Must I live next to 16 Siberian Huskies?

I’ve lived on 5 private, peaceful acres in the county for 14 years. Two nights ago a man came to my gate to introduce himself. He said he bought the 10 acres next to me, and would be moving here from Alaska in the next month or so, along with his 16 Huskies. He intends to build kennels, and a race track to train his dogs. Apparently, while in Alaska, he would send his dogs and a handler to the lower forty eight to participate in dog sled games; he’s into it.

Due to the topography of this area, noise travels a long way. Despite the dense woods and over 400 feet distance between my house and the one purchased, I could hear the old neighbors when they raised their voices outside. I will be able to hear every single bark that one of his dogs make, not to mention that Huskies like to howl. That will totally destroy the reason we live here: quiet privacy. If we were to sell, we’d lose a lot of money because nobody would want to live next to 16 dogs.

I am panicking. I have an ominous gut feeling about this man that I can’t put my finger on. We’ve got calls into a couple county offices to ask questions, but of course no one answers their phone any more: leave a message and they promise to return our call within 48 hours; so we wait.

What if the man’s visit was a pre-emptive legal maneuver? Say he moves in, and then the neighbors all complain about the noise. His position could be that he told us ahead of time, and nobody voiced an objection, so we’re out of luck.

I have no idea if that’s a possibility or if there is such a thing regarding dogs. I’m likening it to someone who applies for a zoning variance, does all the public notification required, gets no complaints from neighbors, then builds an ugly monstrosity. When the neighbors complain, they have no ground to stand on because the builder fulfilled all legal requirements required by the local governing authority.

Is there such a thing for dogs? I imagine he has to get a hobby kennel license to have that many dogs; we’re looking into the details.

Am I doomed, or does anyone have ideas that I could look into to prevent the noise pollution?