A Minnesota Department of Natural Resources staffer conducting a timber sale appraisal in the Hovland area had an interesting— albeit startling—encounter with several wolves on Friday, September 26.
After parking just off Highway 61, DNR Forester Amber Jungwirth, detailed to work in Cook County from Hibbing, traveled by all-terrain vehicle about a mile to a 40-acre plot near Prairie River. Jungwirth was working alone in that section when she stopped to eat a sandwich in a clear patch of the forest at about 6 p.m. Jungwirth said it was an open spot, with blueberry bush type vegetation. She heard rustling in the brush behind her, turned toward the noise and saw eyes about 100 feet away.
The animal was tan and at first thought it was a lynx or bobcat. She quickly realized it was a wolf and she shouted at it to go away.
“It just stared at me, it didn’t move away,” Jungwirth said.
Jungwirth heard more noise in the thick brush and stepped out of the cleared area to be closer to trees. “I thought of moose. If that noise was a moose, I wanted to be able to get some trees between it and me.”
However, it wasn’t a moose, it was three more tan-colored wolves. They moved into the clear area. Jungwirth, who is allowed to carry pepper spray in case of wildlife encounters, got it ready in case it was needed. As she watched, the wolves moved around in the cleared area.
Asked if they looked healthy, Jungwirth said she wasn’t sure, as she’s never seen wolves that close before. “They weren’t mangy. They seemed tall and lanky.”
“I just didn’t feel comfortable,” said Jungwirth, “so I found a balsam and climbed up as high as I could.”
Once she got up in the tree, she could no longer see the wolves, but she could hear them walking around in the brush around the clearing. She said she thought they were below her for about 10 minutes.
She waited to climb down however, for nearly an hour until she had made radio contact with her colleague Randy Guetersloh who was working in the next 40-acre plot. “It was getting dark and I didn’t want to have to try to make it back to the ATV without someone knowing what was going on,” said Jungwirth.
A little while after contacting Guetersloh, Jungwirth heard the wolves howling south of her. “They sounded pretty far away at that point,” she said.
Although she was spooked by the incident—she asked not to return to the same timber stand—she did go out in the woods the next day. She said she was nervous and kept looking over her shoulder.
However, she noted that the wolves had not behaved aggressively. She said she believed they were just traveling through the area on the ridgeline. She said, “They were doing their thing; doing what wolves do. And they came across me doing my thing.”
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