A History of Attitudes Toward Wolves

Why European-Americans Endlessly Persecuted the Wolf

The European hatred of the wolf was the result of much more than fantastical tales of the animal's criminal nature. Especially in the period of colonization of the United States, European settlers thought they had a great moral, religious, and economic duty to subdue the wolf. Having established the wolf as a representative symbol of unkempt nature, evil, criminality, animalistic desires, and even cruelty, it was natural that America's newcomers felt a strong moral duty to exterminate wolves. The extent of the European-American hatred of wolves is the result of a complex, interwoven set of circumstances. Europeans and European-Americans did not invent a hatred of the wolf upon setting foot on American soil. The feelings of disdain and condemnation they held toward the wolf came from England and other parts of Europe in the form of fables, fairy tales, and so-called true stories that sometimes reached mythological proportions. For example, one writer tells of the stories that followed the new Americans to the New World:

The South of France...has a famous wolf, called the Beast of Gevaudan...After he had eaten or maimed eighty people and got a price of 10,000 livres on his head, an army of 20,000 men and hundreds of dogs was sent after him. During the next year he brought his total [of humans maimed or eaten] to 120; a larger expedition was sent out...Finally Louis XV called the entire standing army and every noble within 100 leagues of Paris. Twenty-eight hundred dogs, and 43,000 men hunted him from August until September, when he was finally caught and killed, and during that time he sustained himself upon a few more Frenchmen (Murphy 1947:25).

The relative dominance of Christianity and belief in God also played an important role in the extermination of wolves and in the changing of the land in general (7). Economics and biology quickly became important reasons for decimating wolves as humans and their companion animals' populations steadily increased. No single factor--mythology, religion, economics, or biology--could have led to the wholesale destruction of the wolf. But three intertangled factors were woven together to form an argument against the wolf's existence: a destructive mythology combined with religious ferver and spurred by environmental changes and economic incentive on America's frontier.

Destructive Mythology.-In light of the previous discussion about the fables and fairy tales that formed segments of the European reality, it is not surprising that the symbolism surrounding wolves became a major factor in their extermination. Even without consideration of religion, economics or biology, European Americans had a wealth of beliefs and superstitions surrounding and obscuring the reality of the wolf. Because they constructed the wolf as an evil, thieving, criminal beast, the eradication of wolves became easily justifiable. The symbolic wolf became the base from which empirical observations about wolves were made. In other words, any understanding of wolves, their actions, and their place in nature was based upon and colored by this unreal, constructed, evil beast.

In Never Cry Wolf, Farley Mowat points out this very phenomenon. When he began his research of the wolf in the Arctic, he was told by non-native locals what the wolves are like: "Although wolves reputedly devour several hundred people in the Arctic zone every year, they will always refrain from attacking a pregnant Eskimo...every four years wolves are subject to a peculiar disease which causes them to shed their entire skins...wolves were rapidly destroying caribou herds; each wolf killed thousands of caribou a year just out of blood lust…" (Mowat 1963:25). Mowat subsequently came to see that these myths about wolves as bloodthirsty creatures bore little resemblance to reality. Yet when a culture starts with the assumption that wolves are by nature bad and cruel, all of their actions and interactions with humans take on this highly negative and mythological viewpoint.

Religious Fervor.-Closely related to the symbolic, mythological wolf were the Christian imperatives of the time that nearly required human domination of the land. Many European American settlers' were devout Christians. A significant reason for the English settlers separation from England was based on religious freedom. Consequently, religion and the word of God became central guiding factors in their new social organizations. Perhaps the most famous God-directed imperative regarding treatment of the Earth and its creatures lies in the Bible at Genesis 1:26-29. The verses state:

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth." So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female, he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth (Genesis 1:26-29).

This attitude of domination over the earth and all of its inhabitants prevailed in the settlement of the United States. As justification for the American expansion into Oregon in 1846, John Quincy Adams stated that the objectives of the United States were to "make the wilderness blossom as the rose; to establish laws, to increase, multiply, and subdue the earth, which we are commanded to do by the first behest of the God Almighty" (Adams 1846:339-42). Invocation of divine direction to subdue and make the wilderness fit for civilization was not uncommon. Roderick Nash, in his book Wilderness and the American Mind, explores in detail the ways Christian religion influenced treatment of the earth. He states:

