Odd, Old News: When Wolves Made the News

[Image from United States Fish and Wildlife]

Of the four legged predators largely eliminated by the two-legged alpha predators, few have inspired as much fear, folklore, and colorful colloquialisms as Canis Lupus … the grey wolf. They were native to California and once ranged from San Diego to Washington. Considered a keystone species, their predation has played an important role in regulating the populations of their prey, including deer and elk, helping to hold ecosystems in a healthy balance. Their re-introduction into California in the past decade has been politically contentious due to their threat to livestock. Ranchers and environmentalists have rarely seen eye to eye on the issue.

Several wolf packs have been established in the northeastern section of the state, and this spring one wolf wandered farther south than any wolves had been seen in nearly a century, its tracking collar showed that it had made it to the Fresno area

Wolf populations stayed high in other areas of the country and Europe into the later 1800’s, but they were mostly gone earlier than this in the lower half of Humboldt County.

All of the Southern Athabaskan language speaking Native Americans had a word for wolf.

The intrusion of Euro-Americans stockmen into wolf territory, and the bounties offered by the state decimated their numbers. Long considered the enemy of sheepmen, wolf kills earned a larger bounty than that placed on coyotes. In Lake County in 1881, sheepmen paid a $25 wolf bounty that was funded by taxing their sheep herds. In other parts of the country, killing wolves was a lucrative business, 10,000 wolves were killed in North Dakota in 1898. In a few eastern states, unscrupulous people had sizable wolf farms, raising them only to sell their scalps for reward. As awful as it sounds, taking a scalp from a predator was the required proof for obtaining the bounty. Scalping was an industry in itself, people in states that paid little took scalps to states which paid more. Wolves are a state endangered species, today it is illegal to hunt, hurt, or kill them.

“Currently, the U.S. is home to over 5,000 wolves in the lower 48 states and an estimated 7,000 to 11,200 wolves in Alaska. Globally, wolf populations are estimated to be 200,000 individuals spread across 57 countries. This is just a fraction of historical population estimates of 2 million wolves worldwide”.

Forested regions in the Northern Humboldt and Trinity counties still had small wolf populations into modern times, some areas had occasional sightings into the 1960’s.

Odd Old News will review the post- 1875 newspaper record of wolf sightings in our area. The first news account occurred in the Mad River region where a coyote hunt turned up “an immense grey wolf”:

Humboldt Times Standard
March 2, 1886
Minn Hunt came in from Big Bend, on Mad River, last evening. He says they had about seven inches of snow there last week, and that the fall is general all over the ranges. As the weather is dry and cold, he says sheep will not suffer, though some lambs will probably be lost. Coyotes are destroying sheep on the Mad River ranges to a considerable extent. Hunt tells us that Beckwith discovered a track a few days ago, and offered $10 for the scalp of the animal. Tod and Crawford offered another $10, and Minn started after the varmint. He followed his track till he came on to him, and brought him down with his Winchester. The brute proved to be, instead of a coyote, an immense grey wolf. Minn got his $2O. Beckwith now offers $20 for coyotes, and as there are plenty of them on his range coyote catchers have a splendid opportunity to go into business right away.

The next report was from 1904:

In 1904, B. A Frost, a well known veterinary surgeon, extracted several wolf teeth from I. N. Minor’s colts near Glendale. Four years later, Salmon Creek was the scene of what may have been one of the last wolf sightings in Southern Humboldt:

WOLF SHOT ON ELK RIDGE IN SOUTHERN HUMBOLDT BY LESLIE FEARRIEN OF BRICELAND.
Humboldt Time Standard
January 22, 1908
A prominent Eurekan, who returned yesterday from southern Humboldt, reports that last Wednesday morning Leslie Fearrien of Briceland killed a black wolf, while bear hunting on Elk Ridge near the Waddington and William Samuels place. At the time Fearrien was after coyotes. One of his smaller dogs for some reason left the pack and dodged into the underbrush on one side of the road, and in a few seconds was glad to get out on the road again, fleeing toward Fearrien with the black fellow hard after him. It was the first one that the hunter had seen in that section, but his aim was none the more faulty. When the wolf was 30 feet off, Fearrien fired, killing instantly, the dead body of the animal rolling over and over for ten or fifteen feet. It was found that the wolf weighed over 100 pounds.

