16 WOLVES IN RELATION TO STOCK, GAME, AND FOREST RESERVES. 



TTolf with a great piece torn out of its ham, while the wolf goes on to 

 catch and kill another. The ranchmen in the wolf country maintain 

 that a ' critter ' even slightly bitten by a wolf will die of blood 

 poisoning, and many detailed instances seem fully to substantiate 

 this. More cattle are therefore killed than are eaten. Evidently 

 the wolves prefer freshly killed beef. In summer they rarely return 

 for even a second meal from the same animal ; but in Avinter, when in 

 the snowy north the cattle are gathered into pastures or stables, they 

 often return to a carcass until its bones are picked. 



The actual number of cattle killed by wolves can not be deter- 

 mined. Comparatively few animals are found by cattlemen and 

 hunters, Avhen freshly killed, with wolf tracks around them and wolf 

 marks on them. Xot all of the adult cattle missing from a herd can 

 surely be charged to the depredations of wolves, Avhile missing calves 

 may have been taken by wolves, by mountain lions, or by ' rustlers.' 

 Nevertheless there are data enough from which to draw fairly relia- 

 ble conclusions. In the Green River Basin, AYyoming, on April 2, 

 1906, Mr. Charles Bucld had 8 yearling calves and 1 colts killed in 

 his pasture by wolves within six weeks. At Big Piney a number of 

 cattle and a fcAV horses had been killed around the settlement during 

 the previous fall and Avinter. At Pinedale members of the local 

 stockmen's association counted 30 head of cattle killed in the valley 

 around Cora and Pinedale in 1905, betAveen April, when the cattle 

 Avere turned out on the range, and June 30, when they were driven to 

 the mountains. In 190G wolves were said to haA^e come into the pas- 

 tures near Cora and Pinedale and begun killing cattle in January on 

 the ' feed grounds,' and Mr. George GloA^er counted up 22 head of 

 cattle killed by them up to April 10. Just north of Cora Mr. Alex- 

 ander, a well-knoAvn ranchman, told me that the avoIa^cs killed near 

 his place in June, 1901, a large 3-year-old steer, a cow, 3 yearlings, 

 and a horse. On the G O S ranch, in the Gila Forest Reserve in 

 New Mexico, May. 11 to 30, 1906, the coAvboys on the round-up re- 

 ported finding cah'es or yearlings killed by woh^es almost daily, and 

 Mr. Victor Culberson, president of the company, estimated the loss 

 l)y woh^es on the ranch at 10 per cent of the cattle. 



In a letter to the Biological SurA^ey, under date of April 3, 1896, 

 Mr. R. M. Allen, general manager of the Standard Cattle Company, 

 AA^ith headquarters at Ames, Nebr., and ranches in both Wyoming 

 and Montana, states that in 1894 his company paid a $5 bounty at 

 th^ir Wyoming ranch on almost exactl}^ 500 woh^es. The total loss 

 to Wyoming through the depredations of woh^es Mr. Allen estimated 

 at a million dollars a year. 



In an address bejpore the National LiA^e' Stock Association at 

 Denver, Colo., January 25, 1899,« Mr. A. J. Bothwell said: "In 



a Live Stock Report, Feb. IG, 1899, p. 2. 



