FROM THE GAME FIELDS. 



WOLVES IN MONTANA. 



Miles City, Mont. 



Editor Recreation : I am much inter- 

 ested in the wolf question. I am located on 

 lower Powder river, in Montana. Wolves 

 are as numerous and as destructive in this 

 locality as anywhere in the West. They de- 

 stroy all kinds of live stock, as well as game 

 animals. As to the amount of damage they 

 do, it is impossible to estimate with any 

 certainty. Some of the figures that have 

 been given, I am convinced, are extravagant. 



As a wolf always has the appearance of 

 being well fed, it might not be far out of 

 the way to rate him at what a large dog 

 would eat, say about 3 pounds a day, or 

 1,000 pounds of meat in a year. This is 

 worth on the range about $50. The amount 

 he wastes, and the damage resulting from 

 the loss in the growth of young stock, will 

 probably equal what he actually consumes. 



Wolves are rapidly increasing in numbers. 

 Ten years ago there were no wolves and few 

 coyotes on this range. ' Now the country is 

 overrun with them. 



I had a practical demonstration, several 

 years ago, of their ability to issue invita- 

 tions to dinner. I furnished the mutton 

 chops for the feast, my herder allowing a 

 bunch of sheep to get away from him. They 

 went to an old camp ground, and when I 

 found them 2 days later all the wolves in the 

 country were there, holding high carnival. 

 They had killed or crippled about 50 head. 

 They had eaten even more than they had 

 killed ; for they had eaten a leg or two or a 

 side of- chops and left the sheep alive. And 

 here is one peculiar trait of the wolf which 

 distinguishes its work from that of the co- 

 yote. The coyote always catches a sheep 

 by the throat. The wolf catches them any 

 place he can, and that is usually the hind 

 leg. This he proceeds to amputate and 

 eat without killing the sheep. 



I never weighed a wolf, but will give the 

 dimensions of a mounted skin I have. 

 Length from end of nose to tip of tail, 6 feet. 

 Length of tail, 16 inches. Between tips of 

 toes of front feet across shoulders, 4 feet 10 

 inches. They are indeed powerful brutes, 

 capable of destroying a full grown horse or 

 cow, and a man as well, if he be unarmed. 



The best way to deal with the wolf ques- 

 tion, from a legislative standpoint is, in my 

 opinion, to enact a good bounty law. It 

 need not be extravagant ; $5 would do the 

 business. Even the law we have in this State, 

 of $3, has resulted in the destruction of 

 a vast number of wolves. A great deal more 

 would be accomplished if provision were 

 made for the prompt payment of the boun- 

 ty. The appropriations are always inade- 

 quate, and the treasury a year or more be- 

 hind. Such a course of legislation seems 



absurd in face of the fact that it costs $100 

 a year to feed each wolf in the State. A 

 bounty law will never cause the extermina- 

 tion of wolves in this bad land coun- 

 try, but it will keep them down so that little 

 damage will be done. The best things in 

 a practical way that I am familiar with are 

 traps and poison. The method of poison- 

 ing outlined by Mr. Howes, in Recrea- 

 tion, is followed to some extent, and al- 

 ways with good results. But sheep men 

 object to this method on account of its 

 poisoning the shepherd dogs. 



The professional wolfers are successful 

 here with traps. They have several meth- 

 ods which they follow. The usual way is 

 to set the traps in cattle trails and cover 

 them over with grass and dirt. They then 

 trail a drag made from a piece of carcass 

 along the path and over the traps. They 

 also drop small bits of meat on the trail. 

 This they do on horseback. 



Another method is to put out a bait 

 and set traps in a circle around it. An in- 

 teresting experiment in trapping wolves 

 came under my observation last summer. A 

 large pack of wolves were stopping on an 

 island in Powder river, where there was 

 about 100 acres of thick brush. They stayed 

 there for a week or more and made a prac- 

 tice of killing cattle when they came to 

 water in the middle of the day. They had 

 killed and partly eaten an animal in the 

 river where the water was about a foot 

 deep, and were discovered by a man who was 

 stopping at my ranch. When he came on 

 them, one wolf was lying in the water keep- 

 ing the buzzards from the carcass. The 

 man got 3 traps and set them in the water, 

 near the carcass. 



He returned the same evening and found 

 a wolf in one of the traps, and saw several 

 lying on the bank watching his antics. 



The next morning he caught another, and 

 if the river had not risen and buried the 

 traps in the sand, he doubtless would have 

 caught more. This may prove a pointer 

 to some trapper. I have often wondered if 

 it were not possible for some scientific man 

 to discover some disease germ, with which 

 the wolves could be inoculated, that would 

 result in their extermination. A. Laney. 



A CANDIDATE FOR THE WOODCHUCK 

 FIENDS. 



Mr. Aldrich's letter, in February Rec- 

 reation, touched me in a tender spot. 

 Whether I am eligible for membership in 

 the Order of Woodchuck Fiends Mr. Al- 

 drich may judge. 



During the summer of 1804, to recruit my 

 strength after too close confinement to busi- 

 ness, I determined to take a trip North 



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