Firearms are a great self defense mechanism against four legged critters also………….

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When a wolf strikes, it’s no picnic
Date: Sep 7, 2006 8:25 AM
PUBLICATION: GLOBE AND MAIL
DATE: 2006.09.06
PAGE: A3 (ILLUS)
BYLINE: HAYLEY MICK
SECTION: National News
EDITION: Metro
WORD COUNT: 788

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When a wolf strikes, it’s no picnic
Holiday weekend ends in chaos as animal attacks families at Northern
Ontario beach

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Brenda Wright says she and her two children had just eaten their turkey
sandwiches and settled onto their beach towels when the horror began.

Her son, Casey, 12, noticed a black, dog-like animal running across the
Northern Ontario beach where the family was enjoying the last day of
summer vacation.

In a sudden and unrelenting attack, the animal ripped into Casey’s
buttock, tore his mother’s hands and leg, and bloodied his 14-year-old
sister’s scalp, lunging after the family of six as they fled screaming
into Lake Superior.

“I was trying to fight him off and he grabbed my finger. I thought he
pulled it off. . . . Honest to God, it looks like hamburger meat,” Ms.
Wright said yesterday from her mother’s home in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.

Ms. Wright’s family was not the only one to face the 33-kilogram wolf.
The attacks Monday by one Canis lupus ended with the animal dead and six
people, including a three-year-old girl, bloodied, torn and terrified.

For Jerry and Rachel Talbot, it started at around 4 p.m. The Wawa, Ont.,
couple, on their way to a wedding in Sudbury with granddaughters Leah,
3, and Madison, 5, pulled off of Highway 17 for a quick swim at a
popular day picnic area in Lake Superior Provincial Park.

According to park staff, more than a dozen others were enjoying the end
of the Labour Day weekend at Katherine’s Cove when the Talbot family
wandered onto the beach and began to remove their shoes.

Mr. Talbot noticed a black animal chasing a girl across the sand.

Too slow for the girl, the animal veered off and grabbed a slower,
smaller target: Leah.

It clamped its jaws around the blond toddler’s left upper arm and began
dragging her away from her grandmother and sister, said Leah’s mother,
Josee Morgan, who told the story yesterday from Marathon, Ont. The girl
was dragged about six metres before the wolf dropped her on her back,
startled by the shrieks of her grandparents and those who had jumped in
to help.

“[Leah] started to run, but she was in sand and she was in shock and all
that, that she couldn’t get her feet going,” Ms. Morgan said yesterday.

The wolf grabbed the hood of the little girl’s black jacket. This time,
Ms. Talbot’s advances and screams caused the wolf to drop the girl
momentarily and Ms. Talbot lunged forward, scooped up the child and
raced to her vehicle. Mr. Talbot and Madison were close behind.

The attack on the Wright family occurred on Bathtub Island, a large
rocky area within wading distance of the mainland and about 100 metres
south of Katherine’s Cove.

Ms. Wright, on a day trip with her sister-in-law, two children and their
cousins, aged 10 and 13, said her family was probably attacked first.
(Park officials say they aren’t sure about the order of the attacks.)
She said the animal nipped the ankle of her 13-year-old nephew, Jake,
then clamped down on her son’s buttock, carrying him about half a metre
before dropping him and lunging at her.

The wolf’s teeth tore into her hands and her leg as she fought back and
the group raced into the shallow swimming area. Ms. Wright said the wolf
followed them, this time going after Emily Wright, 14.

“[Emily] was a real fighter. . . . She got mostly claws in her head and
her arm,” her mother said.

Alerted by the screams, two strangers raced over and managed to scare
off the wolf. As families hid in the trees, the wolf returned minutes
later and rifled through their picnic stashes, Ms. Wright said.

Park superintendent Bill Elliott, a 17-year veteran of the park and
seasoned hunter, was alerted by two other visitors who rushed over from
Bathtub Island.

He said a woman was bitten in a third incident Monday.

At about 6:30 p.m. Monday, Mr. Elliott shot the wolf twice on Highway
17, about a kilometre north of where Leah had been attacked.

The wolf’s head has been sent to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency in
Ottawa, where it will be tested for rabies. Mr. Elliott said that the
young, full-grown male was limping, possibly from an older injury caused
by a vehicle.

Brent Patterson, a scientist with the Ontario Ministry of Natural
Resources, said that wolves, who generally travel in packs and who prey
on moose and beavers in Ontario, rarely attack or even show themselves
to humans.

“It is abnormal behaviour for a wolf to be fearless,” he said.

Wolves who attack people are usually sick or injured, he said.

According to the ministry, there have been few instances in Canada where
wolves have bitten people; no one has ever been killed by a wolf attack
in North America.

Yesterday, Leah was recovering with her family in Wawa. She belted out
You Are My Sunshine in hospital after getting 15 butterfly clips in her
arm and told a local reporter: “When I was on the beach going to the
water, a wolf bit my arm, and then I cried.” The attack hasn’t fazed
her, her mother said. “She’s smiling.

She knows something happened, though, because she’ll often say ‘I love
you, I love you.’ ” As for Ms. Wright and her children, who all have
stitches and various puncture wounds, the shock has not worn off.

“You continue to see this wolf’s face and you relive it. . . .

I think it’s going to take some time,” Ms. Wright said.