Geist Essay2

7/30/2019 Geist Essay2

1/68n Fair Chase Winter 2008

GEIST

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B Vaerus Gest, Ph.D.B&C Proessional Member

Proessor Emeritus, University o Calgary

DEATH BY

WOLVESANDTHEPOWEROFMYTHS:The Kenton Carnegie Tragedy

On November 8, 2005, 22-year-oldKenton Joel Carnegie, an honors and schol-arship student in Geological Engineering atthe University o Waterloo, Ontario, waskilled in northern Saskatchewan by a packo wolves. While he was almost certainly notthe only victim o wol predation in North America in the past cen-

tury, judging rom conversations with native people and acloser review o case histories, this was the best-

investigated case to date. That investigationuncovered matters that need to be discussed

because they have signicant policy implicationsor wildlie conservation and human saety. First, however, we needto review what happened to Kenton Carnegie as it is relevant to the

ollowing considerations.Warnings, UnheededKenton Carnegie was in a university co-op program that allowed students to gain hands-onexperience rom visits to mining operations. In 2005 he few to Points North Landing, amining camp close to Wollaston Lake in northern Saskatchewan. Bad weather delayed hisreturn. On November 4, two o Carnegies camp companions had an encounter with a pairo aggressive wolves on the aireld close to camp. Todd Svarchop, an experienced bushpilot and Chris Van Galder, a geophysicist, beat back the attack, photographed the wolves,and told everybody in camp about the incident. Apparently their account was belittled, andthey didnt immediately report it to authorities. Another warning came two days later asthe young men dined at a local lodge, this time rom experienced northerner Bill Topping,

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who is a part-time car pilot(a guide wholeads heavy

trucks throughthe labyrinth o dirtroads) in northern

Saskatchewan. He examined thephotographs and told his guests that theywere lucky to be alive.

During all and early winter o 2005,wol behavior around Point North Landingindicated a growing threat to humans. Thisbegan with signs o habituation, ollowedby the exploratory attack experienced bySvarchop and Van Galder on November4 and culminated in Carnegies death ourdays later. The behaviors ollowed the pat-tern described or wolves and urban coyotestargeting children in parks. It is a patterno increasing observation o and habitu-ation to humans ollowed bybold attacks on pets and live-

stock. Next, the predators closein and test humans with skir-mishes prior to the atal attack.Both species o canids explorealternative prey in much thesame manner.

Unortunately, nobodyheeded the growing dangerbeore Carnegie was killed.Four wolves at Points NorthLanding had begun eedingon camp reuse that all andwere increasingly habituating

to human activities. The lacko concern was probably due tothe prevailing belie that wolvesdo not attack people.

The Fateful DayOn November 8, at about 3:30in the aternoon, Carnegie no-tied Chris Van Galder thathe was going or a walk alongthe lake and expected to returnby 5:00 p.m. Carnegie had onprevious occasions hiked to shthe west shore o WollastonLake, an isolated area that wasclosed to unauthorized tra-c. When Carnegie ailed toappear or dinner, Van Galderand Svarchop searched butcould not nd him in camp.Svarchop saw Kentonstracks in the resh snow leav-ing camp, but not returning.About 6:30 p.m., the two menand Mark Eikel, co-owner othe camp, drove a truck tolook or Carnegie. In the resh

snow they easily ollowed his ootprints,which headed south rom camp, towardthe lakeshore.

When the search party encounteredwol tracks, they turned back to camp orEikel to get his rife, a more powerul fash-light, and a radio. The party then drove toa nearby cabin thinking Carnegie mightbe there, but ound none o his ootprints.They drove back and soon saw that Carn-

egies ootprints let the road and headeddown a trail toward the lake. There werewol tracks on the trail.

