Kenton Carnegie went for a walk by a lake – but it wasn’t long before the pack began stalking their prey
A student was mauled to death by a pack of wolves while out for a walk in a horrific killing – after ignoring a warning from one of his colleagues.
Kenton Carnegie, 22, was working for a geological survey programme in Points North Landing, Canada, as part of a university placement when the tragedy unfolded.
On November 8, 2005, he went for a walk by the lake to “go look at the rocks in the bay”. Bush pilot Todd Svarckopf reportedly warned him not to leave camp and invited him to play hockey in the airport’s hangar instead – but Kenton could not be dissuaded.
A kilometre from camp, a wolf appeared and began to track him through the snow.
Kenton spotted it and started to quicken his pace, but two other wolves joined the hunt, and the pack launched their attack. The animals knocked him down, and he tried to fight back, but his struggle was in vain.
That evening, the camp launched a search for Kenton and found his tracks leading to the lake. They eventually came across the body, which was surrounded by wolf tracks.
Rosalie Tsannie, the province’s coroner for the north, was called to the scene and helped move Kenton’s body.
She told CBC News: “We were cleaning up and taking care of the young man [when] we started to hear them howl. And it was just too close for comfort, for me. It felt as if I would reach over and touch the one to my left, it just seemed like he was close, and I could hear the rest, and it sounded like four or five of them, like calling to each other.”
The geological engineering student called his mum the day before he died and said that wolves had been spotted in the area.
Three days after his death, two wolves were shot by wildlife officers from the Environment Department. An autopsy later found bits of hair and other material in their digestive tracts, which may have come from a human being.
One of them was described as well-muscled and weighing around 46kg.
Paying tribute, Kenton’s dad said: “He was the kind of kid that, when he sat down at the TV, he would be flicking the channels all the time and doing a puzzle at the same time. He was just a dynamic kid, but a very sensitive kid, though, too, a very sensitive kid.”
Describing his movements during the night of the attack, he went on: “He wasn’t out there trying to sketch them or feed them, as some articles might have implied, he was just going for a walk. He loved nature and wanted to go look at the rocks in the bay.”
