Screams from a woman being attacked by three wolf-hybrids at an education centre south of Nanaimo alerted a neighbour that help was needed.
That prompted someone to distract the animals long enough to allow for the woman’s safe removal, Nanaimo RCMP Const. Gary O’Brien said Wednesday.
The 69-year-old woman was flown by air ambulance to hospital in Victoria.
All three animals were destroyed, but the Tuesday morning incident has raised questions about the behaviour of these animals, which are not considered wildlife by the provincial government, and are a cross between a wolf and domestic dog.
The B.C. SPCA is opposed to keeping, breeding and importing wolf-dog hybrids.
“These animals are difficult to train and contain, and often show aggression toward other animals and humans,” it says on its website.
A husband and wife run the Swell Wolf Education Centre at 2020 Waring Rd. in the South Wellington area, O’Brien said.
The education centre, where the animals were kept in a large enclosed pen, is affiliated with the Tundra Speaks Society. Government records show that two of its directors are listed at 2020 Waring Rd., Sally Elizabeth Allan and Gary Raymond Allan.
It is not known what precipitated the attack, since the woman had gone into the pen, bounded by an eight-foot-tall fence, many times previously, O’Brien said.
The centre also has a 14-year-old wolf-hybrid, which the husband has taken to schools on education visits for many years, O’Brien said. It was not part of the attack and was in a separate cage. It was not destroyed.
The three other animals were not used for school visits and did not go near children, he said.
The Tundra Speaks website said Gary Allan has been conducting “wolf education” since 2006 for schools, community groups and “many First Nations schools and organizations.”
Swell’s wolf-dog, Tundra, born in 2007, has interacted with more than 35,000 students, teachers and adults from more than 250 schools, and “educated many more people in community meetings,” the webpage said.
People have been able to visit the site and walk in the woods with Tundra, who is 90 per cent wolf, it said.
Karen van Haaften, the SPCA’s senior manager of animal behaviour and a board-certified veterinary behaviourist, said she has met several wolf-dogs and they do not all have the same personality.
But “generally speaking as a group, they can have more of the characteristics that they share with their wolf ancestors. So shyness, especially around strangers. Strong predatory instincts.
“They can be a lot more reactive to changes in their environment that could trigger, you know, fairly extreme behavioural outbursts.”
As well, “they’re very large, very powerful animals with really strong jaws.”
The shyer, more fearful characteristics come from the wolf lineage.
Van Haaften does not know the motivation for this week’s attack, but said most of the time, aggressive behaviour is based in fear.
“It’s the animal reacting out of fear and essentially trying to protect themselves from a perceived threat.”
Wolf hybrids should be cared for with safety precautions in effect, she said.
“There are ways to do that and still provide the animal with good welfare, but it’s very labour intensive, essentially like a zoo animal.”
Groups of dogs that are showing aggressive behaviour can be more dangerous than individual dogs, and “that’s probably true of wolf-dogs as well,” van Haaften said.
In 2011, a judge in Kamloops awarded a woman just over $19,000 in damages after she visited an Ashcroft home in 2006 where she was bitten by a wolf-dog hybrid.
The judge said that such hybrids are unpredictable.
cjwilson@timescolonist.com