Next, they saw Carnegies ootprintsdoubling back, and ound a concentrationo wol tracks. Eikel shined his fashlighton what he thought was Carnegies bodyand ordered everybody back to the truckto spare them the sight. Neither Svarchopnor Van Gelder saw the body. On the wayto camp, Eikel made a radio call to camp

employee Robert Dennis (Bob) Burseth,a long-term resident o the north and anexperienced hunter. Realizing somethingtragic had happened, Burseth contactedhis wie Rosalie Tsannie-Burseth, the localcoroner at Wollaston Lake, and asked herto contact the Royal Canadian MountedPolice (RCMP). Next, Van Gelder called theRCMP rom camp and the company ocewas notied. Eikel and Burseth returned to

the scene a hal-hour later. They parked thetruck and walked down the ridge along thelakes edge, noting many wol tracks. Eikelshined the fashlight and both men saw thebody. They saw exposed fesh and ribs romthe belt up; the pants appeared to be on.The two approached to within thirty eetand stayed only a couple o minutes beorereturning to camp to await the police andcoroner, who arrived about 9:35 p.m.

The next time Burseth and Eikelreturned to the scene, RCMPconstable Alonse Noey and

coroner Rosalie Tsannie-Bursethhad ound that Carnegies bodyhad been moved about 20 yardsrom where Bob Burseth andEikel had seen it some twohours earlier. Ocer Noeyshand-drawn map indicatedthat the body had been dragged20 meters.

Wolves readily movetheir killsa act that iswell-established in Eurasianexperience. At times, I have

observed wolves moving domes-tic sheep carcasses more thana mile.

The group saw that moreo the body had been consumedand there was no clothing downto the knees. Burseth conrmedto constable Noey that wolveshad eaten the body, and that hehad seen only wol tracks at thescene. Four wolvesone black,one white, and two gray-tan incolorhad been running to-gether near camp earlier. Eikelconrmed that our wolves hadbeen seen near the camp and atthe garbage dumpsite just theday beore.

Within 15 minutesupon arriving at the scene,constable Noey and coronerTsannie-Burseth secured andinspected the site. They spentabout 45 minutes examiningand photographing the bodyand the surrounding area, takingcare to minimize disturbance to

MultipleSourcesofKnowledgeA potent eature o the North American Model o WildlieConservation is its transparency and public accountability.What happens to hunted wildlie is very much a publicconcern. Citizens participate in discussions about huntingregulations and hold managers and public ocialsaccountable in a very public process. Because o theopenness and the depth o public concern, authoritiesmust justiy their decisions in detail, and that requiresreaching or knowledge rom all quarters.

Knowledge pertaining to wildlie fows rom threesources: science, history, and proessional knowledge thatcomes rom experience. In North America, science carriesthe most prestige, whereas in central Europe knowledge

historically came rom the handson experience owildlie managers. There, wildlie research is a relativelyrecent endeavor. Its my position that while accumulatedproessional experience is not the same as science derivedrom research, it is nevertheless rooted in reality and someo it refects excellent scholarship. In Europe this body oproessional knowledgewhile not publicly circulatedisvital to managers such as the owners or lessees o huntingterritories, the small cadre o proessional hunters, andpracticing oresters. This contrasts with North America,where wildlie science is strong and history is weak. Itseems that here in North America, the body o accumulatedproessional knowledge is struggling to be recordedand heard.

This situation is problematic in the case o NorthAmericas wol issue. The historic inormation is treated

with neglect or disdain. Worse yet, it has been labeled asmyths, species bias, or even airy tales. The emphasis onhard science and the dismissal o historical knowledgecan generate fawed scholarship and consequently,fawed legislation. As the philosopher Emanuel Kant putit, We again learn rom history that we do not learn romhistory.

The science/history conundrum pertaining to wolvesremains unresolved. I believe it will be resolved, as decitsin scholarship do not sit well with scholars regardless obackground. Moreover, pressures rom stakeholders andthe public will drive the agenda. And those pressures,arising rom grassroots democracy and demanding oaccountability, are another strength that our system oconservation is based on.

