The Portland daily press., 1896-12-05


remainder of the year. Manager John
on has adopted half a dozen devices in
his endeavcrs to exterminate them.
Firearms do not prove very effective, as
the wolves are wary and keen of scent
Frequently female wolves in breeding
time are ridden down by cowboys, lassoed
and shot.
Whole families of the animals are
sometimes asphyxiated in their dens. A
wolf of the gray variety generally makes
it's home by getting on the side of dirt
gulch and burrowing straight inward un-
til safe distance from the surface is
reached. There her young are born and
raised to sturdy cub estate. When COW
boy locates q den In which he believes
the entire family to be gathered COM
posite inasa of cotton, saturated with
damp -four, sulphur. and other noxious-
smelling substances, is thrust into the
den and set on fire. The tmouth of the
bols is then filled with clay, tramped
down soiidly, and the imprisoned wolves
are speedily suffooated within. In this
way six to ten or eleven wolves, young
and old, ara wiped out at one stroke.
Another effective method is to bore
four or more holes in flat piece of board
and plug them up with teef fat, soaked
in strychnine The oGor OF the fat at
tracts any wolves that may be In the
vicinity, and they lick the fat voracious-
ly unuil the leavening of poison does Its
har HTOn dead
Very often as many as a dozen wolves
are killed off by this process before the
fat in the holes is exhausted.
Strychnine enclosed in capsules Is also
used. The capsule is thrust into slit
cut in chunk of beef, and the wolf,
boiling the meat whole, falls an easy
victim. Steel traps. baited with raw beef
are also tried with fair sucness.
But these devices are little better than
puny in the aggregate of their results.
The wolves seem to increase by the
thousand, despite the large mum bers of
them killed by the ranchmen and their
employees. The offers of scalp boCnties
by private individuals and companies
do not Undue professional hunters to get
after the wolves to any apprecinble ex-
tent, on account of the conditions under
which these off ers are made. No bounty
is paid unless clear proof is given by the
scalp that the wolf WAS killed on the ter
ritory of the ranchman on whom the de-
mand for S. is made.
Under the wolf Bounty statute the
State Iaid asbounty for every scalp pro-
duced, no matter where it came from.
This led to abuses, such as the import
ing of wolf soalps and the DEMONSTRATING
of wolves in pairs for breeding purposes
for the money there was in the. operation.
Strong efforts Will be made, neverthe-
less, to GET the Legislature now about to
convene to pass another appropriation
bill. As rule, gray wolf attacks
horse or steer by springing at the
animals throat and cutting the jugular
vein at bite. Gray wolves tr ayel in,
packs of from five to twenty, and nearly
always, n,,vulture fashion, the wolf pack
is followed by pack of it's Tcowardly
cousins, the coyotes. The latter seldom
attack large animal on their own ac-
count, but""conuent themselves by feast
ing on the remnants of the gray wolves
prey. Several instances are reported of
la.e where wolves gave chase to lone cow
boys on horseback. At night the howls
of hundreds Of coyotes can be heard
around the settlements and cattle camps
in the infested distrio ts.
Hunters have found it only too easy to
find bears during the last six months,
since the early SHOWS drove the ursine
tribe out of the mountains. The ranch
men, who suffer from the attentions of
the brutes, have similar story to tell.
There are four well-known individual
Gears In the State, each of which has a
GOOD, round price upon it's head. The
farmers Of Routt county are willing TO
pay a reward of $2C0 to anybody who will
kill monster that makes it's haunts
along Terrible Creek. On Miller Creek,
near Meeker, there il tear that will be
worth $50 to any hunter who can pro-
duce its hide In the town of Meeker.
Goose Greek, near Wagon Wheel Gap,
has for years been patrolled by bear
which is credited with a stride fourteen
feet in length, from the mark, of this
right fore paw to the mark of the eft
hind paw. This giant will net $50 to
anybody brave and skillful enough to
put an end to it's steer-slaughtering