STANDARDIZED WOLVES
Those who want to believe that wolves do not run in packs should read
only the first two-thirds of this chapter. For believing in wolf-packs,
read the sections “Crumbs for Believers” and “Wolves for Posterity.”
The section “Wolves and Babes” can be read safely by believers and
non-believers, for these are an entirely different (though standard)
species and the nursing complex, save for one classic exception, seems
to be confined to Hindu wolves.
To read all sections may prove not merely difficult but also
confusing--may we hope even befuddling.
* * * * *
Everybody knows that wolves run in packs. One of the standard
definitions of pack is: “A large number of predatory animals, such as
wolves, banded together for the purpose of hunting their prey.”
That used to be an undisputed statement of the case. But now there is
an argument about whether any wolf-pack ever really existed, with the
scientists nearly all on one side, the general public nearly all on the
other, and the sportsmen divided about half and half.
On the affirmative side we have the undoubted fact that “everybody
knows,” especially in Russia, that wolves do run in packs. If you want
to refresh your mind as to what Russian wolf-packs are believed to be
like, you can do so easily and pleasantly by turning to Willa Cather’s
_My Antonía_, page 63. The people Miss Cather is going to feed to her
wolves are the very diet to which Russian wolves are most accustomed--a
wedding party. There are six sleighs drawn by three horses each and
carrying from six to twelve passengers. There is starlight on the snow
and the road is through a forest. The first distant wolf howl does not
drown the tinkle of the sleigh bells or the laughter of the wedding
guests. But the rallying cry is answered from many sides, the leaders
of the pack draw nearer, and fear grips every heart. The bride sobs on
the groom’s bosom and the drivers lash their horses to breakneck speed.
The rear sleigh upsets, the passengers sprawl out over the snow and
the wolves are on top of them in a moment. The screams of horses being
eaten alive are more dreadful than the shrieks of people whose entrails
are being torn out. The cries of terror from the remaining sleighs are
as loud as the cries of pain from the dying. The wolves are silent
now--they have other work to do.
And so the story goes on for sleigh after sleigh in Miss Cather’s
story, and in all the typical stories, until only the bridal sleigh
is left. About forty or fifty people and fifteen horses have now been
eaten, but the wolves are still hungry and going strong. There are
hundreds of them, you see, and wolves have proverbially good appetites.
Nothing will save the last sleigh but throwing the bride to the pack.
This Miss Cather accordingly does, and so do half the other authors
of tales. But it seldom happens that quite everybody is eaten.
Somebody has to be saved, to give the narrator a chance to portray the
survivor’s life of shame and remorse through many effective pages that
lead to a distant and friendless grave.
Such tales as Miss Cather’s we usually consider to be “true in spirit”
only, since they occur in novels, but we take them for sober fact when
we read them in books of travel or in newspapers. The press stories
excel the books in verisimilitude, for they tell us what is said to
have happened yesterday or last week. They give the names of places
that are on every map, they frequently mention the widow and orphaned
children, they sometimes tell that the funeral of the fragments left by
the wolves was conducted by the home lodge of Masons. There is every
detail to prove that what you see in the _Sun_ (or the _Bee_ or the
_American_) is really so.
If you look in the index to the news published by the New York _Times_,
you will discover scores of authentic-looking wolf-pack stories. I have
the space to reproduce here only a sample:
WOLVES DEVOUR 3 MEN IN NORTHERN ONTARIO
_An Elderly White Trapper and Two Indians Fall Victims to a Horde of
Hungry Beasts_
Port Arthur, Ont., Dec. 27--A great roving band of hungry timber
wolves has devoured three men.... Last Saturday an elderly trapper
left his cabin in the woods seventy miles north of Ignace to mush
down to the settlement for his Christmas mail.... There was no mail,
however, and the old man said he would come back Christmas morning.
At noon he had not arrived. The postmaster sent two Indians to follow
the trail....
About two miles from the settlement the Indians found a spot pounded
down in the snow. There was blood. Bits of dog harness torn to shreds
were scattered about. In the midst of them the Indians found human
bones. They hastened back to report their discovery. The lure of the
bounty on wolves, however, urged the Indians to take the trail again,
with extra ammunition. They sped behind the dog team into the woods as
the villagers waved good-bye. They did not return.