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the original tracks. Approaching the killarea, constable Noey saw two wolves nearthe bodya sighting he noted repeatedly inhis report and in conversations with oth-ersand discharged two shotgun roundsinto the air to scare them away. He notedmany wol tracks on the land and on thesnow o the rozen lake. Bob Burseth andEikel remained on the trail while constableNoey and the coroner went in to examine

the body. At one point, Eikel discharged hisrife into the air, as wolves could be heard inthe bushes near the body, and Buresth lit are on the trail to keep the wolves away.

With wolves still posing a threat inthe area, Noey received authorization viasatellite phone rom constable Marion toremove Carnegies body and return to PointsNorth Landing. The group loaded Carn-egies remains into a body bag, then Noeybegan to take down witness statements.

The Day After

Early aternoon on November 9, constableNoey, coroner Tsannie-Burseth, and herhusband Bob Burseth returned to the scenein daylight to take pictures and interpret theevidence. Here are their joint results as sum-marized in the report by constable Noey.

Kenton Carnegies trail headedsouth, and he was ollowed by a wol thatstepped into his ootprints. Constable Noeysurmised that this wol was ollowing andpossibly stalking Kenton. Ill surmise thatthis wol had cut o Kenton rom the camp,as the two wolves described by Svarchop

and Van Galder had tried to do to them onNovember 4.Constable Noey ollowed Carnegies

trail south past the kill site or a distanceo about 60 - 80 meters that remained un-disturbed by the previous days activities.Carnegie had stood on the shoreline at apoint in view o the camp, and Noey sur-mised that Carnegie may have been tryingto get somebodys attention.

Also at this location, more wol tracksconverged on the spot where Carnegie hadstood. The wol tracks came rom the southalong the lakeshore. In reading that reportI learned that several wolves approachedCarnegie rom the south while one wol ap-proached rom the north, which seems tome like the wolves hunting strategy. Sinceseveral wolves approached Kenton rom thesouth, and one wol rom the north, thistells me that he was killed by at least threewolves and possibly by all our.

Carnegies ootprints then turnedback toward the road; that is, up the trailheading north in the direction o the camp.

The snow was disturbed another 10to 20 meters along the trail, indicating an

altercation. Constable Noey noted that thedisturbance looked as i Kenton had rolledin the snow.

The ootprints then headed acrossthe trail a little way into muskeg-shrub.They indicated that Kenton was running,hal on the trail and hal on muskeg. Therewas a lot o disturbance o the snow.

From there it is a short distancenorth to the kill site where the body wasrst discovered along with pieces o cloth-ing. When seen a second time, the body hadbeen dragged about 20 yards rom this spot.

In between were two sites where thetracks indicated that Carnegie had stoodand shed a lot o blood. Photos also indi-cated considerable blood loss. At a thirdlocation, where the search party oundthe body, the evidence indicates he stood

shedding blood.Constable Noey photographed until

his camera battery gave out. He also collect-ed all clothing pieces not ound previously.

Around 2:31 p.m., constable Noeyreceived a CD that contained photos oVan Galder and Svarchop interacting withtwo wolves on November 4. Noey expressedsurprise that neither had inormed him othat attack. Recall, this is the attack thatthe two young men were able to beat oand photograph, then had been belittled.It was only ater Carnegies death that thesignicance o that event began to sink in.

It should also be noted that Bursethreported seeing three wolves running acrossthe lake toward the kill site at about 7:45a.m. the morning ater Carnegies death.

Two conservation ocers rom the

The Witnessesi m xm k d fc g

c Cg kd.

Mrs. Rsae Tsanne-Burseth is not only the coroner or Wollaston Lake, but also

the Chie and Director o Education or the Hatchet Lake Band (part o the Prince Alber t

Grand Council a large diverse group o aboriginals). She has three university degrees,

is working on her doctorate in sociology, and has a long career in public service. She

grew up in the northern bush when her amily was still ully dependent on their skills

at hunting, shing and trapping. She was tutored by her ather in tracking. This articu-

late, humorous grandmother still goes hunting.

