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Two Bays Mountain wolves still on the loose
KINGSPORT — Two gray wolves are still loose at Bays Mountain Park after escaping from their habitat more than two weeks ago. Park officials are adjusting their capturing strategy, while some city officials are saying outside help is needed to bring the wolves back.
During the night of Dec. 2, a windstorm knocked over a tree in Bays Mountain Park, breaching the two fences of the wolf enclosure. Six of the park’s eight timber wolves escaped. Four were lured back in within a couple of days, but two have been elusive and have not been lured back.
About 20 park officials and volunteers worked to lure the wolves back during the first seven to 10 days, starting with wolf howls and food, then moving on to blowguns equipped with tranquilizer darts. Now park officials are taking the task to another level.
“We’re using bait stations again, and we’re going to keep an eye on those. If we could possibly catch one at a bait station, we’ll try to tranquilize them,” said Ken Childress, senior naturalist at the park. “Basically at some point we’ll get some soft (leg) traps for the wolves and see what happens.
“We don’t know how successful that might be.”
Searchers have seen the wolves on several occasions and have seen fresh tracks of the two wolves over the past two weeks. Rob Cole, volunteer coordinator for the park, said they are certain the wolves are still in Bays Mountain Park.
“The past three or four days we’ve basically maintained the search. We’ve tried to let things calm down a little bit. Now we’ve resumed the baiting measures, using food as lure,” Cole said. “(The food) is not the kind of quantity to satisfy their hunger. We’re trying to make sure the wolves not get in a poor way, but we’ll continue to use hunger to our advantage and hope hunger will bring them back.”
Park officials have gotten two shots off at the wolves — one dart was found bent, and the other struck a wolf but had little to no effect. Cole said park officials have not been able to get remotely close for another shot this week.
The blowgun being used has an effective range of 20 to 25 feet. The park does have an air rifle equipped with darts, which has an effective range of about 80 meters. However, Childress said it would be hard to find a spot on Bays Mountain Park with a clear line of sight of 80 meters.
“I don’t know if the blowgun is more efficient. They just aren’t as scary to the animal. They make less noise and don’t traumatize the animal as much,” Childress said.
Cole said park officials attempted to use a cage trap with bait to capture the wolves on Monday, but to no avail due to the wolves’ reluctance of going into confined spaces. Cole said they found paw prints close to the trap, but nothing to suggest the wolf contemplated going in.
Childress said they are no closer to capturing the wolves than they were a week ago.
The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency has been kept informed of the situation, and Cole said the agency has signed off on the methods being used on the wolves. TWRA officials have not assisted in the search.
Childress said the park has spoken with some people who specialize in capturing wolves, but no outside help is being brought in to assist in the capture.
“We have talked to some people up north who do that, and we really didn’t get a lot of information from them,” Childress said.
City Manager John Campbell said he thinks it’s a good idea for someone else to come in and help capture the wolves.
“They’ve tried real hard to get it done, but I think it’s time we wrap it up,” Campbell said.
Mayor Dennis Phillips agrees.
“From the reports we have been getting from Bays Mountain, they’re doing everything they can to capture these wolves with the least amount of harm to them,” Phillips said. “If we could get help in capturing these, we need to do that as soon as possible.”
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They cure cancer, so it's a win-win for everyone.
Not until the entirety of Kingsport owns at least one Wolf T-Shirt.
And grows a mullet.
Nice to hear from the wolves. Can you go home now and end this?
As far as the wolves still being in the park, someone needs to get the story straight. We live on the back side of Bays Mtn. Park, at least a mile from the park and last Thursday, the 17th, we spotted the silver female within 150 yards of our house. Although I was able to keep an eye on her for a while the neighbors dog scared her back into the woods and they were unable to catch her. Although we would never hurt the wolves this area is popular with the hunters and someone might mistake them for something else. If the park officials can't catch them they need to hire someone who can.
If Sara Palin were President we could just shoot the damn things and be done with it.
anything's better than foot traps even soft ones!!! I worry about the wolves in this weather since they aren't accustomed to surviving on their own...I hope their instincts will sustain them
One time I agree with the city manger. It is time to bring out side help in. They hate to go with dart guns , but they are has go with them. Since the blow gun is not doing the job.this weather is hard on the wolves since they are not use to getting food on there own.
Ima gonna huff, and I'm gonna puff, and Ima gonna.....