Yesterday a new searching party departed. They found another patch
trodden in the snow, with much more blood, about two miles from
the first. The two guns the Indians had carried were lying in the
crimsoned snow. Scattered about were bones, bits of clothing and empty
shells.
The carcasses of sixteen dead wolves--some half eaten--lay stretched
in a circle about the remains of the two Indian hunters.
I quote from the New York _Times_ of December 28, 1922. The story, from
what is justly considered one of the world’s greatest and most reliable
newspapers, gives proof of the cunning no less than of the ferocity of
the North American wolf. Judging from the evidence, the pack must still
have been hungry when they got through eating the trapper (perhaps he
was small and skinny), so they lay in wait to finish their meal on
the search party, which they evidently knew was coming. Then, still
hungry, and fearing the size and prowess of the second search party,
they reluctantly ate a few of each other for dessert before retreating
into the shadows of the forest. That was discretion and admirable
generalship. They fought when there was a chance to win, and then
withdrew before superior numbers.
There are plenty of such wolf stories in the papers, and now and then
others even more impressive. During 1926, for instance, in the pages of
the New York _Sun_ packs of wolves held Italy under a reign of terror;
a bit later in the New York _Times_ villages in Siberia were barricaded
against wolves. Two million cattle and many people were killed.
Thus stands the evidence for the affirmative--wolves _do_ run in packs.
They devour wedding parties in Russia and they eat trappers and Indians
in Canada. They terrorize Italy and lay siege to towns in Siberia--in
the papers, at least.
But there are skeptics who do not believe all they see in the papers or
read in books of travel. These iconoclasts tell you that every story of
a wolf-pack that you ever read or heard is fib, fiction, or folklore,
and that there never has been a pack of wolves in Russia, America, or
anywhere except in people’s imagination. That seems a hard position to
defend, but they go at it valiantly. Their defense lies in both logic
and fact. For the logic they ask you to consider the caribou-hunting
wolf as a sample.
Their argument begins with the generally accepted fact that there
are more than ten million wild caribou in Northern Alaska, Northern
Canada, Northern Siberia and the Arctic islands. From these at least
two million caribou are born every year; two million must, therefore,
die, or the numbers would increase. Certainly less than 10 per cent of
these are killed by human hunters. None die of old age and very few of
accident or disease, for if a caribou is old or sick it moves slowly
and is soon overtaken and devoured. This means that wolves kill every
year a good many more than a million and a half caribou.
In summer, when their puppies are being brought up, the northern wolves
live in part on eggs, fledgling or moulting birds, and rodents. But in
winter the birds have flown south, the rodents are safe asleep in their
frozen burrows, and almost the only thing a wolf can find to eat is
caribou. I know how wolves kill caribou, and I can offer some personal
testimony on wolves in general, for I was born on Lake Winnipeg in
a wolf country; I was brought up among wolves and coyotes in Dakota
before it became “civilized” and was split up into North and South
Dakota; I lived for some ten years in the Arctic, supporting myself
most of the time by hunting. I have shot wolves with a rifle and have
seen hundreds of them either trotting quietly along or loping steadily
in pursuit of caribou. I have seen the tracks of thousands following
game, and have found signs of hundreds of tragedies where they had
killed some bird or beast. I have asked dozens of Arctic Indians
(Slaveys, Dogribs, Loucheux) and hundreds of Eskimos about how the wolf
hunts, and there has been no divergence between what they have told me
and what I have seen.
A wolf cannot run nearly as fast as a caribou, and must capture it by
tiring it out. That is the essence of all I have seen and all I have
been told. It means that, before it is killed, each caribou has to
be pursued by the wolves from several hours to several days--nobody
knows exactly how long. All hunters agree that (except for newborn
calves) the youngest caribou are the swiftest and staunchest runners.