RCMP Cnstabe Anse Ne, like Chie Tsannie-Burseth, is an aboriginal native, a

hunter, and a long-standing northern resident. He produced a detailed report based on

his and Tsannie- Burseths on-the-spot investigations and questioned all witnesses.

Rbert Denns (Bb) Burseth, employee at Points North Landing, has 17 years o

experience in the region and is an avid hunter. He is married to the local coroner and

Chie o the Hatchet Lake Band, Rosalie Tsannie-Burseth. Burseth shoots bears that

become a nuisance at the camp and ater Carnegies death, he killed two wolves at

the camps dump.

Tdd Svarchp, aviation ocer and well-known bush pilot, is an employee o

Sanders Geophysics, Ottawa, and is based at the Points North Landing camp. At the

coroners inquiry he testied that he had warned Carnegie against going out.

Mark Eke, co-owner o the Points North Landing camp, is an experienced outdoors-

man and hunter. Ater Carnegies death he shot a third wol rom a distance o 250300

yards. He testied that he would have seen a bear i it had been in the area, but nonehad been seen or at least a month.

Chrs Van Gader, geophysicist, employee o Sanders Geophysics, was working out o

the Points North Landing camp.

Ke Crane and Mar Gaudet,conservation ocers, examined the kill site on

November 10. Ill note that the crisp snow at the kill site would have allowed these men

to detect the tracks o any black bear, had one been present.

In addition to the acts above, it is notable that the tracks and signs at the scene were

examined by the ollowing: two Native e lders highly experienced in tracking; two ex-

perienced northern hunters; two conservation ocers; a seasoned bush pilot; and a

highly-trained physical scientist. Constable Noey and coroner Tsannie-Burseth not

only identied wolves as the killers o Kenton Carnegie, they also deciphered the track

pattern as showing a classic hunting pattern by wolves. The wol pack had split and

the wolves approached their prey rom the back as well as rom the ront, cutting oany possible retreat. The two observers documented multiple attacks and a progres-

sion o the victim to nal collapse. Moreover, our wolves had been habituating to

camp activity or several weeks. The animals ran towards garbage disposal units and

tore apart plastic garbage bags in the presence o humans. They watched humans

and staged an unsuccessul attack on two camp residents our days beore they

killed Carnegie.



Saskatchewangame depart-ment, KellyCrayne andMario Gaudet,

arrived on Novem-ber 10 to conduct an

investigation. Their report stated,Ocers investigated the site and oundnumerous wol tracks in the area. No other

large animal tracks could be ound.

Sexy BeastsThen came a surprise. The Saskatchewancoroner asked or the case tobe re-examined by two scien-tists, Drs. Paul Paquet, a wolresearcher, and Proessor ErnestG. Walker o the University oSaskatchewan. Beore their con-dential report was submitted,Paquet inormed the popularnews media that he recognized

immediately that a black bearhad killed Carnegie. Later, in a2007 issue oNational Wildlifemagazine, this version o thestory was related in an articletitled, Sexy Beasts, authoredby Paul Tolm. The story reads:

Wolves remain a bogey-man today, as illustrated by thedeath o a Canadian man in2005. When Kenton Carnegiesmangled corpse was discoverednear a remote Saskatchewan

mining camp o Points NorthLanding, the Royal CanadianMounted Police immediatelyblamed wolves. The story madeheadlines around the world.But when noted wol biologist[Paquet] o the World WildlieFund investigated, he recog-nized immediately that a blackbear killed Carnegie.

The article attributesthese quotes to Paquet: Theproblem was bias right romthe start. When I looked atthe photos, I immediately sawbear tracks.