Fourteen years later, signs of two of the “few remaining” timber wolves were seen on Liscom Hill, one was trapped and killed:

A LARGE TIMBER WOLF TRAPPED
Blue Lake Advocate
April 1, 1922
Lawrence Ford of Liscom Hill Got Animal in Trap—Weighs 51 Pounds and Measures Five Feet in length
Lawrence Ford of Liscom Hill, near Blue Lake, was a visitor to Arcata Tuesday and reported to the Union about the catching of big timber wolf in a No. 3 steel trap on the Ford ranch a few days ago. The big brute weighed 51 pounds, and measured five feet from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail. His front teeth were worn down to about half of what they should have been, showing him to be an old veteran. Previous efforts to catch the animal with baited traps had always failed and success this time came with burled traps, by finding where the wolf had passed between two logs, when the snow was on the ground. He had been accompanied by a mate who escaped the traps. Examination of the contents of the wolf’s stomach showed that he had recently been feeding on sheep and also venison, but the sheep must have been killed some distance from Liscom Hill, as Mr. Ford has not lost any animals for some time past. The wolf was skinned and the county bounty collected, and Mr. Ford is very glad to be rid of his unwelcome boarder. Timber wolves are scarce in Humboldt, and it is a very rare occurrence to get one in a trap.

Wolves and coyotes are genetically close enough to mate and produce offspring as may have been the case in 1933. Winter storms had deposited 2-4 feet of snow on Old Burnt Ranch, and a local reported that coyotes and a big panther had been quite busy killing deer or any other animal they could in his section. The writer was told “that over on the P. G. & E. line, the coyotes show a disposition to battle with human beings. The animals are quite large and are probably a cross between a wolf and coyote”(Blue Lake Advocate, 1/28/1933)

The news accounts skip twenty eight years until it another timber wolf kill was reported:

Myers Gunderson Bags Large Wolf
Blue Lake Advocate
May 13, 1950
Myers Gunderson of Upper Redwood Creek shot a large timber wolf on May 7. Gunderson reports that this wolf has been hanging around his place for some time, trying to catch his goats. He shot the animal with a 25-20 rifle, killing it with his first shot. Gunderson reports that this is the first wolf that he has ever seen in these hills and it measured 5 feet, 4 1/2 inches from tip to tip and weighed 71 pounds. He plans to tan the pelt and use it for a rug.

The early 1960’s had a number of wolf sightings in the county:

“A wild animal which looked like a wolf was reported seen by different people above Oak Bottom on the Salmon river last week”(Blue Lake Advocate, 10/6/1960).

“Lawrence Knudsen Sr. reported he saw a timber wolf on Ishi Pishi road last week. Wild animals are scarce in this area but it has been reported seen during the past years. A year ago a wolf was reported seen near Oak Bottom, on the Salmon River road”(Blue Lake Advocate, 2/1/1962).

“A large timber wolf was reported seen Sunday by Merlen Tripp while driving on the Salmon River road near Oak Bottom. This wolf has been seen by several people the past several years”. (Blue Lake Advocate, 4/30/1964).

“A large timber wolf was reported seen by several different people in recent days at the old Somes Bar site. The large animal had been seen in the past three years in this area”(Blue Lake Advocate, 12/3/1964).

Odd Old News has shared only some of the wolf sightings in the northern counties, undoubtedly there have been many more encounters than what may be found in online newspapers. After such a recital of humans killing wolves, let us leave readers with something less grim–a link to scenes of a wolf fishing.

Historical trivia note –Tomato, tomahto or “Wolf Peach”? As early as 1590, the tomato was introduced from South America into England, but it was initially looked upon with suspicion as its Latin name reveals– Iycopersicum, derived from lykos (wolf) and persikon (peach).

Earlier Odd and Old News:

There are many, but here are the most recent:

• ‘Dope Evil Plainly Growing,’ Warns Early Eureka Newspaper
• A Real Fight With a Bear Up Mad River
• A Carriage Ride Down the Coast in 1892
• Lively Times At Klondike
• Drinking And Gambling Didn’t Mix
• The Round Valley Coal Fields
• ‘The Gypsies Are Coming!’
• Who Were the Romani?
• Anti-Gypsyism in 1897 Humboldt County
• Lost At Sea — The 1867 Wreck Of The Kaluna