The ones killed by wolves are therefore chiefly the old bulls and old
cows. A cow may weigh two or three hundred pounds, and a bull three or
four hundred, live-weight. Nearly half of that is waste. The wolves
are, then, pursuing anything from 100 to 200 pounds of food. For, no
matter how large the caribou herd may be when the chase begins, they
eventually scatter, and the pack, if there is a pack, finds itself
pursuing the single slowest animal.
Suppose, now, there are 200 or 300 wolves, as in Miss Cather’s
heart-rending story. She provided hers with six sleigh loads of
Russians, six to twelve in a sleigh, and three presumably fat horses
hitched to each. That would make a square meal for even 300 wolves.
But it would be far otherwise if the 300 followed a single 300-pound
caribou for three days, or even one day. They would be so hungry
that the beast, divided by 300, would be to the pack no more than a
tantalizing appetizer. There would be nothing for it but to resort to
another well-known habit of the fiction wolf and use their whetted
appetites on each other--eating, let us say, a dozen to correspond to
the soup course, a dozen for the fish, and two dozen for the roast,
with at least another dozen of the youngest and tenderest for dessert.
But the continued practice of dining on each other like that would
soon reduce a wolf-pack below fiction and movie standards. In fact,
you might as well do without a pack altogether; for it is scarcely
worth the bother to build one up to the required size, just to have it
disappear again in a few weeks by the members of the troupe swallowing
one another.
Those who are trying to prove that the wolf-pack really exists will
perhaps admit that the abstract logic of pack hunting seems a little
faulty, but will insist, and quite rightly, that logic does not amount
to a hill of beans when contradicted by facts. The pack stories, they
will tell us, are simple truth. Newspapers may exaggerate, but the
better ones never invent. Besides, nearly everybody has an uncle or
an aunt who had a grandmother or grandfather that was eaten or nearly
eaten by a pack of wolves.
That brings us to the evidence--are the wolf-pack stories true? To save
time, we shall take at once the testimony of a group of scientists
and practical hunters who ought to know because they make the study
of wolves their profession--studying also the testimony of everyone
they ever heard of who claimed to have seen a pack of wolves. They are
Americans, too, and within your reach, so you can write postcards to
them tomorrow and see what they really think. Don’t be diffident about
asking. You are probably a taxpayer. They are your servants, for they
work for the government that taxes you.
The branch of the government that studies wolves as a part of its
business is the Bureau of Biological Survey at Washington, and the head
of it is Dr. E. W. Nelson,[12] a lifetime student of wild animals. He
was four years among Arctic wolves in Alaska (1877-81) and has himself
studied wolves in Mexico and all over the United States. Furthermore,
he has under him other men who have studied wolves, among them Edward
A. Preble, who has spent much time in the sub-Arctic and Arctic forests
and prairies of Canada. But more significant still, there is under
Dr. Nelson’s successor’s direction the wolf-killing service of the
United States Government. This is a body of men who hold themselves
in readiness for telegraphic appeals from stockmen, usually in the
West, who find their animals being destroyed by wolves. They come and
exterminate the wolves “scientifically,” and the flocks and herds are
safe again.
In gathering material for a book I was writing about wolves, I
consulted Dr. Nelson. We agreed, first, that the accepted meaning of
the word pack, when applied to wolves is _a large number of wolves that
have come together to help each other in hunting_. In other words, one
mother with her puppies would not constitute a pack. Dr. Nelson felt
so positive about the nature of wolves in North America, from Mexico
to the Arctic, that he thought I would be safe in denying flatly in my
book that any wolf-pack ever existed on our continent. But, just to
make sure that no different opinion was held among people of authority
corresponding to his own, we formulated a letter which he addressed to
certain scientific students of wolves, and to all his wolf-killers.
As to how many wolves had been seen together, the various replies
naturally gave different answers, for experiences varied somewhat. But
they ranged only from two to five. They were unanimous in reporting
that if several wolves were seen together then these were always the
mother with her puppies, or conceivably the father and mother with
their puppies, and never a pack in the usual sense of that word.
Then what about the story of the wolves that killed the elderly trapper
and the two Indians on the front page of the _Times_? Surely that was
no family of puppies--sixteen dead wolves, killed by the Indians; a
few, presumably, killed by the old trapper, and enough left over to
eat up one white man, two Indians and part of sixteen dead wolves.
