 by Cody Cowan November 01, 2004
I began hunting by myself when I was about 12 years old and since then I have noticed a huge amount of wolf sign in the woods and logging roads every year. I just came back from a hunting area that's quite popular to Ketchikan hunters and noticed a lack of deer sign was starting to show. As I hiked deeper and deeper into the woods the amount of wolf sign just kept getting to be more and more. I couldn't believe that just two years ago this place was full of big monster bucks and now just a deer grave site from those damn K-9s. I walked into our Fish and Game building in Ketchikan just to ask one of our wardens how many wolves we might have on this island. He said fifty wolves. I almost cracked up laughing but I held a straight face and said thanks. Now don't think I'm dissing on our game wardens or anything. They do their job just like I do mine. But if you have only fifty wolves here and about seventy or so get taken from here each year by trappers and hunters like myself shoot every wolf we see, then how can the population be growing so rapidly? If people would open their eyes for one day and go hiking in just two or three fairly good hunting areas and look at the deer sign and then look for some wolf sign. If you see any, which I'm pretty sure you will, just think about the wolf that left that sign has to eat about 60 deer each year to stay alive. Now if you really want to get in on the real idea about how many wolves are out there demolishing our deer population get with a well known trapper or a good hunter or even cruise the logging roads and see really how many wolves we have. It's totally ridiculous. It's wolf season 365 days out of the year in my book and it doesn't matter if it's an adult or a pup it will surly be a dead one if I find it! They need to start putting a bounty on them by hiring trappers. If the state is saying "well then who will pay for it" - this town can put a five-dollar head tax on the next season's tourists to pay the trappers. If those people pay thousands of dollars just to come here it's totally bogus if you think they won't pay five more dollars. Your outraged hunter, Cody Cowan
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