Basically, I came in to work one day, the morning after the full moon, and there was a headline in the The Province (British Columbian newspaper) that read "Wolf-like creature attacks pets on Bowen Island" with this photo:
I pretty much crapped myself.
Over the next few months, the "Beast of Bowen" continued to kill pets and wildlife on the Island, and generally kept the community on edge. Wildlife officer's determined it was most likely a Wolf-Dog hybrid, and that it was large enough it brought down a Stag. It evaded capture for a long-time, and eventually a local trapper obtained a license to fire his gun on the island (normally not allowed) and killed it. It was indeed a large Wolf-dog.
here are some relevant articles:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/offbeat/story/20 ... bowen.html
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/02/18 ... -lockdown/
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-c ... f-dog.html
This all happened about a year ago, and was resolved, but I'm posting it here now for 2 reasons:
1) It played out very much like a classic horror movie plot, which is cool. The trapper who killed the Beast was a 72 year old named "Trapper Al" and seems a living stereotype. The local vet was also involved, trying to catch the Beast with a tranquilizer gun, and he has the very horro movie name of Dr. Alistair Westcott. Pretty cool.
2) I recently visited Bowen Island, and asked the waitress at the bar I visited about the Beast. She said that it was a scary time to be living on the Island, and that everyone was gllad when it ended. She then dropped her tone and said that there were some people who think the Wolf-dog Trapper Al killed was a decoy, because even though the killings have stopped, people still come across large canine footprints in the woods from time to time, or hear howling. The island has no indigenous wolves or coyotes. Probably just island hype to mess with a townie, but still keeps my imagination working.
Cool stuff all around.
