Two people were bit by a wolf in interior Alaska on Monday, according to the Alaska Wildlife Troopers. The attack occurred on the side of the Dalton Highway near mile marker 37 around 3 p.m. Officials say the two people were standing outside of their vehicle at a road construction site when the wolf bit them both in the legs. The victims were taken to a hospital in Fairbanks to have their puncture wounds treated, and their current condition is unknown.
Troopers say another unidentified motorist who witnessed the attack shot at the wolf, but believe they missed. The wolf fled into the nearby woods. Officials tried locating the wolf later that same day but were unsuccessful, and AWT is now working with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game as they continue to investigate the circumstances around the attack.
“We have staff up there today just to check out the scene and talk to anybody who’s there,” ADFG regional supervisor Lincoln Parrett tells Outdoor Life. “If we had the opportunity we would collect the wolf, primarily because of the rabies question. We don’t necessarily believe it was rabies … but just from a public safety perspective, it is something we’re looking into.”
Parrett and AWT officials say the more likely explanation for the attack is that the wolf had become habituated to humans and was possibly food conditioned. AWT explains in a press release that the wolf was acting like it had been fed by other motorists along the highway in the past.
Parrett clarifies that these theories are purely speculative at this point. He says he saw a video that appears to show the wolf in question approaching vehicles along the Dalton Highway, but that ADFG does not have that video in its possession. He says they also don’t know the source of the video or have any proof that it was recorded on the same day the attack occurred. He described the wolf in that video as “looking like a pup” that was born earlier this year.
“Certainly, in this video of the wolf, that’s what it looked like — it was habituated,” Parrett says. “Just judging from its overall behavior, and the way it was looking at people’s doors.”
AWT spokesperson Austin McDaniel seemed to allude to that video when speaking about the attack to Alaska Public Media, but it’s unclear if McDaniel was referring to the same footage. AWT did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
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“The wolf would stop at vehicles, kind of look like he was expecting food or some type of handout from the vehicle before proceeding on to the next vehicle,” McDaniel told the news outlet.
Either way, Parrett says he doubts that the wolf attack was predatory in nature. He calls these types of attacks “exceedingly rare.”
There have only been two fatal attacks caused by wild, healthy wolves in recent history in North America. A university student was killed by a pack of wolves while walking alone near a mining camp in Saskatchewan in 2005. The other fatal attack took place in Alaska in 2010 and involved a schoolteacher who was mauled to death by wolves while she was jogging.