CHAPTER SIXTEEN 



THE WOLF 



IT is probably as surprising to most folk who have not 

 studied the subject of fur animals and their distribution 

 to learn that the wolf is an important and numerous 

 member of Louisiana's mammalian fauna as it is to be told 

 that this southern state is the leading fur-producing state 

 of the Union. 



This dog-like animal, however, is as much at home in 

 the unfrequented sections of this state as it is in the north- 

 ern fastnesses of Canada. A ranger of the Great Plains 

 region of North America, the wolf is also found in our 

 prairie and coastal marsh sections and has proved a scourge 

 and nuisance to the cattle-raisers of Calcasieu and Cameron 

 parishes, w'ere packs have made inroads on calves. 



The wolf is a meat cater, preying on almost all of the 

 •other mammals inhabit'ng the region where it hunts. Its 

 principal diet is composed of rabbits, native rats and mice, 

 squirrels, ground-nesting birds, and fawns. Its habit of 

 preying on calves, sheep, and hogs has caused it to be 

 "outlawed" not only in Louisiana but elsewhere, and no- 

 where on the North American continent is this animal given 

 the protection of game laws. 



The wolf found in this state is the ordinary gray wolf, 

 the timber wolf or "buffalo wolf" of literature. It is scien- 

 tifically called Cards floridmius, according to Dr. Hartley 

 H. T. Jackson, of the U. S. Biological Survey. However, 

 any scientific identification of a wolf in the status of pres- 

 ent knowledge of the group is only provisional. There are 

 so many variations in respect to shape, size, and color exist- 

 ing among the wolves inhabiting the North American con- 

 tinent that it has led to a confusion as to species. This 

 animal was known to the Gulf Indian tribes, for the Choc- 

 taws called it nashoba, the Chitamachca knew it as kamakic, 

 and the Atakapa called the wolf caine. The Natchez knew 

 the wolf as uttenvah. 