To make the inquiry into the truth of the story official and more
authoritative than if I were doing it myself, I suggested to Dr. Nelson
that he write to Ignace, Ontario. For checking up, I wrote also to
Mr. J. B. Harkin, Commissioner of National Parks, Ottawa, who was at
that time (1922) in charge of the administration of the game laws of
Canada, and therefore in a position to set in motion official machinery
to find out about this wolf story. Thus I received the same replies
from two directions, one through Dr. Nelson and the other through Mr.
Harkin. They were, in substance, that no such man as the old trapper
ever existed and that no white man had been killed by wolves. No such
Indians as described existed there and none had been killed by wolves,
whether in packs or otherwise, either in the vicinity of Ignace, or
anywhere in the world, as far as anyone living in the vicinity of
Ignace knew.
Hundreds of other tales about wolf-packs, published in newspapers or
books, have been traced by the United States Biological Survey and by
various students, including myself. In no case was evidence found to
support them. Just try it yourself on the next American despatch you
read. In spite of all the pretended details--the sorrowing family, the
Masonic funeral--it will be reasonable odds to bet dollars to doughnuts
that the story will turn out pure fiction, or at best will rest on
testimony no court of law would accept as proof.
The case seems to be definitely settled against the wolf-pack in North
America. But there still remains Russia. Well, why not let Russia
remain? No one seems to have checked wolf-pack stories in Russia for
everyone is so sure they are true. And perhaps they are. Besides, it is
a distant country, and the fancy must somewhere have play.
The book on wolves which the July, 1927, _Mercury_ said I was writing
is still being written (1936), or, rather, the evidence for it is
still being gathered. We use here from that accumulation sample case
histories which give the trend of the material.
Under a date line of Winnipeg, April 16, 1922, many or most Canadian
newspapers printed a story which I read in the Ottawa _Morning Journal_
about the body of a trapper, Ben Cockrane, having been found torn to
pieces north of Fisher River on Lake Winnipeg the previous Thursday.
“He had been attacked by a pack of timber wolves. His bones and pieces
of his clothing and a rifle with a broken stock were found nearby.
Before being killed, Cockrane shot seven wolves dead and clubbed four
to death, their bodies lying around his tattered remains being the only
evidence of his fight for life.”
That story had a personal interest. For I was born on Lake Winnipeg and
might, therefore, seem to have had as a child a narrow escape from the
ancestors of the pack which destroyed Cockrane--we were there in the
pioneer days back in the late 70’s, long before railways, when there
was only an odd cabin along the shores of the lake and when presumably
the wolves were even more numerous than now, and more predatory.
Investigation would be simple, too, for I could write to some of our
old neighbors or their descendants.
But the case was being handled so widely and with so much respect
by the press that a formal approach seemed indicated, one above the
suspicion of bias. Accordingly, two lines of inquiry were started, both
of them official. Nelson, at my suggestion, inquired on behalf of the
logical department of the United States Government. In Canada, Harkin
was then in charge of wild-life investigation for his government and
could use the machinery of the Dominion Parks Branch. When I placed the
newspaper report in their hands I received friendly assurance that the
case would be followed up both in their own interest and because of
their previous association with me in similar studies.
Under date of May 22 Harkin wrote that an investigation had been made
and that “Mr. Cockrane has stated ‘that the report of his death was
grossly exaggerated.’” On May 31, Nelson, after like findings, wrote:
“This amusing climax to the ferocious wolf tale is similar to that of
many other newspaper accounts of the killing of human beings by wild
animals, which the Biological Survey has run down during the last
thirty years or more. Such stories are almost invariably pure fiction.”
A third inquiry, made by a friend in the Hudson’s Bay Company’s office
at Winnipeg, brought a statement that when their representative
interviewed Mr. Cockrane he seemed annoyed and replied, I gather
somewhat petulantly, that as long as he could remember there had seldom
been so few wolves around as this year.
Sometimes when we trace the story of a pack devouring a group of school
children we find that it all started when a small boy stepped on a
dog’s tail and was bitten in the leg. There does not appear to have
been even that much local base for the Cockrane fabrication.
