Authorities are investigating a Wisconsin duck hunter for killing a wolf during a hunting trip. But the hunter is claiming self defense.
Speaking with Cowboy State Daily, Chase Melton said that he would never intentionally kill a wolf. Instead, he said he feared for his life and the lives of two other young duck hunters. A pack of wolves surrounded them during a hunting trip. So, he killed one that charged them.
"I've never have had any trouble with them," he told Cowboy State Daily."When it first happened, I thought, 'Oh my God, what did I just do? I just killed a wolf!'"
He explained that he would never put his future in jeopardy over poaching an animal. "I'm 19 years old, I'm going to school to be a lineman," Melton said. "I've got my life figured out, I'm not going to throw it away by going up there and shooting a wolf just to do it."
Melton explained that he attends lineman school. Two other teenage boys asked Melton to take them duck hunting. It's something he was excited about, until they encountered wolves.
"We threw our duck decoys out, sat down on a downed tree and built our blind around that," Melton said. "One of the kids, the 14-year-old, said, 'Hey Chase, look to your left, there's a deer coming down to you.' So I stood up and looked and said, 'That ain't no deer.'"
Hunter Kills Wolf
They saw a wolf about half a football field away. They attempted to scare the animal away by making noise.
It was wolf about 40-50 yards away. It looked small and scrawny, but it was also unusually bold.
Melton started clapping his hands, breaking sticks and stomping in an attempt to scare the wolf away.
"Then the other kid, the 13-year-old said, 'Chase, look behind you,'" he said. "There was a wolf at no more than 5 yards. To be honest with you, I could have grabbed it with my hands. Then I focused my eyes back on the other one that was coming at us."
He ended up pulling his gun on the animal as it closed in and shot it in the face.
"I pulled my shotgun up and I shot," Melton said. "That's not what I wanted to do, not what I wanted those kids to witness.... Personally, thinking about it now, I can't think of anything I could have done differently."
However, that's up to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to decide. DNR Large Carnivore Specialist Randy Johnson explained that wolves haven't proved to be aggressive against locals.
"There has never been a human killed or injured by wild wolves in Wisconsin in modern times," he said. "Although, wolves have not caused physical injury to anyone in the state, concerns for human safety are reported and addressed annually. These cases are typically reports of wolves in close proximity to human occupied dwellings or workplaces during daylight. They usually are not displaying actual aggressive behavior, but may be somewhat comfortable around human activity and there is the potential for it to escalate."
