Margie Guyot can always be counted on for interesting stories. Maybe it comes of living out along the Flat Road, where she has her Possum Hollow studio. Or maybe it comes of painting night skyscapes down on the bayshore. Quite possibly it has to do with an original turn of mind, and a collection of eccentric friends. In any case, this email arrived today:
The guy who hunts deer on my property sent me these photos. I had NO idea wolves were this size!!!!
My friend Claire, who lives on Old Dixie, told me that wolves have been spotted in Cheboygan County. Wow. And neighbors up towards Norwood have been talking about a mountain lion. Claire said she saw tracks on her property 2 years ago. Todd Warner’s lost a lot of his turkeys, geese, etc. to a predator this summer.
One of my cats got carried off last week by either a bobcat or coyote. He’d slipped outside at sunset & refused to obey his mommy.
Then Elvis, my dearest cat, died in his sleep a few nights ago. I found him laying in the living room. He was old and his heart probably just gave out. I miss him, but I know cats don’t live forever. I’m happy for the years we had together. He’s wrapped up in a white tablecloth, outside in a covered trash can. When the ground thaws I’m burying him and planting catnip over. Will call it “The Elvis Memorial Garden”. He’d have liked that.
In memory of Elvis, a good cat
Well. There you have it. My condolences on the death of Elvis, Margie. He was a lucky cat, living there on the Flat Road with you. Feline heaven on earth.
Please note: Margie’s friend was not hunting wolves in Antrim County. The photo he sent was taken Somewhere Else. (Until very recently, wolves in the western Great Lakes region were listed on the federal endangered species list. The de-listing takes effect later this month. You can read about wolves in Michigan on the DNR site.)
I’ve told you about cougar sightings before, and about Daugherty Johnson seeing the bear. I’ve seen coyotes and a bobcat myself, but I wouldn’t want you to think there are wolves here. No indeed. No wolves in Antrim County.
Margie has a painting in the current Northwest Michigan Regional Juried Exhibition at the Dennos Museum. It is a painting I admire very much, and if you are from Around Here I recommend that you go and see it for yourself. It will warm you right up.
Torch Lake Views 
lynnekovan
January 20, 2012
Oh it’s dreadful losing a dear cat. I have been through it a number of times and I really feel for you right now.
I’m also worried about your other little cat being taken by a creature, as I am taking my two cats to Nova Scotia later this year, and just hope nothing takes them from us!
Best wishes to you
Gerry
January 20, 2012
I’m sure Margie appreciates the condolences. I don’t think Nova Scotia is going to be any more dangerous to cats than other places. A cat who goes out and about is bound to find trouble to get into, whether from another cat, a dog, or a car going by on the road. Miss Puss long ago told me that she preferred a life full of adventures to a life of safety, and I’m inclined to agree with her.
uphilldowndale
January 20, 2012
I take it that is not a live wolf?
RIP Elvis.
Gerry
January 20, 2012
Not anymore.
Martha
January 20, 2012
The size of that wolf makes me almost pass out. That’s one reason why I decided not to move to NW WI. I’m snack size.
Gerry
January 20, 2012
You know, I’d not thought of it quite that way before, but even my rotund self is snack size. Miss Sadie, who is the approximate size of a coyote, would not care to meet a wolf herself. The Cowboy, whose heart is fierce out of all proportion to his size, claims he could take a wolf. In this, as in so many other realms of life, an assertion is not the same thing as a fact.
Heather
January 20, 2012
My condolences to Margie. My two babies are going on 12, and while I know they won’t be here forever, I can’t imagine them NOT being here.
Also, my condolences to the wolf. As a farmer’s daughter, I know what kind of damage a predator can do to livestock; but as biologist and sentimental person, I wish the wolf was still roaming the wilds playing out his part.
Gerry
January 20, 2012
I know exactly what you mean. Finding the balance is always difficult, isn’t it?
P.j. grath
January 20, 2012
Sorry about Elvis.
That wolf! It’s almost beyond belief!
Gerry
January 20, 2012
It is an impressive wolf. On the other hand, the DNR page on wolf/coyote identification says a wolf is typically 4.5 to 6.5 feet long. Makes a person think, eh?
Margie Guyot
January 20, 2012
Thanks, everyone, for the condolences. Cats bless us with their presence for just a limited time, then they must leave us. I’m very grateful for the happy years with sweet Elvis.
Fee
January 21, 2012
I’m sorry for your friend’s loss of a beloved cat. We welcome our four-footed friends into our lives, and our hearts, knowing all along that one day we’ll lose them, but be richer for having had them.
Seeing the size of that wolf, I’m kind of glad we don’t have them anymore. Mind you, having hunted them to extinction hundreds of years ago, we left ourselves with no large predators to keep the deer numbers down, and man has to do the job himself. Makes you think Mama Nature is a better planner than we’ll ever be.
Gerry
January 21, 2012
Fee, you always make me think on a new slant, even when there’s no Scottish lesson involved.
I got to thinking about predation, and about how complicated the balance is, and started to write a long comment about the wolves and moose on Isle Royale by way of illustration. Then I decided this way leads madness. Instead I’m going to put up a link to the Isle Royale Winter Study and think about it some more. But what I’m thinking right now is that maybe we ought to think of microbes as predators.
I suspect it’s literal fact, and it has astonishing metaphorical possibilities. See what you started?
Katherine
January 21, 2012
I really think the wolf is either an optical illusion or a photoshopped version. There’s a stuffed wolf in the welcome center in after the Mackinac bridge and while it’s large, it’s not that large by any stretch of the imagination.
Sorry about your cats Margie. Mine sends her condolences too, while the dog just looks guilty.
Gerry
January 22, 2012
The photo could be misleading, or even a complete sham, but the Michigan DNR identification page I linked to in the post says wolves run between 4.5 and 6.5 feet in length. That wolf would be within that range.
The thing that fascinates me is that no one wondered out loud where it would be legal to hunt wolves to begin with. (The answer would be Idaho and Montana and Alaska and Alberta–maybe other places, but those were the ones I identified.)
Kathy
January 22, 2012
First, condolences to your friend. We once had an owl swoop our cat and put claw marks in her back, but it didn’t kill her. We do have wolves here in the Upper Peninsula. They cause a lot of comments, pro and con. I like them at a distance. Close-up, maybe not so much, unless a car exists between us.
Gerry
January 22, 2012
Miss Puss, too, once had an encounter with an owl. The owl knew it had been in a fight.
I’m with you on wolves. I like them very much at a distance. (Isle Royale, for example, is a good distance . . .) I understand a stock rancher’s urgent desire to shoot a wolf or a coyote – or a dog – that’s menacing a sheep or a calf. I understood John King’s special fondness for venison the winter after the deer ate some of his new orchard stock down to the ground. I don’t understand wilderness hunting.
Preston
January 29, 2012
Wow Gerry I don’t know where to start. What a fantastic site you have here. My first time seeing it. I just don’t get around as much as I use to. Never have I seen such a large wolf. Would be an awful thing to run into while on a photo shoot that is for sure.
Gerry
January 29, 2012
Hello, Preston! You realize, of course, your comment had to be fished out of the spam catcher. Ah well. I’m glad you like the new theme. I think I do too. I think the wolf is pretty large by anyone’s standards. I wouldn’t want to happen upon on that size either. But wouldn’t it be something to see . . .