Wolves Surround My Dog and Me at the Cabin

So that's a first, well I haven't seen wolves like that in a couple years, I don't think. There was a wolf kill last year of a deer that Callie ended up eating, scaring the wolf away, but I haven't seen any sign so close to the cabin of wolves. And basically these are probably red wolves just based on the area that we're in. Genetically all throughout the province there's different genetics in the canines, we're from gray wolf in some areas to pure red, almost pure red coyotes, almost all of our coyotes in the east and especially here in Ontario are hybrid. Got some wolf blood in them so they're much bigger. Anyway there's red wolves in this area and then in certain pockets and then there's coyotes and others and then there's you know more hybrid and then there's gray wolves as you get further north. Now three of them and they were trying to lure Callie away from me. First time I've seen them on this trail into the cabin first of all. I was just starting to come in and look ahead and there's Callie, she was chasing the squirrel, she stopped looking down the trail and there's one of the big ones standing there looking at her and the other ones, the other two are further down through the bush this way howling and yipping and kind of calling, I assume that coyote over or wolf over, although they could have been, that could have been part of their luring Callie. So she was quite curious, I had to put her on a leash and followed the tracks, ended up seeing another one of the wolves or maybe the same one further down the trail and then followed them out to the road. Anyway she wants to head back there, I do not want her doing that so I'll have to keep her busy here while I'm working. Can be dangerous this time of year, there's not many deer right now in this area, they've kind of pushed out with the snow, started to head to the yard so the coyotes or the wolves are probably headed to the yard as well, but they're doing some hunting through here and if they, you know, they're not finding much prey then they get a little bit more bold and consider other prey, so I can't take that chance Callie. So two of the wolves circled around and came down this trail which is on the other side of my property so quite a distance from where we saw them the first time, but they're headed in this direction and then I just came across a big buck track, buck deer, so they're probably following that, trailing it, seeing if they can catch up to it. So I'm not going to continue along this trail with Callie, it's too risky with her, her anatomy. What do you smell? Smell the wolves? They're, they were staying in the area, I guess they were going to continue trying to track that deer down. The yard, deer yard is not far from here, even though it, the deer don't stay right on my property right here. I got more moose here in the winter. You know, the odd big buck, that was a such a big buck track that I actually had to backtrack and look at a few different tracks to make sure it was a moose. It didn't make sense that a calf would still have a foot or a hoof print that size still at this time of year, but anyway, I backtracked and yeah, I could see some very clear deer tracks, so big buck and I guess, you know, that the bigger guys like that, they can stay in these types of forests alone if the snow depths don't get too deep, but that's not typical. As soon as the snow gets above six inches or a foot, they start going to that yard, so that buck would be one of the last deer to head there, so those wolves would just follow that buck all the way over to the to the yard and spend the winter there feeding on the on the herd, so I'm not that concerned about them staying here. The wolves being the size they are, they're not like the big arctic wolves. I've only seen really big wolves once actually, it went years ago when I was caribou hunting it up in northern Quebec in the winter. I could see this big pack going across the middle of a lake across the ice they look the size of caribou, but anyway, they can take down a caribou or moose collectively, like working cooperatively, but these little guys that are around here, they feed primarily on deer and rodents, rabbits and mice and stuff like that, so they don't stick to an area that's only got big moose to try to tackle. It's just not worth their effort, so anyway, like I said, I don't worry about them staying here for the winter, so Cali will be safe. We'll keep an eye out for them anyway, but yeah, like I said, not too worried about it. Now there is quite a few fox around here. We haven't had rabies, I don't remember rabies, anything in the news in this area in decades actually. I've only seen one rabid fox in my life and that was 40 years ago when I was a teenager. You hiding? So yeah, the small game populations aren't even that dense right here. What happens in these forests is that as they get older like this, they mature, there's a lot less succulent browse like small shoots and and pioneer species like aspen and birch. When those are young and they're just popping up, like when a forest has been clear cut or has burned or something, there's all this young growth that's very succulent and you get a lot of rabbits. You get a, well up here it's hares, so you get a varying hare explosion, population explosion, as they feed on that and reproduce to take advantage of that abundant food source and then you get lynx will come in here. I heard from the old-timers that hunt around here that when they were young, like 65 years ago, they would hunt this area and a lot of these trees were really young still. There was a lot of hares and there was quite a few lynx in the area. They'd be quite rare right now because their primary food source is hare and there's just, like I said, not many around. I can, I mean, I'll probably harvest a few off property but they're just not abundant. Anyway, the fox that are hanging out that we have quite a few of around here are eating probably mostly mice and wolves and I know grouse for sure, stuff like that. So it's interesting learning for me about the just different forests, about different landscapes and as I integrate into them, getting to know them a bit more. These wolves, like I said, are not, you know, really nice to see. I like seeing wildlife like that but probably for Cali's sake, it's nice to know also that they're not going to stay here and be a threat all the time. Anyway, I'm going to pack up. It's going to start snowing pretty heavy right now. I don't want to get stuck back here so jump on the snowmobile and start heading soon. As soon as I pack up, I'll leave the walls like that. It's supposed to stay cold so I'm not going to bother tarping them off. The snow is so light and fluffy, even the stuff that's coming, it's going to be cold enough that it's not going to be really heavy sticky stuff so I can easily swipe it off or sweep it off. All right, Cali, I'll throw it for you. All right, well, thanks for watching. I appreciate it and I look forward to seeing you back here at the cabin next time. Take care.