The Ignace, Ontario, story (given above in its _American_ _Mercury_
form) has in my files considerable documentation. On January 2, 1923, I
wrote Dr. Nelson in part:
“I wonder if you missed the interesting wolf story that appeared
in the New York _Times_ for December 28th. In case you did, I am
enclosing a copy.
“I am writing an article for publication in _Collier’s Weekly_ about
fake wolf stories and especially about the great wolf-packs that
gallop through our books and newspapers. Just as this article is being
prepared for publication out comes another story. I am so sure that
this one also is a fake that I am not holding up the publication of
the article. However, I hope very much that you will be able to put
a tracer on it and find out whether there is any truth behind this
particular version.”
Dr. Nelson replied January 4:
“... I saw the New York _Times_ article copied in a local paper and at
once considered it one of the typical wolf articles which appear in
the press, particularly every winter.
“In order, however, to get definite information on the subject, I am
writing to the postmaster of Port Arthur, Ontario, and also at San
Ignace, sending them copies of the article and asking them what basis
there is for a statement of this kind. I will let you know the results
when they are received....”
I had written similarly to A. Brabant, Fur Trade Commissioner, Hudson’s
Bay Company, Winnipeg, and to Harkin. Brabant, who later investigated
for me more fully, gave preliminary reply January 6:
“I believe that the wolf story which was enclosed with your letter of
the 2nd inst., is merely romance....
“As you are well aware, there are few, if any, cases of wolves
attacking people....”
G. D. Russell, Postmaster of Port Arthur, Ontario, wrote Dr. Nelson
January 17, 1923, in part:
“There have been similar stories circulated during the past years,
but all have been found to be untrue, and while wolves are a serious
scourge to wild animal life in the bush, and a source of annoyance
to settlers in the back country, in so far as they are not averse to
raiding their domestic fowl, yet the genuine evidence of men being
killed by them has yet to be established.
“This recent story originated at Ignace, 200 miles west of Port
Arthur. My personal opinion (and the consensus of opinion) is, that
there is not the slightest foundation of truth in it.”
The Postmaster of Ignace, John Davies, wrote Dr. Nelson January 18,
1923:
“Your letter to hand, RE: the killing of three men by wolves north of
Ignace. We in Ignace know nothing about this affair excepting what
we read in the papers. I don’t think there is a word of truth in it.
There are a lot of wolves which are doing a lot of damage among the
wild game but so far as tackling human beings, I have never had any
proof yet.”
The press discussion of the Ignace story was voluminous throughout
Canada, particularly in Ontario. On January 18, 1923, Harkin sent me a
quotation from “one of our local papers, under date the 17th instant”:
“... The scene of the tragedy was laid on a trail seventy miles north
of Ignace. The names of the victims of the wolves were not given.
Several old timers in Northern Ontario have ridiculed the story and
have claimed that wolves are not man-killers. A Toronto man ... wrote
to W. T. Thompson, dealer in furs at Ignace, asking as to the facts of
the story.
“Mr. Thompson is quoted as replying: ... ‘Wolves are very numerous
around here, but I have lived in this country for twenty-five years
and have yet to hear of anyone being killed by wolves. During the past
ten years, or over, I have been buying raw furs from trappers and
Indians and have never heard any such tales that turn out true.’”
Reverberations of the Ignace yarn continued to reach me for several
months. For instance, there came in a letter from an old friend,
Inspector G. L. Jennings, of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police (now
styled Royal Canadian Mounted Police), dated April 20, 1923. We shall
use the main part of it in another connection but print here extracts
from a cutting he sent taken from the Edmonton _Journal_ of February 10:
“Recently I read a letter concerning the habits of wolves. I had also
read some time ago of a tragedy in the woods of our north country in
which several men were pulled down and devoured by these animals,”
says Dr. J. S. McCullough, writing in the Toronto _Globe_.