It was a ceaseless wonder and evidence of God’s blessing that wild country should become fruitful and civilized. Edward Johnson’s Wonder-Working Providence of 1654 is an extended commentary on this transformation. Always it was "Christ Jesus" or "the Lord" who "made this poore barren wilderness become a fruitful land" or who "hath...been pleased to turn one of the most hideous, boundless, and unknown wildernesses in the world...to a well ordered commonwealth." In Boston, for instance, the "admirable acts of Christ" had in a few decades transformed the "hideous thickets" where "wolves and bears nurst up their young" into "streets full of Girls and Boys sporting up and down." Johnson and his contemporaries never doubted that God was on their side in their effort to destroy the wilderness....The New England colonists saw themselves as "Christ’s Army" or "Soldiers of Christ" in the war against wilderness (Nash 1980:37).

Through the religious imperative to subdue wilderness came a parallel assumption that wolves should also be subdued. Wolves were seen as a symbol of evil, desolate wilderness and wildness (among other things). There existed a deep, symbolic, and conceptual connection between the wild, wilderness, and wolves. Burbank states this notion succinctly:

By the time the Puritans described the "howling wilderness" into which they ventured in their New World pilgrimage, the association between wolf nature and the wilds had become so welded that they were virtually indistinguishable. The New World wilderness, where the Pilgrims found themselves, was a sinister adversary, home of tribal savages who practiced evil. The Puritans regarded the wilderness itself as a howling beast, a wolf inspired by the Devil. In their desolation, they sojourned and their journey reminded them that believers wandered in a world of sin, a spiritual wilderness replete with Godless enemies and insane beasts that wanted only to consume the righteous (Burbank 1990:80).

Seeing the wolf as a representative part of the wilderness that God directed humans to conquer led directly to the religious imperative for the wolves’ destruction.

Environmental Changes and Economic Incentive.-Although mythology and religion set the conceptual stage for the destruction of the wolf, changes in the ecology of North America wrought by the arrival of Europeans and their companion animals contributed environmental and economic reasons for the destruction of the wolf. When the Europeans arrived on the shores of North America, they were accompanied by a variety of domestic animals including cattle, sheep and pigs. These animals were relatively scarce at the beginning of European colonization, and they were actively protected from wolves, coyotes, bears, and feral dogs. As the human population and that of the stock animals grew and expanded, vast areas of land were cleared for grazing pastures. By 1883, nearly five million head of cattle were driven from Texas to Colorado and beyond (Young 1946). The wholesale destruction of forested lands and the subsequent occupation of these lands by cattle and sheep displaced large numbers of wild, ungulate grazers such as deer, elk, caribou, and antelope.

European Americans of the 1800s also had a penchant for bison. Thousands upon thousands of bison were slaughtered. Until the value of the hide was discovered in 1871, bison were shot and killed in massive numbers simply for sport. Bison tongue became a European American gourmet delicacy. Many bison were stripped only of their hide and tongue and left to rot. Often even the hide was left, the tongue being the only part of the bison that European Americans considered valuable. Between 1872 and 1874, three million bison were killed. By the year 1886, only 600 bison remained on the North American continent (Burbank 1990).

The environmental changes created by European Americans set the stage perfectly for increased cattle depredation by wolves. The European American engagement of land that was previously home to wolves and other wild animals decimated the populations of wild ungulates. Additional factors of habitat destruction and over-hunting further depleted the ungulate populations. By replacing these lost wild animals with relatively unintelligent and slow-moving cattle and sheep, the Europeans set the stage for wolf predation. Nearly all of their natural prey was gone and wolves still had to eat. Unfortunately for both ranchers and the wolves, the most plentiful and accessible option open to wolves was cattle and sheep. Although most wild wolves today avoid cattle when they have adequate wild prey, the wolves of the 1800s faced an extreme food shortage and accordingly preyed upon cattle and sheep. As the slaughter of bison and the number of cattle and sheep increased, wolves also increased. Wolves feed on carrion whenever it is available. They made immediate use of the bison carcasses left by hunters. They also sought more and more of that easily caught prey: cattle.

