EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



If unmolested they seem to prefer the domestic stock where it 

 is abundant and easily accessible. " With the demands of the 

 cattle interests for their destruction, their only possibility of 

 long surviving is in large preserved areas such as the national 

 parks. 



NORTHERN PLAINS WOLF 



CANIS LUPUS OCCIDENTALS Richardson 



Canis lupus occidentalis Richardson, Fauna Boreali-Americana, vol. 1, p. 60, 1829 



(Simpson, near mouth of Liard River, Mackenzie). 

 SYNONYM: Canis lupus griseus Sabine, Franklin's Narr. Journ. Polar Sea, p. 654, 1823 



(Cumberland House, Keewatin, Canada). 



This is the wolf of the northern interior plains east of the 

 Rocky Mountains and north of the United States, northward 

 to the Arctic tundra. It is still paler than the Plains wolf, 

 C. I. nubilus, and larger. 



Writing of the Athabaska-Mackenzie region in 1908, Preble 

 says: "Gray or Timber wolves are found throughout the 

 wooded parts of the region, and are fairly abundant and ap- 

 parently increasing in some sections. In 1901 we saw numerous 

 skins at nearly all the posts visited, and found a skull at a 

 trapper's cabin on Slave River, 10 miles below the mouth of 

 the Peace. Among a number of skins seen at Fort Rae, most 

 of which were in the normal or gray phase, was one the color of 

 which was mainly dark bluish gray, the throat and back were 

 nearly black, the latter flecked with a few white hairs; the chest 

 had a white patch; the belly and tail were bluish gray, the 

 latter blackish toward the tip. 



"During the season of 1903 we heard that wolves had been 

 rather abundant for several years past in the region west of 

 Smith Landing, in the Birch Mountains, and in the vicinity of 

 Athabasca Landing." In the same winter a black one was 

 killed at Fort Simpson. Tyrrell says that this wolf occurs in 

 the country between Athabaska Lake and Churchill River, 

 but not plentifully. Preble quotes the record of skins of this 

 wolf received by the Hudson's Bay Company as follows : From 

 1858 to 1884, from the Athabaska district, 2,119; from 1885 to 

 1889, a further 339 skins. For the district of Mackenzie, 

 between 1863 and 1884, a total of 1,880 skins; in 1889 only 49 

 skins; Fort Resolution and Great Slave Lake, between 1862 



