Deep snow winters are hard on moose and easy on wolves. Low snow winters are hard on wolves and easy on moose.

One December, driving back to Fairbanks, I passed through Muncho Lake Provincial Park, B.C., in the middle of a foggy night. The road runs along with Mucho Lake on one side , and the mountains rearing steep on the other. For a distance of about 5-6 miles, there were sheep and moose standing in the road, oblivious to me...in my Mother's Honda Civic. i had to reduce speed to under 20 mph....and, on occasion, had to weave among them. I didn't go more 1/4 mile without having to slow and carefully pass an animal much larger that the Civic, at close range. At the next gas stop, I talked with a couple of locals, who said that there was a large wolf pack locally .... and, nights that they hunt, the local sheep and moose get out on the road, where they have a better chance of fighting or evading the wolves....and the wolves, being the savvy tacticians they are, tended to concentrate on the easier victims in the deep snow.

The pack in this neighborhood is making a paltry living around here....If their whole diet depended on sled dogs and pets, the death toll and the outcry from an enraged citizenry would be overwhelming. Right now, the toll is almost incidental. Much of what the wolves are eating is refuse, manure, whatever garbage they come on, and then an occasional dog or cat. The wolves are just gettin' by. And when the snow finally comes, they'll be gone. That's happened in regular cycles of 5+ years...for the last 28 years in this neighborhood. They always leave. And are years coming back. They aren't going to become habituated....they're simply making the best of a bum season.

Take all sensible precautions....being armed is sensible, but being nervous isn't. I mean, at least they aren't bears....and don't require a .500S&W to dispatch them.