HIKER’S ‘WOLF HORN’ WORKS, SURVIVING FRIEND SAYS

Yosemite National Park, WY – 26/5/08 In what ecologists are hailing as a breakthrough for wildlife conservation, the late Patrick Weils has left behind a homemade horn that perfectly imitates the hunting call of the endangered Rocky Mountain Snow Wolf. Environmentalists say Weil’s device will make tracking the remaining wolves easier, especially in the winter months when food is scarce. There are an estimated 300 snow wolves left in the Rockies, down from about 10 million just 3 decades ago.

The recently deceased Weils, a computer programmer and avid backpacker from Billings, Montana, spent many weekends experimenting with homemade wolf calling devices until perfecting this one, said friend Cal Rizzo from his hospital bed in Casper, WY, where doctors say he’s making a steady but slow recovery from multiple wolf bites to his legs and scalp.

“Patrick and I used to go for long weekends up into the back country,” Rizzo said, his voice slurred from heavy doses of pain medication. “He was fascinated by wolves, their habits and ways. He’d always whip out one of his little home made horns. Some of them didn’t sound like wolves at all, others were okay. But we never saw a single wolf. Until last weekend. Then we saw lots.”

Rizzo managed to snap this photo of the wolves as they charged his late friend Weils

The wolves weren’t the only ones to respond to Weils’ call. Yosemite biologist and wolf expert Chad Whitting heard Weil’s latest and final horn blows while hiking on a nearby ridge. He says he rushed to the two men’s campsite.

“That whistle had me fooled too,” he said at his wolf watch station, a small wooden cabin on Mount Peabody. “I said to myself, my babies got lucky today. They’ve found something to hunt. I figured they were after a rabbit.”

Listen to an early model of Weils' 'wolf horn.' Though this one didn't work Weils would later achieve success.

The wolves ran off at Whitting’s approach but he says he counted at least seven different tracks in the snow. Also, he was able to recover Weils’ hand and part of his shoulder by following a trail of blood towards the tree line.

“His hand was still clutching the horn,” Whitting said. “I’ll be damned if it this little wooden tooter doesn’t sound exactly like the noise the snow wolf makes to challenge another’s territory. Or when its stolen a challenger’s mate.” Whitting says it occurred to him as he dressed the multiple puncture wounds of Weils unconscious friend that the whistle could be used to draw the wolves out, either to count or cull their numbers.

“It was like an epiphany,” he said. “I was looking at that mess of a campsite, with Weils’s decimated, ice-cold corpse all crumpled in his shredded tent, and it just hit me. This device is going to revolutionize wolf protection programs everywhere.”

Weil, who was also an advanced scuba diver, was also working on a high frequency underwater gadget to attract great white sharks.