Thank you for watching Scary Animal Attacks!
Today’s episode takes us to the deepest heart of Siberia, to the Yakutiya Province
in Russia.
A small town located on the shores of the Yana River, Verkhoyansk was founded in 1638
as a fort and has apparently not grown much since with a population of only 1309 people
today.
It is noted for its bitterly cold temperatures.
January averages -56 degrees Fahrenheit and is surpassed only by areas of Antarctica.
The geography includes tundra and the soil is permafrost meaning that the ground is perpetually
frozen, in some places several hundred feet deep.
It is a mountainous terrain with wide plateaus covered with Dahurian Larch, Dwarf Birch with
Spruce and Pine mixed in.
There is very little precipitation here and the predominant industries are mining and
timber.
The wildlife of the area include moose, brown and polar bear, manchurian, northern and musk
deer as well as bighorn sheep, oh and wolves.
In this bleak environment, wolves feed mostly on hares and other small animals when they
cannot get deer and moose, but recently hare populations have been falling due to the extreme
cold.
Near Verkhoyansk the local wolf population got very desperate in the winter of 2012.
Typically wolves pack up to about 6 individuals but in times of desperation can form larger
packs to pursue larger game.
These particular wolves are called Gray Wolves and are of the subspecies occidentalis.
In the US we have the more diminutive Timber Wolf of the subspecies irremotus.
The Gray Wolf is the stuff of lore inspiring tales such as Little Red Riding Hood and many
others.
These wolves have a larger brain than the domestic dog and are said to be not only clever
and cunning but also very intelligent.
2012 was an extraordinary year to say the least.
A super pack of wolves numbering around 400 individuals has beset the edge of the town.
This giant wolf pack has killed and eaten 6 children while they were walking home from
school.
The area livestock have been pursued and eaten in alarming numbers as well.
In just four days the wolves have killed 30 horses that belong to residents.
The local ranchers raise reindeer as they are easier to raise than livestock and the
wolves have reportedly eaten 16,000 reindeer.
In total they killed 300 horses in 2012.
The regional authority, known as a president, Yegor Borisov put together a plan to eliminate
the wolves to prevent any further loss of human life and livestock.
He authorized the formation of 24 teams of hunters and trappers offering a $250 bounty
per wolf hide and a larger prize sum for the hunter who brought in the most hides.
The area usually has between 3,000 and 4,000 wolves scattered in small packs across the
tundra, but this super pack is wiping out every bit of wildlife and livestock it comes
across.
It has the numbers to pursue any animal to exhaustion and continually kills and immediately
kills again.
In the days of the Soviet Union, Stalin exiled political dissidents or enemies to Verkhoyansk
and the area became known as Stalin's Death Ring.
Today, the small town is in short supply of manpower to fight the superpacks but started
hunting the wolves from helicopters and airplanes when the seasonal daylight returned.
The goal was to reduce the wolf population to 500 individuals, but was unsuccessful.
The problems of late arose when the government banned the use of leg hold traps which are
one of the most successful ways to trap the elusive wolves.
Once the traps were banned wolf population increased dramatically and they overburdened
their normal food supplies.
This is not the only alarming incident involving wolves in Russia.
In World War I in 1916 while the Russian and German armies were fighting in Western Russia,
they were attacked by packs of starving wolves.
The wolves initially attacked the wounded and dying soldiers.
Then they began attacking the rear guard soldiers who would simply disappear and were thought
of as to have gone AWOL.
The wolves even became so bold that they would charge into battles and attack wounded during
the battle.
The fighting amongst the armies temporarily stopped to fight off the packs.
Once around 100 wolves were killed, fighting resumed.
Thank you for watching this episode and make sure to be careful, because you don’t want
to end up on an episode of Scary Animal Attacks.