6 WOLVES IN KELATION TO STOCK, GAME, AND FOKEST KESERVES. 



red wolf of southern Texas, the brindled wolf of Mexico, the light gray 

 wolf of the Central Plains region, the dark gray wolf of eastern Can- 

 ada, the almost white wolf of northern Canada and Alaska, and the 

 large black or dusky wolf of the Northwest Coast region. For pres- 

 ent purposes, however, they may be treated as one species. Their 

 habits differ mainly in adaptation to the varied conditions of their 

 environment — timber, plains, mountains, deserts, or northern barren 

 grounds — and in the methods of pursuit and ^capture of different 

 kinds of animals for food. As a rule, the largest forms occur in the 

 far north ; the light gray wolf of the Middle Plains region is slightly 

 smaller, and the forms of the lower Austral zone of Texas and the 

 southern United States are the smallest of all. 



Wolves still occup}^ most of their original range, except where 

 crowded out of the more thickly settled regions. The large gray 

 wolf of the plains and Middle West is at present the most abundant 

 sjDecies in the United States and the most destructive to stock. Over 

 the thinly settled ranch country of Montana, the western parts of 

 the Dakotas and Nebraska, and of Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, 

 and western Texas, where stock raising is the principal industry, the 

 Avolves have held their own, and in favorable sections have increased 

 since the destruction of their former prey, the buffalo, and the intro- 

 duction of still greater numbers of domestic cattle — this, too, in the 

 face of a fierce warfare waged by ranchmen, trappers, and hunters. 

 The present distribution of gray wolves is shown in figure,!. 



WOLVES NOT A PRODUCT OF FOREST RESERVES. 



By reference to the map on page T it will be seen that the present 

 distribution of wolves includes most of the forest reserves of the 

 western United States, except those of California. The natural infer- 

 ence would be that these forest reserves serve as breeding grounds, 

 from which the wolves raid the surrounding country, killing stock 

 and retreating again to forest cover. Such is not the case, however, 

 as will be apparent from a careful study of the map of 20 breeding- 

 dens in the Green Kiver and Wind River basins of Wyoming. In 

 Plates I, II, and III are shown wolf dens and their location in this 

 region. 



The wolves breed mainly below the edge of the forest reserves or 

 on the reserves only where partly open foothill country is included. 

 In talking with hunters, trajDpers, ranchmen, and forest rangers who 

 have been much in the northern mountains in winter I have not 

 found one who ever saw wolf tracks in the mountains during the 

 breeding season or knew of a wolf den above the foothills. All agree 

 that the wolves leave the mountains when the cattle come down in 

 the fall, and return only when the cattle are driven into the moun- 

 tains again in June, just as they originally followed the migrations of 