As wolf populations expanded, they took still more cattle as prey. In the beginning of western cattle ranching, cows were allowed to range freely on large open pastures, making inventory and control of these animals difficult. "Very often the early large cattle producer could only roughly estimate the number of cattle on his [or her] particular range; consequently, at the individual roundup of early range days, depredations by wolves were not so well recognized" (Young 1946:110-11). It was nearly impossible to know how the apparently missing animals disappeared. As the ranching industry advanced, however, a closer watch was kept on the cattle. Exact numbers and losses of cattle were recorded. As ranchers began to realize the rate of wolf predation, economics emerged as another reason to exterminate wolves. The economic losses some ranchers suffered were intense. A large percentage of depredation in a single year on a small rancher’s animals could be enough to put her or him out of business. James Burbank, author of Vanishing Lobo, clarifies the factors influencing the European American decimation of wolf populations. He writes:

Now exploitation and economic determinism brought a new sense of objectification to the insatiable conquest of these lands. Scriptural and economic justification disguised an insatiable predatory lust for turning all of nature to [human] use. This greed for domination, exploitation, [and] violence...was quickly ascribed to the wolf who was seen as a savage brute, a flesh render and creature of Satan that had to be eliminated or driven further back into the dark wilderness... (Burbank 1990:83).

As the United States grew, economic factors escalated to become a major force behind the bounties and legislation established by cattle ranchers’ organizations and the government.

Wolf Eradication

The howl of the wild gray wolf disappeared almost completely from the continental United States by the early 1940s. European Americans sought to exterminate the wolf for a variety of reasons: mythic, symbolic, religious, cultural, and economic. But how did these newcomers manage to drive the entire population of wolves in the United States to almost extinction in less than 200 years? Bounties were offered, (8) and wolf hunters used traps, poison, "denning," and even biological warfare in addition to simply shooting them.

Bounties.-Bounties have been paid on wolves for at least 2700 years, and were established in the United States as early as 1630 (Mech 1970). Bounties are predetermined sums of money paid to a hunter upon receipt of the pelt of a specific animal. Bounties were established by both governmental and private organizations. Bounty hunting is illustrative of views and beliefs about wolves. "Throughout the period when bounty hunting was the preferred method of wolf extermination, payment for wolf hides confirmed the economic imperative as the only recognized conscious worth wolves assumed" (Burbank 1990:98-9).

In response to both the real and imagined threats posed by wolves, cattle owners banded together and created "cattle ranchers’ associations." These organizations often offered their own bounties for wolves. The money that these private groups used to pay bounty hunters came from collecting dues and special bounty fees from members. Each cattle rancher in the association was expected to pay the required fees or he or she would not be permitted to receive help from the association in exterminating wolves. These associations gained political power over time. Eventually, they influenced both the state and the federal governments to create an official bounty system.

The establishment of bounties was one of the biggest threats to the wolf population (9) because they added an additional economic incentive to the killing of wolves. Between 1860 and 1870, most western states imposed some sort of bounty for the return of a wolf pelt. Each state had different policies. The price for a bounty ranged from $1 in Montana in 1883 to the $150 bounty set by the Piceance Creek Stock Grower’s Association in Northern Colorado in 1912 (Young 1946; Lopez 1978).

A significant amount of fraud and trickery surrounded bounty collection. Because hunters were not always required to relinquish the wolf skin upon collection of a bounty, sometimes the same pelt would be shown in two or more states. Some wolfers would set the pups they found free, in order to ensure a "crop" of wolves for the following year. One rancher captured a wolf as a pup and kept it in captivity until it was fully grown in order to receive the higher bounty price on adult wolves (Young 1946).

The bounty system, even before the government became involved, was wildly successful. Montana records state that between 1883 and 1918, nearly 81,000 wolves were killed for the bounty on their hides (Williams 1990). These wolves were bountied for $342,764 (Lopez 1978).

In 1915, the federal government enacted an official wolf-eradication program in the western United States. No wolves were spared. Even the National Park System participated in the wolf extermination efforts. Rangers working for Yellowstone National Park actively sought and killed any wolves they could find. From 1914 to 1926, Yellowstone rangers killed at least 136 wolves, including about 80 pups (United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Northern Rocky Mountain Wolf Recovery Team 1980).

Wolfing soon established itself as a viable occupation. Many hunters were hired by ranchers, paid a salary, and given a per-head bounty for any wolves they killed. An experienced trapper working out of a large ranch often received $200 a month in salary plus board. In addition to this regular pay, the employer might also pay the trapper upwards of $50 for each adult wolf killed and $20 for each pup killed. Beyond that, trappers regularly collected $5 to $10 for each dead wolf from the county, state, and stock association (Young 1946). Wolf killing became an extremely lucrative business.

