in case it goes *hand to hand*.

Biker
 
What Caliber For A Wolf Pack?
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Why several of these.

open445.jpg
 
Sorry to come in so late and all. And has probably been stated.

You will be Lotto style lucky if you see the pack before the attack. You are going to be riding and concentrating on the trail not your surroundings.

Secondly, Wolves work just like hog dogs, They will grab limbs first then go for control and kill usually the throat. "Discovery channel"

So go in a pack yourself, Don't get separated. One human easy prey. Five humans not so much.

FWIW, The shotgun is THE melee wmd.

Riding a bike and crashing on your weapon is a good way to hurt yourself too far from medical help. Not smart.

Now if you are just looking for a excuse to take the sks then by all means be my guest. But I would hate for a pack of wolves to have your gun.

addendum, The weather cycles we see this everyday. That humans can have a ego so large as to believe they are capable of changing global cycles is just astounding.
 
I would recomend a semi auto handgun, 9mm or greater, with a mag capacity of 12 rounds or greater (or at least 8 shots + a reload), using ammo that delivers good penetration. A double action revolver would be a second choice, but carry a couple of speedloaders.

Remember that a wolf (or dog) is built different than a human, and if you have to shoot it in defense it will be "head on" (as opposed to a side shot as would be likely when hunting). Penetration of 12 - 15 inches is a good start to try to reach vitals. 15 - 20 inches would be better.

I haven't had any close work or encounters with wolves, but I assume you are right in that they are "hard to hit". For defensive use, if they are trying to prey on you, you will need something you can get into action very fast. Faster than likely for a slung rifle or shotgun. If you can, I'd forget about concealment holsters as well.

As far as whether they are hard to put down or not, a hit with a pistol caliber is more likely to stop an attack by one than a miss by a rifle or shotgun round. I would expect that even if the pack is as great as 10 animals, if you can drop 2 - 3 of them the rest will break off (likely coming back to eat those you dropped). Depending on how many are dropped, and how long afterwards it takes you to get indoors, they may be back after you again however.

Pepper spray, especially in one of the larger sizes, might be a good choice as well. I wouldn't rely on it to stop a pack from an attack, but it might work well to deter them. I assume (perhaps wrongly?) that wolves will likely be approaching prey from downwind. Pepper spray, especially the type that comes out as a spray more than a stream, might carry downwind and discourage them (pepper spray is irritating to their noses, and it definately does NOT smell like a prey animal). If you have it in hand, and use it at the start of a charge, it might discourage them enough to give you time to draw a pistol or even find a more defensible spot (ie: up a tree).

To my mind, a rifle or shotgun would be too bulky and awkard/slow to get into action to be a viable defensive arm.
 
Flame thrower. Maybe hand grenades.
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damn someone beat me to it!

I have zero experience with wolves although Ive been to both AK and MT. That said, my dog has wolf tendencies (he's a Jindo) and I can see that if there were a pack of him and they wanted to eat me I'd have a very hard time fending them off. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't come charging up, they'd hang back just out of reach, but they would follow me and try to cut me off.

That said, I think it is far more likely that the wolves will want to eat your dog than eat you. i know for sure that dogs can attract all sort of unwelcome attention in the woods when a man woudln't.

but if i were doing this... and i'm not... i'd likely bring along something tough, reliable, and lacking nasty edges. an sks would be great but an m44 could be bad if the bayonet got you, even folded. sks with peep sights, hard to beat.

i'd also consider bringing a little rabbit in a fanny pack. when the going gets tough, drop the furry chaff and take off..
 
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