The National Geo-graphic Society sent a team tolm a re-enactment o Carn-egies death. Paquet acted asconsultant. Victims o wildlietragedies in North America tendto be blamed or the event, andit was no dierent in Carnegiescase. It greatly upset his amily,as did the brazen and mislead-ing whitewash o wolves.

Carnegies parents were so upset bythe documentary that they wrote a lettero protest to the National GeographicSociety. They asked our scientists to do in-dependent investigations and three agreed:Mark McNay, a senior biologist rom Alaska;Brent Patterson, a seasoned scientist romOntario with considerable wol experience;and me. All three wrote reports concludingthat Paquets claim that a bear had killed

Kenton Carnegie was untenable, and thatwolves had caused the death.

Paquet responded that the eyewit-ness accounts were unreliable and biased.

This is an unsupported claim contrary toall evidence. In his examination o thephotos taken by constable Noey, he judgedthe tracks heading across an overfow onthe lake ice to be bear tracks. Ill note thatthe photo showed a place where wolves hadstepped through a thin layer o snow rest-ing on water, which consequently distortedtheir tracks.

McNay and I consulted colleagues in

Alaska and Finland, all highly experiencedwith wolves, to double-check on our iden-tications. All concluded that the tracksin question as photographed by constable

Noey were wol t racks. Further,McNay demonstrated that thepattern o the distorted trackson the overfow were o a regu-lar canid trotting pattern andquite dierent rom the trackpatterns let by bears. In sum-mary, three independent peerreviews conrmed what the

eight eyewitnesses on the sitehad observed.

Paquet maintained thata number o orensic signs iden-tied the responsible predatoras bear. His arguments includedthe ollowing.

Wolves do not drag theirprey from the kill site but con-sume such in situ. Paquet claimedthat Carnegies body had beendragged some 50 paces. In NorthAmerica, the experience o wol

biologists studying ree-livingwolves in wilderness areas isthat wolves eed on their prey insitu. In my personal experiencein British Columbia with wolveskilling my neighbors sheep, Iobserved that they moved theirkills into cover, up to a milerom the sheep pasture. The Eu-ropean accounts o how wolvesdeal with prey, livestock andhumans included, is that theycarry or drag the carcass intocover away rom attack sites thatare close to human habitations.How do we reconcile this appar-ent contradiction? Quite simply.Undisturbed wolves consumetheir kill at the kill site. Wolvesthat are disturbed or close todanger move their kill to a saerlocation. Thats what happenedin Carnegies case. The wolvesed at the kill site until theywere disturbed by the rst searchparty. When the second partyarrived, they saw that the wolves

WolfSignalsOneMustNotignore

There are three types o attacks by wolves: those by normalwolves, single or in a pack; those by rabid wolves; and, themistaken identity attacks.

A RABiD wolf ATTACKS switly and the onlysolution is an appropriate weapon and cold-blooded marks-manship. Thats because an attacking wol oers, briefy,

a small bobbing target. Experience teaches that a huntingrife with rapidly expanding sot-point ammo is best. Bul-lets that do not open up may not kill quickly enough to avertthe attack. A good knie may be used to kill a wol, but itsnot a simple matter and injury to the victim is inevitable.I bitten by a wol, quick medical attention and anti-rabiesshots are vital.

MiSTAKEN iDENTiTy ATTACKSwhich I expe-rienced once by three wolves and another time by threecoyotesmay resolve themselves quickly i the wolvesrecognize their mistake in time. Unortunately, mistakenidentity attacks do happen when wolves are drawn in bymoose or elk calls, rutting buck vocalizations, and the like.The hunter may suddenly ace switly approaching wolves.I only one wol attacks, holding your re to the last whileshouting and waving an arm may suce. But with a pack it

behooves to be prudent and open re in time.UNPRoVoKED ATTACKSby wol packs do happen,

typically when a person is out with dogs. Beware, a wolwounded by a shot may scream and set o an attack by thepack! I know o a couple o instances in which people sur-vived an attack by a pack. In these cases, the wolves werekilled by skillul shooting beore they reached their intend-ed victims. History shows that once a pack grabs a person,it is too late, even i the victim is able to kill a wol or two.Attacks by healthy wolves have happened where normalprey became depleted, causing wolves to search out alter-native ood sources. People are their last choice o prey,but unortunately, we do remain on their list. The rst signo trouble is a single wol or a pack watching you while theyare in the open. Get prepared to deend yoursel when thishappens, but preerably, you will be able to get out and

