Three years after wolves killed 17 bighorn sheep, the pack returned again to a ranch in northern Wisconsin and killed 36 more sheep—31 lambs and five adult females. It happened about 120 miles northeast of Eau Claire.
“Evidently we were sleeping too sound and didn’t hear the dogs,” Paul Canik, landowner, told APG Wisconsin. “They usually bark loud enough to alert us whenever the wolves are around.”
Canik keeps his Spanish Mastiff guard dogs penned at night after wolves killed two other dogs in the past.
A biologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture called the incident a surplus killing because the wolves killed more than they could eat. Officials say none of the five adult ewes were eaten, 24 lambs were carried outside the pen and the remainder were scattered around a pasture.
(Photo source: U.S. Department of Agriculture)