“In the gold rush of 1897 or 1898, when so many men made an attempt
to get into the Klondike country via Edmonton, Athabasca Landing,
Great Slave Lake and the Mackenzie River, I was one of a party which
attempted a traverse from the Mackenzie River to Fort Norman to the
Stewart or McMillan River over the divide. I was obliged to come
back on account of sickness when we had got out about 60 miles on the
trail. After dividing the supplies with my partner I made the trip
back alone and as it was necessary that the onward-going party should
have two tents I did not even have a tent to cover me on the return
trip, but built little shelters of spruce, rolled in my sleeping bag
with only boughs with a fire at my feet, and this slight windbreak to
protect me from the winds and the wolves. Wolves there seemed to be
in plenty, judging from the terrifying howls at night, but they were
seldom seen. In my weakened condition from dysentery I made very slow
time on my return trip to the banks of the river, six miles below Fort
Norman, where there were several unoccupied, roughly-built log shacks.
With 75 to 100 pounds on my sled I would drag along five or six miles,
construct a stage and place my pack in safety, returning over the
ground until I had all my stuff moved up. At this time of year and in
this latitude I saw little of the sun, and frequently I made my move
at night if the light was good and not much wind.
“I found the wolves very curious, following along on my snowshoe
track, crossing and recrossing it, appearing at one side and ahead and
then on the other side ahead or behind, always, however, in silence.
I had been given to understand by Billy Paton, then of the Hyslop and
Neaggel Trading Company, that the wolves never attacked a man, and so
I traveled all alone, and very seldom with a weapon of any kind other
than a light camp axe, and, although I was very lonesome and very weak
and very down-hearted, I really never had any fear of the wolves.
There was one that I became pretty well acquainted with, a very large
and almost black fellow, who was afterward accidentally caught in a
bear trap which had been set by an inexperienced miner by the name of
Low Day. The trap was lost beneath the snow, and although Day knew
about where it was, we were all afraid to hunt for it for fear of
getting into it ourselves. The large, almost black, wolf that followed
my trail like a ghost in some mysterious way sat down on his haunches
right in the jaws of this trap, where we found him dead and frozen
stiff.
“I think that those of us who put in the balance of the winter on the
bank of the Mackenzie were all more relieved that the trap was thus
discovered than at catching the wolf. What I have said here makes a
very negative sort of wolf story, but the fact that I was out night
after night alone and that every time I went back over my trail I saw
fresh wolf tracks, and that through the long Arctic nights one could
almost always hear the howl or bark of the wolf probably chasing
hares, for the big game was driven away by the 40-odd men who had gone
over the country, leaving hungry wolves and little else but hares and
ptarmagan, would seem to prove that if ever the wolf would attack a
human being the conditions were right for them to do so as I plodded
my slow course back alone over this trail.
“... Personally I do not believe that the wolves of Canada ever attack
a living human being. They would in time probably become bold enough
to pick the bones of anyone dying or being frozen to death in the
bush country. I have talked of wolves to many bushmen and never yet
have I come across anyone who had bush experience but had an absolute
contempt for the wolf so far as being attacked by him or them went....
“I can quite believe that a person who had been fed-up on wolf stories
might take to a tree in fear when the wolves kept appearing and
disappearing as they will do on the trail of a woodsman as he marches
along at dusk, but I believe that it is only the wolf’s natural
curiosity that leads to his follow-up tactics. The black tail or mule
deer will often do the same thing if you pretend not to have seen
him....”
The Cockrane story, as said, never gave us investigators a trace of
foundation. One version of a basis for the Ignace story was contained
in a letter of January 12 from L. M. Gleeson, of 416 Victoria Avenue,
Fort William, Ontario, who wrote me on the letterhead of the Fort
William-Port Arthur Rotary Club:
“Replying to your letter of January sixth, re wolf story from Port
Arthur. I would say that the story was just a rumor. It originated,
I believe, by a trainman running between here and Ignace, Ont., and
as the story was re-told it was enlarged upon. I do know that the
newspaper here tried for sometime to get a confirmation of the story
direct from Ignace, but they were unable to do so. This story did not
appear in our local paper although it was telegraphed outside....”