Wolfers acknowledged the keen senses and intelligence of the wolf. They were always looking for new ways to trick the wolf into capture. For some hunters, catching wolves became an almost addictive conquest. Wolf bounty hunters employed a wide variety of methods in capturing the wolf. They would commonly trap, poison or "den" the wolves. On occasion, biological warfare was also waged against wolves.

Trapping.-With the introduction of steel wolf traps, trapping was, for a time, very successful. The traps were set along well-used wolf scent and travel trails. "Traps were baited with a noxious recipe of rotten glands, wolf body parts, urine, and feces, reminiscent of medieval alchemical potions. Set on well-known trails in advance of approaching target animals, traps would hold their prey until hunters arrived to inspect them. In the event of a successful catch, the wolfers then beat the animal to death with a ‘numbing club,’ which comprised a standard part of the bounty hunter’s kit" (Burbank 1990:99) Over time, wolves became trap wise, and so were much more difficult to capture.

Poisoning.-Deadly not only to wolves, the poisonous residues left by bounty hunters affected many other animals as well. Strychnine, the most common poison, was used liberally. "Thousands of men brought up enormous quantities of strychnine and rode out pell-mell on the range" (Lopez 1978:179). The wolfers laid poisoned meat everywhere, sometimes in lines as long as 150 miles. "They shot small birds, carefully painted a paste of strychnine solution under the skin at the breastbone and scattered these about the prairie" (Lopez 1978:179-80). The strychnine had disastrous effects on the whole ecosystem. "Ranch dogs died. Children died. Everything that ate meat died. The greed, the ready availability of poison, and a refusal to consider the consequences generated a holocaust" (Lopez 1978:180). Stanley Young, a wolf historian and biologist, explains the extensive utilization of strychnine poison and the deadly effects of its intense use.

Destruction by this strychnine poisoning campaign that covered an empire has hardly been exceeded in North America, unless by the slaughter of the passenger pigeon, the buffalo, and the antelope. There was a sort of unwritten law of the range that no cowman would knowingly pass by a carcass without inserting in it a goodly dose of strychnine sulfate, in the hopes of eventually killing one more wolf. The hazard to other forms of wildlife involved by this lavish use of strychnine was not taken into consideration by stock interests at the time. Kit foxes, so prevalent at the time on the plains, were poisoned by the thousands...the predominating thought was "to get the wolf by by any and all means possible." Not only the wolves were killed, but also innumerable other carnivores including the Northern Plains Red Fox, the Northern Plains Skunk, the Texas Skunk...and in addition, many birds, such as hawks, eagles, magpies, and ravens perished from feeding on poisoned baits (Young and Goldman 1944:335-37).

Denning.-"Denning" wolves involves locating a wolf den with pups, excavating the den, and then killing any wolves found inside. Denning wolves is a very effective technique for reducing the annual increase in wolf populations because it involves interrupting the breeding cycle by destroying the pups and the den. It was one of the most valuable techniques employed in wolf extermination (Young and Goldman 1944). One of the most successful ways professional wolfers removed pups from their dens involved employing the services of a young child. The child, small enough to crawl into the den space, would grab a pup. Once the child possessed the pup, the wolfer, standing outside the den, would pull the child and pup out. This was done repeatedly until all of the pups were removed and killed (Young and Goldman 1944). One trapper relates his experiences denning with a small child, "My son often took hold of a young wolf that was extremely difficult to handle, and...occasionally he got hold of an old adult female, but never suffered any disastrous results" (Young and Goldman 1944:319).

Biological Warfare.-Some methods used to control wolves went beyond ordinary trapping and poisoning. In 1905, cattle ranchers in Montana won passage of a law that required the state veterinarian to infect captive wolves with the sarcoptic mange and release them into wild wolf habitat (Williams 1990). The sarcoptic mange is a serious disease that wreaks disastrous effects on the wolves. This disease was introduced in hopes of weakening or killing the wolf population. The wolf battles escalated into biological warfare.

The ultimate effect of these predator control campaigns virtually extirpated of the wolf in the United States. In May 1943, the last wolf killed in Yellowstone fell to the rifle of a local cattleman (Loomis 1995). By 1945, the only wolves left in the Western United States were stragglers (Lopez 1978were all but gone. Except for a small population in northern Minnesota and a ). The wolves few on Isle Royale in Lake Superior, wolves no longer existed in the lower forty-eight states (Lopez 1978).