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had dragged Kentons body about 20 meters,not the 50 meters claimed by Paquet.

In the 2007National Wildl ife article,Paquet stated, The clothes and skin hadbeen stripped away, indicating the so-calledbanana-peel eating technique common tobears. How could Paquet know that? Howmany clothed human bodies handled bywolves have been available or examinationin North America? Moreover, he ignored

that the our wolves in question had plentyo experience ripping apart and peelingback the plastic o lled garbage bags, satu-rated with human smell, in order to reachdiscarded camp ood.

The wolves had not consumed thevictims liver and heart, which is also very un-characteristic of wolves. In the 2007 NationalWildlife article, Paquet stated that Carn-egies heart and liverthe most desirablemorsel or wolveswere let intact. In act,Carnegies internal organsnamely thosesurrounded by athad been consumed.

This ts with my own observations o wolveseeding on depredated sheep; they go orat rst. Paquet did not take into accountthat the wolves had been disturbed twiceand were not able to nish their meal. Fur-thermore, Will Graves book on the Russianexperience with wolves includes a Russianscientists observation that wolves, eedingon a reshly killed moose, had not touched

the heart, lungs or liver. Dr. Kaarlo Nygrenrom Finland made similar ndings.

Lets think through the claim thata bear killed Carnegie. All orensic signspresume that the animal was standing ormoving in about 1.5 inches o resh snow.I a bear peeled away the clothing, then itmust have had his paws on the ground inthe snow. Moreover, the bear would havelet tracks when entering the kill site, when

it dragged the body, and when it ran romthe rst search party. Still more tracks wouldhave been let when the bear returned tothe carcass, and when it let again ollow-ing the arrival o the second party. All thisactivity would have let abundant evidencethat a bear had been present.

But, there were no bear tracks.In examining photos o the site, my

Finnish colleagues spontaneously identieda lonely ox track beside the abundant woltracks. I they ound the track o a ox, wouldthey have missed the tracks o a bear?

All the orensic signs pointing tobear, as proclaimed by Paquet, are thus mis-identications. His insistence that a bearkilled Carnegie is not supported by the evi-dence, as shown by three peer reviews andthe coroners inquest.

Moreover, Paquet ailed to grasp thatthe wolves involved were not merely ha-bituating, but were targeting people as prey.

Wolves do this in the very same manner asdo coyotes in urban parks when targetingchildren. Both canids explore humans verycautiously or a long time beore mount-ing the rst, exploratory attacksuch asthe attack launched by the wol pair ourdays beore Carnegies death. Ironically,while coyote biologists recognized that thissmaller canid will target people as prey,those studying ree-living wolves were de-

nying that wolves were a danger to people.Although the wolves around Points NorthLanding had signaled danger with theirailed attack on Van Gelder and Svarchopour days beore Carnegies death, thesesigns were not interpreted as such, appar-ently because o the rmly entrenchedbelie that wolves are harmless.

The VerdictA hearing took place. The coroner ruledthat only one expert witness would be al-lowed to testiy on behal o the Carnegie

amily and chose Mark McNay, the seniorbiologist rom Alaska. A six-person jurylistened to eyewitnesses at the scene, toPaquet, and to McNays presentation. Jurorsunanimously rejected Paquets testimony,despite being represented by counsel. Thejury ound that Kenton Carnegie had beenkilled by wolves. n

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