WOLVES IN CANADA.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3379, 20 June 1927, Page 8

WOLVES IN CANADA.

KILLING CAMPAIGNS ARRANGED

Wolf-killing campaigns are as old as organised society, but the Canadian Department of the Interior has introduced a new element into them by endeavoring to make the ravenous beast pay for his own destruction. If wolves were easy to trap there would never be a wolf menace—the trappers would attend to .that. But wolves are notoriously the most difficult of all animals to kill or capture and for this reason the trapper naturally gives ins attention to fur-bearers more easily taken

Canada’s northern country is steadily being opened up. Possibilities in hunting, ranching, mining and other lines are coming into sight, but it is a truism that these can only be developed with the aid of the native population of Indian's and Eskimos. For generations the natives have depended lor a great part of their food and clothing upon the caribou. The wolf preys on this animal and does further damage by destroying the fur-bearers caught in the traps of the hunters. To check these losses and to protect the subsistence of the Indians and Eskimos the Dominion Government iu 1915 offered a bounty of £4 per head for each wolf killed in the North-west Territories, the hunter being allowed after receiving the bounty to sell the pelt for what it would fetch. This brought about little, if any, increase iii the number of wolves destroyed, and to get the situation into hand the North-west Territories and Yukon Brunch in the winter of 1922-23, and again in 1923-24, sent a wolf-hunting party into the caribou country east of Great Slave>Lake which resulted in the do,struct ion in the two years of 320 wolves. The pelts thus obtained were sold at auction and the proceeds materially assisted in paying the cost of these expeditions. ■ln 1924, following up Ike successes thus attained, the bounty was increased from £4 to £6 per wolf, upon condition that the pelt he surrendered to tlie Department. The pelts are received from the hunters at the various Royal Canadian Mounted Police posts, and shipped direct to the fur auctions ir Eastern Canada to be disposed of at the various sales. This has given a great impetus to the wolf-extermina-tion campaign and at the same time lias lessened the cost per wolf to the Department; for while some of the pelts taken under the bounty scheme are only of average value the majority are prime skins of the huge timber wolf of the north, skins which are sought by dealers from all over the world. At the sales held in 1926 and the one in January. 1927, pelt's to the number of 96! aero disposed of for 13,861 dollars (about £2732). Thus, although the hunter was encouraged by the increased bounty of £6 to got more wolves, the Government effected a considerable saving as compared with the former bounty of £4 and the expansion of the market caused' by the knowledge that •such pelts can be secured in quantity will tend to further reduce the cost of combating the wolf menace.