A Wolf Called Romeo by Nick Jans

Author:Nick Jans
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

9

The Miracle Wolf

March 2006

The black wolf stood at the lake’s west edge at twilight, his form mirrored in the water’s surface as he scanned the Dredge Lakes shore, a half mile away. He and the surrounding landscape stood silent, bathed in the glow that spilled through a veil of mist, casting a palette too subtle for any camera to record. A raven’s cry echoed against the mountain as I stood alone, waiting for the world to exhale. At last the wolf stepped forward—not into the water, but onto it—and as I watched, he trotted across the lake, each step raising a silver-white plume and the spreading vee of a wake to mark his passing. At the far side, the wolf paused, a shadow among shadows, and merged into the night.

Though the wolf’s evening stroll on the lake seemed an event of biblical proportions, a simple explanation lay several inches below the water’s surface. A weeklong winter thaw, accompanied by torrential rains, had flooded the lake, dissolving snow but not the two feet of hard ice beneath it. But even if you knew the key to the wolf’s deus ex machina, the scene was a spectacle to behold, and a reminder of the near miracle of his survival over three winters, now, among us.

Like any wild wolf, Romeo had run a gauntlet of natural threats since birth: starvation, hostile wolves, disease, injury. One slip, one piece of bad luck, and he’d have been gone. While his choice of a territory near and among humans had clearly worked in his favor, he’d also traded one set of advantages for an opposing cluster of threats, paradoxically from the same species that afforded him safety. No matter if most Juneauites wished him no ill; his death could hinge on the act of a single individual. Whether deliberate or careless, malevolent or thoughtless, lawful or not, the result would have been the same. No one will ever know the number of bullets, literal and figurative, the black wolf dodged over his time, but the few we knew of hinted at a veritable barrage.

While trapping as a way of earning a full-time living is fading away, Juneau, like most Alaska towns, includes an active enclave of recreational trappers. The best among them are skilled, persistent individuals who claim they’re not just connecting to a vital frontier tradition, but contributing a community service by controlling pests and predators. They go quietly about their business and keep within their own circle. Properly placed snares or traps, either with a urine scent lure or fragrant food bait, are indeed the most effective way to catch and kill wolves, especially in rugged, forested terrain. The fate of the Douglas Island wolves and others, including those that may have been from Romeo’s pack, attests to the local efficiency of both trappers and methods. Contrary to lore, most wolves are quite susceptible to traps; consider that the steel-jawed leg-hold trap, essentially the same in design over more than a century, played a vital role in their eradication in the lower 48.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.