Hints on Wolf and Coyote Trapping

LEAFLET NO. 59

HINTS ON WOLF AND COYOTE TRAPPING
By Stanley P. Young, Principal Biologist, in Charge Division of Predatory-Animal and Rodent Control, Bureau of Biological Survey
Issued July, 1930
HE RANGE of coyotes and wolves in the United States to-day is confined mainly to the immense area west of the Mississippi River. Wolves, however, have been so materially reduced in numbers west of the one-hundredth meridian that except for those drifting into the United States from the northern States of Mexico, they are the cause of little concern. The areas now most heavily infested with wolves are in Alaska, eastern Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan. A few r of these animals are found also in northern Louisiana and eastward along the Gulf coastal area into Mississippi. Coyotes, on the other hand, exist in all the Western States, as well as in the Mid-Western States above listed as inhabited by wolves. They have also been reported in Orleans County, N. Y., and in southeastern Alabama where introduced.
Why Control Is Necessary
Coyotes and wolves make serious inroads on the stocks of sheep and lambs, cattle, pigs, and poultry, as well as on the wild game mammals and the ground-nesting and insectivorous birds of the country. Wherever these predatory animals occur in large numbers, they are a source of worry and loss to stockmen, farmers, and sportsmen because of their destructiveness to wild and domestic animals. The coyote is by far the most persistent of the predators of the western range country; and moreover, it is a further menace because it is a carrier of rabies, or hydrophobia. This disease was prevalent in Nevada, California, Utah, Idaho, and eastern Oregon in 1916 and 1917, and later in Washington and in southern Colorado. Since this widespread outbreak, sporadic cases of rabid coyotes have occurred each year in the Western States. The coyote has also been found to be a carrier of tularemia, a disease of wild rabbits and other rodents that is transmissible and sometimes fatal to human beings.