The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-08-03
Bsau1MAU WOLF DESTROYER.
With the Taste of Their own Blood
He Maddens Them to Death.

With the Taste of Their Own Blood
He Maddens Them to Death.
1t was from Alaska that these wolf
skins come that furnish the material for
the rug now so popular in house fur
nishings.
They are shipped thence by tens of thou
sands and it may be imagined that the
Esquimaux who kill the animals get an
extremely small price for the pelts, which
are sold at so low figure after being cured
and made up into rugs. The secret of il
lies in a scheme by which the wolves are
induced to destroy each other wholesale.
The method is very simple. The Es-
quimauX takes a thin blade of flint, chip
ped so as to be sharp as a razor along
the edges. This he faStenS securely to the
end OF a wooden stake and drives the
latter deep into the ice, so that the flint
blade projects above. Then he binds a
chunk of seal blubber around the flint
blade with string OF slnew, thus con-
cealing the sharpened instrument within.
BY and by along comes a big gray wolf.
He is hungry, as wolves always are. His
nose is supernaturally keen and he has
scented the dainty morsel of blubber from
afar. Eagerly he begins to lick the fat,
which is frozen hard. This process melts
the blubber little and it tastes delicious.
After a short time his tongue comes into
contact with the keen edge of the flint and
is cut. The blood flows. All! The flavor
it IS his own blood.
BY this time other wolves have arrived
al The spot. These animals travel in
packs. because only thus can they assail
the reindeer and other large beasts with
success. They likewise lick the blubber,
cut their tongues on the flint and taste
the flavor of blood 1t maddens them, and
in few minutes the stake driven into the
ice is the center of a crazy mob of raven
Gus wild dogs. They attack each other
and fight to the death. 1t is fearful
spectacle. They go on fighting until all
are dead or desperately wounded
Some hours later the Esquimau appears
on the scene and surveys it with salts
faction The ice around the flint-headed
stake is Redeemed with blood. All around
are scattered the bodies of dead wolves.
The ingenious hunter calmly proceeds to
skin his four-footed victims and carries
the peits away on his sled.
This process of destruction is universal
" practiced by the Alaskan natives, and
is many fold more efficacious than any or
binary method of hunting could be- A
party of hunters can set out in even a
brief northern day an infinite number
of these awful battle stakes and the next
day. and the next, and the next viii not
suffice for them TO gather up the wolf
skins which are the harvest of that stu
pendous slaughter.
The Alaskan plan of wolf hunting has
a charm peculiarly attractive to the leis-
ure-loving EsGuimauX-it reduces the
work to a minimum. His only objection
TO it is that, after the wolf gets himself
and convey his hide to the market town
His system is a more deadly and more
wholesale one than that used by the In
dams still further south, in driving the
buffalo out of existence.
But the wolves multiply fast, enough to
meet any demand
That is why wolf skin robes are so
cheap.-Chicago Journal.