Author seems to doubt the poet's story but I'd heard about things like this myself and found this, from the same time period and part of the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirov_wolf_attacks
just a decade ago there was a story about a family of bobcats taking residence in a foreclosure stricken neighborhood near Los Angeles - https://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-bobcats5-2008sep05-story... . When humans are gone, the Nature doesn't seem to cry a river.