22 WILD LIFE PROTECTION FUND 



The Fish Brothers, trappers below Eagle, Alaska (I be- 

 lieve they get mail at Wood River or Charley Creek) , told 

 me in 1912 or 13 of a catch they made up one of the streams 

 which lead towards the Upper Porcupine on the Yukon. I 

 had heard previously of their big wolf killing. They had 

 killed two moose. They heard the wolves calling from dif- 

 ferent directions, and knew that they dare not stay long 

 enough to cache the moose. They poisoned the carcasses 

 with strychnine. The following day they went back and 

 skinned 60, and told me that they thought they must have 

 killed 200 wolves, but many were torn and others had 

 strayed away. Where they made this killing, it was so 

 difficult to get in and out that they had left them in that 

 winter, as their hides were not worth the trouble to get 

 them out when they could bring out the more valuable furs 

 which they had. These men are conservative, dependable 

 men. If they had obeyed the law to the letter, they could 

 not have poisoned one wolf. You probably know that 

 wolves are not easily taken by bait or poison, when they 

 once become wise to man's ways. 



"When they could take such a number, the fact that those 

 that remained were hungry enough to eat their comrades 

 gives you some idea of their number. Your knowledge will 

 give you an idea of the amount of caribou and moose they 

 would have taken, and which those that remain continue 

 to take daily, monthly, yearly, and eternally. 



"I have had men in that region tell me that they had seen 

 wolves estimated in bands of from 100 to 400. How much 

 game will they destroy annually? 



"In the winter of 1906-7 I was hunting up toward Mount 

 McKinley, between the Nenana and the Toklat. I had four 

 big buck sheep down, which would weigh not less than 500 

 pounds or even more, live weight. Not being able to get 

 them out I flagged them with a dirty handkerchief and left 

 them till morning. In the morning even the big horns had 

 been dragged away, and the ground was beaten down like 

 a pavement. 



"If each one of those wolves had eaten five pounds of 

 meat there must have been a hundred wolves. The fact that 

 they had carried off the bones showed that they were so 

 numerous that 500 pounds of meat did not appease their 

 hunger. 



