White Pine news. [volume] (East Ely, Nev.) 1920-1923, 1923-03-25
WILD LIFE STUDIES
ON TRAP LINE

L have heard a lot about the big
catches that have been made in this
part Of the country and | have no
reason to doubt or dispute the word
of anybody said an Ely trappef
this week in talking over his expert
ences, twenty and thirty coyotes
trapped and skinned in a day being
among the number mentioned, but
so far as | have been able to run
down these stories they have been
that many more or less in a trip, and
Those trips have been Of three to five
DAYS duration. | do not put this
down as beating anybody, but 1t Is
the best | ever did when trapped
nineteen in a day and drove into
|Tonopah late that night with eighteen
of them.
This was in 1912, before the ra.
bies epidemic and high-priced fur,
and coyotes were numerous. Con-
servatively | would say that there
we're three or probably five in the
Nevada desert then where there Is
one today. They were SO thick and
hungry out on the Cactus flat, about
twenty to thirty miles southeast of
Tonopah, that they would clean up &
dead horse. leaving nothing but the
skeleton, the first night, and ordi-
narily a coyote will not eat any dead
animal or anything whatever the first
night that IL is out. There were quite
a few jackrabbits in that vicinity,
which were about the only food,
other than insects, horned toads and
lizards. that the coyotes there had
to eat. Consequently they were un-
der size and if there had been = coy.
ote welfare center TO weigh them
every n of them would have been
sent home TO its folks labeled under
weight
The previous year tour of Us
started from Tonopah to go to the
Pahranagat on The first hunting ex-
petition ever undertaken from the
Nye county metropolis 10 the Lincoln
county duck paradise. We had an
old Pope-Toledo car and when we got
out about twenty-five miles a gear
was stripped. Newt Crumley end Il.
II. Bacon liked back to town the
next day. Bacon's pins gave out on
the way and Newt sent Frank Sell
strom in a ear out after him. On
the way in Newt shot a coyote with
his pistol but was not sure ct the
time that he had killed II. When
he reached that spot coming back he
saw two coyotes eating something
and at the place he found only the
head and shoulders of the dead anil
nal. They will not eat each other
unless they are deathly hungry.
During the two days that Newt
was gone Billy Gardella and hunted
iackrabbits. We were eamped near
the forks of two roads, one going a
roundabout way by Tonopah lake,
which was the one we had come, the
cutoff being sandy. You take the
north side of the old road and IL
take the south, said /. When you
kill a rabbit bring IL over and throw
1t In the road. Wen gather them up
on the way back and not have to
carry them while we're hunting
We threw several rabbits In the road
and when we had worked down about
four miles we had wandered of from
the road quite a distance and haA
eleven rabbits with us when we met.
We saw Newt coming with n team
on the cutoff road, so we drew the
rabbits and left them there. agreeing
that we would get Newt to drive
hack by the old road and load them.
"On u way TO camp several OF
our rabbits were gone. The brush
was only short shad-scale, with much
bare hardpan. yet we never saw =
coyote. but they had stolen orr rab.
bits as fast as we shot them-a most
unusual thing for a coyote to do
Tho Eext morning. where the two
piles had been left. one of eleven
rabbits and the other of entrails.
there were a few hairs and a spat.
tering Of blood. Everything stolen.
"At that time I had never set a
trap and hardly had heard OF such a
thing. The mex winter | got in with
a Wyoming trapper and he taught
me several things about the bnsi.
ness. We started out with a car that