294 



RECREA TION. 



for an adult wolf, and $5 for a whelp. At 

 the rates now paid in this State, $3 a head, 

 nobody but an Indian can afford to hunt 

 wolves systematically, for profit. 



Third: Make bounty certificates legal 

 tender, for any amount, in the payment of 

 taxes. 



Fourth: Allow any Justice of the Peace to 

 issue bounty certificates and not require, as 

 in this county, that the hides shall be 

 brought to the county seat for punching. 

 A man with 3 coyote skins, worth $9 in 

 bounty, will hardly care to travel 300 to 400 

 miles to collect this sum, in a country 

 where the railroads charge 5 cents a mile 

 and where express rates are practically pro- 

 hibitive. 



Fifth: Require each person killing a wolf 

 to bring the hide, for the collection of the 

 bounty, and make bounty certificates non- 

 transferable. Such requirements would ex- 

 clude the middle man, who now stands be- 

 tween the wolf trapper and the State, who 

 gets a large share of the benefits arising 

 from the bounty laws and who in just so 

 much nullifies the intended effect of these 

 laws. 



The direct means to be employed in wolf 

 extermination are poisoning, trapping, dig- 

 ging out the whelps and hounding. As be- 

 fore stated, it it rare that poisoning results 

 in anything more than the destruction of 

 every dog within a considerable distance. 

 Adult wolves rarely touch bait: whelps and 

 coyotes take it a trifle. more readily. This 

 method is highly inefficient and absolutely 

 prohibits the use of hounds. Coyotes and 

 wolves often refuse to eat bait which they 

 may carry in their mouths considerable dis- 

 tances, thus rendering even the most care- 

 fully located baits possible sources of dan- 

 ger. Poisoning should be restricted by law 

 and the provisions of such a law should be 

 rigidly enforced. Bait should not be put 

 out within 2 miles of a travelled road, nor 

 within the same distance of a habitation, 

 excepting that of the poisoner. Violation 

 of such a law should result in a heavy fine 

 and judgment for twice the value of any 

 domestic animal destroyed. The poisoning 

 method is advantageous to the State treas- 

 ury and correspondingly inimical to the in- 

 terests of the wolf catcher, inasmuch as a 

 majority of the animals poisoned run long 

 distances, after taking bait, and are never 

 recovered. 



Trapping is a fairly safe method of de- 

 struction; but is much more successful on 

 coyotes than on wolves. It is difficult to so 

 place a trap as to deceive an old wolf and 

 snow storms are apt to impair its efficiency. 

 There is always a good chance, if the trap is 

 located near a cattle trail, of catching cattle 

 or horses; and any dogs in the vicinity are 

 reasonably sure of lacerated paws or of 

 broken legs. 



Digging out the whelps, in the spring, is 



an easy matter when the den is once located. 

 Under the present bounty laws of this State 

 searching for the burrows can be profitable 

 only to those whose time is of no value, 

 such as Indians and half breeds. The sev- 

 eral hundred wandering Cree Indians, de- 

 ported from this State a year since, were a 

 potent factor in the killing off of the whelps 

 in their vicinity. 



Hounding is a method at once sports- 

 manlike and satisfactory in its results, al- 

 though a source of constant expense. This 

 does not apply to the use of fox hounds 

 which, in this country, are absolutely un- 

 able to catch a coyote or to cope with a 

 wolf, even if he should disdain to run from 

 them. A pack of fast fox hounds, now 18 

 in all, has been thoroughly tested in this 

 post, during my service of nearly 4 years. 

 In all this time they have not only never 

 caught a coyote, but they have never even 

 come near doing so. This experience coin- 

 cides with that of others who have worked 

 fox hounds, in Indian Territory and in the 

 Northwest Provinces of Canada. 



The best pack for work on wolves is un- 

 doubtedly one composed of the best grey- 

 hounds and Russian wolfhounds — the lat- 

 ter of the coursing type These are faster 

 than the greyhound, for a dash, but are not 

 so speedy in a long run, of several miles. 

 The heavy set, fighting type of the Russian 

 wolfhound is useless as a coursing dog, and 

 should only be run with faster dogs. They 

 are killers, not runners; and in this respect 

 should undoubtedly surpass even the stag- 

 hound, as their teeth and jaws are better and 

 their coat a more thorough protection. 



Packs of such dogs should be maintained 

 by every large cattle company, or outfit, 

 and the smaller ranchers should combine to 

 keep up such a pack within a ],o mile radius 

 of their ranches, moving the pack from 

 place to place and not confining the hunt- 

 ing to one locality. Such a pack, properly 

 worked, should soon kill off or drive out 

 the wolves and coyotes in the country cov- 

 ered by them. The pack could be worked 

 by boys at such times as the ranch work oc- 

 cupied their elders; and by properly re- 

 stricting the number of pups and utilizing 

 dead cattle, or worn out horses, as food, 

 should not be very expensive. These dogs 

 should catch at least t of all the wolves 

 they chase. I have known a good pack to 

 pull down as many as 5 or 6 coyotes a day, 

 and to run the season's kill well up into the 

 hundreds. 



These remarks apply only to the best 

 dogs. A pack of inferior or slow dogs is a 

 constant source of annoyance and disap- 

 pointment, and by their use the wolves are 

 soon educated up to such a degree of wari- 

 ness that even the best dogs are unable to 

 get sufficiently near to stand a chance of 

 overhauling them. 



Edward L. Munson, Lieut. U. S, A. 



