Wolves kill hound on a hunt near Kalispell

A Flathead Valley houndsman reports that wolves killed one of his hounds and severely wounded another on a recent mountain lion hunt west of Kalispell.

Joe Kerney said he was on a hunt Dec. 31, when he released two grown hounds and a pup on a mountain lion track in the Rogers Lake area. After a chase of less than a mile, the hounds were baying.

"They went up this draw and it sounded like they had a cat treed," said Kerney, who was pursuing not far behind.

"All of a sudden, I heard a dog fight going on," he said.

As Kerney approached the noise, he saw "two dogs on a dead run toward me. There was something wrong, because they don't quit hunting."

Seeing that one of the dogs was hurt, Kerney continued moving up the draw. "I went looking for the third dog and I see the cat in the tree, but no dog anywhere."

As Kerney searched, he started spotting distinctive wolf tracks that he backtracked uphill to a ridge, where there was sign that wolves had been bedded down.

"You could see in the tracks that they heard the hounds coming up the draw and you could see where they made a direct bee line down to the dogs," he said.

Although the lost dog, Harley, had a transmitter collar, Kerney could not locate it immediately, so he left the area to take care of the wounded dog, Kimber.

"He's gonna' make it," Kerney said, noting that Kimber had suffered lacerations on his back and flanks.

Kerney later returned, tracking the transmitter signal, to find Harley's carcass.

"He was in a boulder field," Kerney said. "I knew where he was at, but it just took some time to find him. He was in four feet of snow … He had lacerations to his neck and his guts were torn open a little bit."

Kerney said he's been running hounds for five years, and although he has crossed wolf tracks many times before, he has never had an encounter with them.

"I cat hunt west of town every morning. I hunt all winter long and I know what's going on in those woods."

"I don't have any trouble believing him," said Kent Laudon, regional wolf management specialist with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

"It sounds pretty classic what happened to Joe," he said. "They heard the barking and they head down. From their mind it's a territorial thing: they heard all this barking and they jumped out to confront it."

Laudon recalls a series of wolf attacks on hunting hounds in recent years in Idaho and one in Lincoln County. Montana's Ninemile Pack is believed responsible for killing two pet dogs.

"If you have dogs, the last thing you want to do is run them through a pack of wolves," Laudon said.

For that reason, houndsmen have learned how to work within an established pack's territory, Laudon said.

The wolf population has steadily grown in the Greater Yellowstone Area, while an eight-year mountain lion study carried on with the help of hounds.

"They had 150-plus lion captures in an area with a high density of wolves" and no confrontations between wolves and hounds, Laudon said.

The houndsmen involved in the study adjusted their tactics, avoiding areas when they knew wolves were around, and releasing their dogs only on fresh mountain lion sign for short chases.

Houndsmen in the Eureka area regularly communicate with each other about wolf activity, Laudon said, and have adopted similar techniques for hunting in a territory that has been occupied by the Murphy Lake Pack for the last 16 years.

"They get savvy," Laudon said. "They just kind of know where the wolves are."

Laudon said Kerney's encounter most likely involved the Hog Heaven Pack moving into the extreme northern end of its territory, which Laudon has roughly mapped by aerial monitoring of a wolf in the pack that's fitted with a radio collar.

The pack may be pushing north because of the relatively new Salish Pack that has established itself to the south, Laudon speculated.

Kerney said he was surprised to encounter wolves so close to homes in the Rogers Lake area.

"This was probably just 1,000 yards up the ridge," he said.

Wolves are "continuing to expand their range" in Northwest Montana, Laudon said.

In 2005, there were 12 known packs in Fish, Wildlife and Parks Region One, and there are 24 in 2007, Laudon said.

But that doesn't mean the number of packs actually doubled. Part of the increase can be attributed to packs that existed in 2005 but were only located because of increased monitoring efforts after Laudon was hired.

"I would say that six of the new packs 12 new packs are truly new, and three of the 12 were the result of increased monitoring success," he said, adding that he cannot speculate whether the remaining three packs were around in 2005 or not.

The numbers reflect a conservative count of confirmed packs, and there are almost certainly more packs on the landscape, said Laudon, who uses public reports to locate new packs in the spring.

Laudon urges the public to report sighting of wolves or wolf signs by calling him at Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks regional headquarters in Kalispell at 752-5501.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com