Extinct Pennsylvania Animals (Volume 2): Wolf Days in Pennsylvania

Extinct Pennsylvania Animals, Vol II: Wolf Days In Pennsylvania
By Henry W. Shoemaker


INDEX

I. Preface

II. The Last 'Wolf— Who Gets the Credit

III. The Last Pack

IV. Three Kinds of Wolves

V. Description and Habits

VI. Former Prevalence

VII. The Biggest Wolf

VII. A White Wolf in Sugar Valley

IX. Cause of Extinction

X. Wolf Hunting in Pennsylvania

XI Possible Re-Introduction

XII. Superstitions

XIII. Bravest of the Brave

XIV. Catching Wolves With Fish Hooks

XV. Historical Data

I. PREFACE

That a new book treating on the much-discussed wolf can be written at all the animal must be described from an entirely different point of view, else it would be superfluous. Happily the author feels that there is a side, an important one, to the wolfish character, which has been overlooked or perverted. It is a side decidedly favorable to the animal, to its inherent right to live, to be protected by mankind. The wolf of Pennsylvania accomplished much more good than harm. At the time when the Indians ranged the Continent and Nature's balance was perfect, the wolf played an important role. With the panther it preyed upon the weak and sickly wild animals and birds, preventing the perpetuation of imperfect types and the spread of pestilences. It kept up a high standard of excellence among the lesser creatures, was the great preserver of type and perfection. Wolves having no animals to prey on them killed the sick and weakly specimens of their own race, thereby keeping up the standard of strength and virility. Charles John Andersson, in his remarkable book. "The Lion and the Elephant," in speaking of the lions of Central Africa said: "Destroy them and the hoofed animals would perish in masses of inanition." In addition wolves devoured bugs, insects, grubs and worms of an injurious nature. When the white man appeared on the scene and began killing all living things indiscriminately, the food supply of the wolves was affected. The wolfish diet required meat, and this at times became unobtainable. Crazed with hunger the wolves attacked calves, pigs and sheep, which slow of motion and easily captured, occupied the same relative position to them as had the formerly abundant weak and imperfect deer, elk, rabbits and hares. Just as some otherwise harmless men commit murder when crazed by lack of food, the wolves played havoc in farm yards that otherwise they would have left unmolested. But most of the sheep killed by "wolves" were slain by half-wild, vicious dogs. There are fewer sheep in Pennsylvania today than when there were wolves. What is needed is an efficient dog law. As the result, bounties were put on the...

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