What are wolfers?
The Wolf Hunt – Wolfers in the Old West & Canada – History – What are Wolfers?
Wolfers were hunters who specialized in killing wolves, selling their pelts for the bounties paid by US Federal, western States and Territorial governments as well as Cattlemen’s Associations.
By the early 1870s, “wolf hunters had almost exterminated every wolf from Texas to the Dakotas, from Missouri to Colorado.” [1]
So they moved into the unpoliced Canadian northwest.
Wolfers laced the bodies of skinned bison or freshly killed mule deer with strychnine, a cruel poison. Wolfers and Buffalo Hunters often worked together. After buffalo were slaughtered and skinned, the unwanted bodies were left unused on the prairie. Wolfers would sprinkle the carcasses with their strychnine. The Native peoples were enraged at the mass slaughter of their bison (as well as the resulting strychnine poisoning of their dogs) and the white hunters would band together for security.
An example of this was the 1870’s fortified fur trading post on the Spitzee River (aka High River) on the Canadian western plains. The group of buffalo hunters, wolfers and fur trappers called themselves the “Spitzee Cavalry.” The “cavalry” attacked both outraged Natives and white whiskey traders who were giving guns and ammunition to the local First Nations.
A US government pamphlet had the following to say about how to poison wolves:
“Many wolves are killed by poisoning, and more would be so killed if the methods followed were less crude. Strychnine is generally used with nothing to disguise its intense bitterness. The powder being either inserted in bits of meat or fat or merely spread on a fresh carcass. In most cases the wolf gets a taste of the bitter drug and rejects it. And if the dose is swallowed it may be too small to be fatal or so large as to act as an emetic…
“An old and experienced wolf will rarely touch bait poisoned in the ordinary way. But sometimes a whole family of young may be killed at a carcass. Usually when wolves are poisoned, they go so far before they die that if found at all it is not until their skins are spoiled. To encourage poisoning, it must be possible to secure the skins in good condition. Or at least, to find the animals after they are killed, so that the ranchman may have the satisfaction of knowing that he has accomplished something toward the protection of his stock.” [2]
A more recent article about poisoning wolves said this:
“A carcass laced with a small amount of strychnine, a grainy substance that looked like table salt, could attract and kill several dozen wolves within a short period of time. Before the 1880s, a dead buffalo might hold the poison. After the American bison was gone from the plains, another dead animal would suffice. Some wolf hunters sprinkled a carcass with strychnine in the deep of winter, returning in the spring to find dead wolves sprawled around the poisoned animal.” [3]
As bait animals became scarcer, prairie wolfers went back to steel traps and shooting with firearms.
By the turn of the century, strychnine was also being replaced by dynamite, which the hunters threw into wolf dens. Wiping out the entire den — adults and cubs.
Or live pups could be pulled out of their dens with “a hook, something on the order of a gaff hook such as is used by fishermen.” And then killed.
In “Bulletin 72,” issued by the United States Department of Agriculture, the author, Mr. Vernon Bailey, had the following to say on the subject:
“The actual number of cattle killed by wolves can not be determined. Comparatively few animals are found by cattlemen and hunters, when freshly killed, with wolf tracks around them and with wolf marks on them. Not all of the adult cattle missing from a herd can surely be charged the depredations of wolves, while missing calves may have been taken by wolves, by mountain lions, or by ‘rustlers.'”
And Perry Davis, an Old-time American wolfer, wrote this:
“I have heard of wolves attacking persons in the woods of the Northeastern States. I have no reason to doubt this. They may be a different wolf from our grey wolf, or buffalo wolf, as they are often called. I have seen them in the Panhandle country of Northwest Texas, in Colorado, Wyoming, the Dakotas, Montana and Canada. They are all the same, as far as I could see, in looks, size and habits. And I have never heard of them molesting anyone in the above mentioned places.”
“There is no authentic report of wolves ever having killed a human being in the Canadian North, although there must have been times when the temptation was well-nigh irresistible.” – Canadian naturalist and author Farley Mowat.
Wolfers in Canada. An Historic Note:
Wolfers notoriously were among the members of the “Spitzee Cavalry,” along with buffalo hunters and fur trappers, who attacked a band of sleeping Assiniboines in June of 1873. The Cypress Hills Massacre. [4] The tragic event that led to the formation of the North-West Mounted Police.
For more, see CANADIAN MOUNTIES Creation & History Royal Mounted Police – RCMP News.
“Live Free, Mon Ami!” – Brian Alan Burhoe
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfers_(hunting)
[2] From WOLF AND COYOTE TRAPPING: An Up-to-Date Wolf Hunter’s Guide, Giving the Most Successful Methods of Experienced “Wolfers” for Hunting and Trapping These Animals by A. R. Harding, 1909.
[3] https://outsidebozeman.com/nature/killing-fields
[4] A Helena newspaper gave this account of a “party of wolfers, who had been out in the Whoop-up Country during the entire past winter.” The story was based on the eyewitness report of two participants:
“Our agent, just returned from Benton, brings the particulars of a recent fight between the whites and Indians, which terminated as fatally to the latter as did the engagement of Col. Baker and troops with the Piegans three years since…
“Each man was armed with a Henry rifle and two Smith & Wesson’s large revolvers, was well mounted, and five good pack animals were taken along with the party…
“They arrived at a small trading post at Cypress Mountain, two hundred miles within the British border. It was determined to attack this encampment of Assiniboines… ”
– Helena Daily Herald, June 11, 1873.
The Wolf Hunt – Wolfers in the Old West & Canada – History
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