Watched by Wild Animals

by Enos A. Mills

One day I watched a trapper spend several hours in placing more than a hundred traps round the carcass of a cow. He avoided touching the carcass. This concealed trap arrangement was as complicated as a barbed-wire entanglement. At one place he set the traps three abreast and five deep. On another probable line of approach he set ten traps, singly, but on a zigzag line. Two fallen logs made a V-shaped chute, which ended close to the carcass. In the narrow end of this chute another cluster of traps was set. Thus the carcass was completely surrounded by numerous concealed traps. It seemed impossible for any animal to walk to the carcass without thrusting a foot into one of the steel jaws of this network of concealed traps. Yet a wolf got through that night and feasted on the carcass!

Clever ways have been devised to keep human scent off the poisoned meat. Poison is inserted into pieces of meat without touching them with the hand. Then these choice dainties are taken on horseback in a rawhide bucket and scattered with wooden pinchers, the dispenser wearing rubber gloves. Yet most wolves will starve before touching these morsels, evidently scenting the poison!

Forced by poison and traps to avoid most dead stuff that man has touched, the wolf is compelled to do more killing. Then, too, his special development and increased experience, together with his exceptional equipment and opportunity, afford him a living and leave him spare energy and time; so for the fun of it he kills and kills, like a game-hog.

In Montana I once saw a pair of wolves attack a broncho. The horse, which was exceptionally keen-witted and agile, fought the wolves off successfully for several minutes, and finally smashed a hind leg of one with a kick. He then became aggressive, and endeavoured to stamp the injured wolf to death. Under the brave protection of the other wolf, which fiercely fought the enemy, the disabled one tried to escape; but the horse landed a kick on this fighter, crippled it, and finally killed both.

The new environment of wolf life that accompanied the approach of man demanded a change of habit. Many things that wolves had always done—which had been good enough for their ancestors—must be done no more; things that never had been done must be done at once. It was the old, inexorable law—the survival of the fittest; the passing of those which could not change and cope with newly imposed conditions.

Any one who has had experience with wolves is pretty certain to conclude that they are intelligent—that they reason. A trapper who thinks that a wolf is guided by instinct, who fails to realize lupine vigilance, and forgets that wolves are always learning—ever adapting themselves to changing environment—will be laughed at by a multiplying wolf population.

With astounding quickness the new dangers man introduced into the wolf world were comprehended and avoided. In the decade following 1885 wolves appear to have gained knowledge of human ways more rapidly than man developed in his knowledge of wolf ways. This rapid mental development on their part cannot be called instinct. Plainly it was a case of intelligence and the wisdom of experience. Surviving wolves have learned absolutely to avoid those insidious means of death that high bounties have led man to invent for their extermination.

Apparently, too, old wolves promptly educate their children; so that the youngsters avoid these new complex dangers. Whether this education is consciously given on the part of the old wolves matters not. The fact that wolves multiplied in the midst of the concerted and relentless war waged against them by man indicates that the youngsters learned how to take care of themselves from the experience and not from the instincts of their parents. The safety-first slogan in the wolf world appears to be: “Avoid being seen by a man; and never, never touch anything that carries the scent of man or of iron or steel.”

A generation or two ago a wolf took no pains to keep out of sight; now he uses his wits to avoid being seen. Then it was easy to trap him; now he has become exceedingly difficult to trap. Long-range rifles, poison, and steel traps brought about these changes. It was about 1880 when wolves began to develop this cunning for self-preservation. Heavy bounties brought numerous trappers and hunters into the wolf domain; but such was their development that, despite this incessant warring, for fifteen years the wolves actually multiplied.

Both old wolves play with the puppies, and on rare occasions both at the same time. More often one of the old ones allows the puppies to play with it. The old one will lie full length while the puppies tug and chew at its ears, bite and tug at tail, and snap at nose. Upon the old one they climb, trampling and scuffling about. To all this the old one submits without a move, unless it is to encourage or prolong the interest of the puppies.