Wolves once trapped, also were hunted to extinction in Minnesota area 

In IUCNCongress, Protect Minnesota Wolves, Protect The Wolves by Twowolves2 Comments

Protect Minnesota Wolves

Gray wolves were among the animals hunted in the area during the years of the fur traders, who considered the canines’ rough fur of lesser value than other pelts.

Fur trading along the Minnesota River ended in the early 1850s as the land of the Dakota was purchased by the federal government and traditional trading partners were lost. That did not mean hunting and trapping ended in the region.

Between March and July, 1867, $88,800 worth of pelts (more than $1 million in today’s terms) were sold from the area, muskrat being the most common. Several dealers in pelts and furs operated in Mankato, and the Mankato Hide and Fur Company continued in business into the early years of the 20th century.

The earliest settlers left few accounts of wolf encounters, perhaps because they were so common it wasn’t noteworthy or perhaps because they had been hunted out. Settlers hunted wolves to eliminate a predator that competed for the meat in their diets supplied by deer and other herbivores.

However, in the 1880s news items mentioning wolves killing livestock began to be published in local publications.

Bounties were set in 1880: $5 for scalps brought in between October and April, and $2.50 for those brought in between April and October.

The previous year, $786 had been paid out in bounties to individuals in 17 townships in the county. Most of these wolves were killed in Judson and Butternut Valley townships.

Wolves were not the only danger to livestock back then.

Early in January 1880, a Mankato newspaper received information that the pelts of several wild cats had been brought in to the Mankato Fur Company.

“Wild cats are on the rampage” was the headline for this account published in the newspaper: “F. B. Hitchcock, G. Christiansen and Stafford brought in one from the Minnesota River woods … two days later Beach and Stafford captured another.” The area where the animals were killed was probably near Seppman’s Mill.

In 1895, a 24-pound wild cat was killed in the town of South Bend and its residents at that time guessed there were several more in the area.

Wolves were the more pressing concern. The Mankato Review reported in April 1880 that wolves were “becoming so uncomfortably numerous” in timber areas that farmers were killing or selling their sheep. One farmer lost 16 sheep in one night. The Mankato Free Press reported, in December of that year, that wolves were “getting troublesome in localities near the river,” especially mentioning the Cambria area.

Several had been caught, according to the paper, and “young Morris Lewis and John Williams are after them.” The article ended “Good-bye wolves!”

However, the wolves didn’t leave that easily. In January 1882, several large wolves were seen in Danville Township, far from the Minnesota River Valley. They were to be hunted when there was enough snow to track them.

In March of that year, the Weekly Review published the flowery telling of a hunt, using fox hounds, on the R.T. Woolfolk farm, about three miles from Mankato. A big timber wolf was killed and the bounty collected.

The spring of 1882 it was again reported wolves were numerous around Cambria, and the lambs were suffering. Not everyone was out hunting wolves, however. One reader of The Free Press wrote that he had knowledge of wolves blamed for the killing of sheep when, in fact, it was dogs.

Bounty was paid for 19 wolves in 1890, totaling $62.50, and in January 1891, $22.50 was paid to Wm. Brenner of Rapidan.

Hunting for bounties must have seemed like a good income to one man. In April 1893 it was discovered the same man had collected a bounty under different names in Blue Earth, Waseca, Faribault and Kandiyohi counties, apparently all for the same wolf scalp.

The Lake Crystal Mirror reported on wolf sightings in 1893. Frank Thurston and A. Loomis had tracked two wolves from the Blue Earth River toward Lake Crystal. Their hounds had killed one of them. In March, there was another wolf hunt on the Blue Earth River. The next fall, A. L. Loomis received a bounty of $10 for a 6-foot-long wolf that would have stood 2 1/2 feet tall. It was one of the largest ever brought to the courthouse for bounty.

About $50 was paid for bounties in 1894, and about $80 in 1895. However by 1900, there were no wolf bounty payments to be recorded, according to the county’s year-end financial statement. It appeared as if the wolf had been eradicated from Blue Earth County, but in March 1923, the Mankato Ledger reported a wolf was being hunted in Lime Township. All was quiet again, until September of 1940 when, according to The Free Press, several wolves were killed in Lime Township.

In March 1946, a wolf was brought in from Lime Township for a $25 bounty payment. Residents said that several others had also been killed, part of a small pack living along the Minnesota River and killing sheep.

To see a wolf in Blue Earth County would be a surprise today, and would probably bring out more people carrying cameras than those with guns.

The gray wolf is listed on Minnesota’s endangered species list, although hunts have been allowed in northern Minnesota in recent years.

Source: Wolves once trapped, hunted in area | Local News | mankatofreepress.com

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