THE WOLF QUESTION. 



463 



edges, and places 3 to 5 of the baits, on 

 sticks, along the edges of the trail, about 

 10 paces apart. If placed nearer together 

 they will show too plainly, and will fright- 

 en the more cunning wolves. 



You will notice the grass is heaviest close 

 to the large trail, say about 4 or 5 inches 

 from the edge. All animals walk either in 

 the trail or several inches to one side of it. 

 The bait should, therefore, be placed on 

 a stick, stuck up in this row of grass along 

 the edge of the trail, for otherwise cattle 

 or horses would strike the sticks and knock 

 them down. 



It is well to put the bait near a tuft of 

 grass, or a small weed, or something of the 

 kind, as the stick will not then attract too 

 much attention. It is better to place 3 or 4 

 baits in a place, then go a mile or 2 along 

 the same trail and put up more, than to 

 put them all in one place, as there is less 

 danger of one wolf's eating so many baits. 



The wolfer should always place a few of 

 the baits around any old carcasses he may 

 find, for a wolf will often go to them and 

 smell of them. It is better, in hot weather, 

 to put several tallow baits on sticks near a 

 freshly killed victim of the wolves, leaving 

 the carcass undisturbed, than to poison the 

 carcass. In fact this makes the surest bait 

 of which I know. 



Great care should always be taken to 

 make as little sign as possible, and to ar- 

 range the baits so they will not make too 

 great a display and thus frighten the 

 wolves. 



It is well for the wolfer to return to his 

 baits about 4 or 5 days after putting them 

 out; and if they have been taken, to re- 

 place them. It is of little use, when the 

 baits are placed along the trail, to hunt for 

 the dead wolves, for the following reasons: 

 First, the wolf is travelling when he picks 

 up the bait; and as it often takes at least 2 

 hours for such a bait to kill, he will usually 

 die many miles from the place where he 

 took the bait. Second, I am convinced the 

 wolf naturally endeavors to hide, when he 

 feels the poison acting on him. If he is 

 a pup he will try to go to his den. If an old 

 wolf, he will hide in a gulch, or a brush 

 patch. 



For these reasons the wolfer may become 

 discouraged, at first, as he will find few 

 dead wolves; but if he persist in his work 

 he will soon notice a marked diminution in 

 the number of tracks, and in the damage 

 to stock. 



Some of my reasons for believing in this 

 method are: First: Whenever I have tried 

 it, in a given section where it had not been 

 tried, I have found that wolves would al- 

 most never pass the baits without eating 

 them. 



Second: In several cases where I have 

 found an animal fresh killed, and have put 

 up a few tallow baits around the carcass, 

 leaving it undisturbed, I have found, on my 



return a few days later, that the baits have 

 been taken, and a part of the animal eaten. 

 In such cases I have usually found one or 

 more dead wolves within 100 yards of the 

 bait. The reason for their dying so close 

 to the bait, in such cases, is that they eat 

 the baits first, and then spend enough time 

 in eating at the carcass to allow the tablet 

 to be dissolved and to take effect. Then, 

 before the wolf realizes his condition, he is 

 so far gone he can not travel far. In such 

 cases they will often be found in a creek 

 that may chance to be near by. 



Third: Every time I have used this, 

 faithfully, for a period of a few weeks, I 

 have found the number of wolf tracks di- 

 minished, rapidly, until only a compara- 

 tively few would be seen. I will give one 

 instance of this. In the summer of '94, 

 the wolves had become so thick, on our 

 range, that every important cattle trail 

 would be filled with the tracks of large 

 bunches of wolves that had passed along, 

 the previous night. They were doing so 

 much damage it seemed something had to 

 be done immediately, although it was the 

 general impression that effective poisoning 

 could not be done in hot weather. 



It was then I adopted the above method, 

 and obtained remarkable results. The belt 

 of country I worked in was about 20 miles 

 long by 10 wide. After having worked on 

 these lines 3 weeks I found very few tracks; 

 and nearly all the baits I had put out, about 

 600, had been eaten by wolves, as I had 

 been able to tell by the tracks I had seen, 

 in many cases. It then chanced that 2 other 

 men and I rode, in different directions, 

 through this belt of country on the same 

 day, thus seeing all the principal trails 

 (which dry weather had made very dusty) 

 on the same day. All were looking for 

 wolf tracks and we found only some 5 or 6 

 tracks, all told. Scarcely any wolves were 

 found in that section for some weeks: but 

 of course before long they began to come 

 in again, from the neighboring country. 



During that 3 weeks I saw only 10 dead 

 gray wolves that the baits had killed; but 

 I have every reason to believe I killed more 

 than 100, and that I would have found many 

 more, had I looked for them. I had one 

 good chance to watch the effect of the poi- 

 son on a bunch of about 10 wolves that 

 were killing colts and calves in the pasture, 

 nearly every night. 



By watching their tracks I found that this 

 bunch spent the days in a gulch, near the 

 ranch. I put out a few baits along the trail 

 leading to the gulch, and around the last 

 colt they had killed, also about their last 

 calf. Three days later I found that the baits 

 had all been eaten and one dead wolf was 

 lying not far away. 



I put up more baits and returned a few 

 days later, to find them all gone and one 

 more dead wolf. On examining the trail 

 that led into the gulch I found there were 