A theory of the Ignace yarn, published long after, makes it a fable
devised for the good of a community. On January 16, 1933, the Portland
_Oregonian_ printed a letter from Ada Alice Tuttle, summarizing
investigations which she had made or was familiar with, the occasion
being that the “Ten Years Ago” column had revived the story:
“The occurrence was investigated by several persons, Dr. (William T.)
Hornaday among them. The explanation reveals the resourceful boss of a
lumber camp, solving an acute liquor problem. It seems that a number
of his men were in the habit of going to the nearest settlement to get
drunk. So, remembering the effect produced on the youthful mind by the
adventures of ‘Little Red Riding Hood,’ he also invented a fairy tale,
suiting it to his audience by introducing plenty of action and lots of
gore. ... They swallowed the yarn, hook, line and sinker, and after
that stayed where they belonged, with the most admirable docility.”
As Dr. Nelson pointed out, the newspapers run dispatches on wolf-packs
chiefly in winter. This, according to the stories themselves, is
determined by laws of Nature. The rigors of the weather have banished
or destroyed the wild animals on which the wolves customarily prey;
besides, there is no doubt an increased metabolic rate, wolves, like
people, needing some of the caloric energy from the food they eat for
keeping themselves warm. In desperation the beasts gather in larger
and larger packs and finally in extreme cases attack houses or even
villages--the latter chiefly in some distant foreign country. In
America they seem to confine themselves to attacks on people that are
out in the woods. Usually we have to depend on word pictures by the
survivors for information regarding these encounters, but on December
9, 1923, the New York _Times_ was able to publish in its rotogravure
section two photographs from Sudbury, Ontario, giving the supporting
testimony of a camera. One of the pictures showed two men standing
knee-deep in snow as they defended themselves against a pack of wolves.
The caption was “A Tragedy Among the Snows of the Far Northern Woods.”
The summarized printed account said that, ammunition gone, two huntsmen
were set upon by a pack of fifteen wolves. They fought them off, one
using for a club the barrel of his gun, the other an axe. Before the
battle came to a decision a third member of the hunting party arrived
and was able to turn the tide with gunfire. The second picture has the
description:
“The aftermath of a bloody battle in the wilds. Huntsmen binding up
their wounds after hand to hand battle with pack of timber wolves from
which they were saved by the timely arrival of a third member of their
party.”
When I sent these pictures to Harkin for investigation, if he thought
well of it, and in any case for comment, he replied that he was fed up
with tracing stories of wolf-packs. It seemed to him a study of the
picture indicated that the wolves in the picture had all been dead for
some time. Apparently they had been allowed to freeze stiff in various
attitudes and had then been propped up in the soft snow to give the
semblance of an attacking wolf-pack.
Doubtless the three hunters were too excited during the battle and
forgot about taking pictures. So they had to re-enact the adventure for
the camera next day. The chief difficulty about that explanation was
that some of the “wolves” looked a bit like dogs.
Sure enough, time proved that the doggy look of the wolves had its
reason. On April 12, 1927, the Utica _Press_ carried a letter from B.
H. Divine in which he said, in part:
“The New York _Times_ published a picture a while ago of two men
with clubbed guns fighting for their lives against a pack of wolves.
Following this up I received word from the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police that the wolves in the picture were dogs very cleverly posed,
and the whole thing was a fake.”
During the next years there were few American stories of note although
striking accounts of packs and their depredations were printed from
Europe--these we shall discuss farther on. The American scene
brightened with January, 1926, when on the 17th the Chicago _Tribune_
presented to its readers the desperate situation then facing one of the
territories of the United States:
ALASKA TO WAR ON WOLF PACKS WITH AIR BOMBS
Shrapnel from Planes May Save Game
Juneau, Alaska--(Special)--Dropping bombs from airplanes upon packs
of big timber wolves is a method for destroying these game-killing
brutes, now advanced and approved by Governor George A. Parks. A
trial of the idea is planned for next month, generally known as the
hunger-month of winter, when wild life is at its lowest ebb and
gnawing pangs grip wolves, lynx and owls.
According to reports received at the governor’s office, female
caribou, deer, and domesticated reindeers have been repeatedly
attacked this winter by large bands of timber wolves. The destruction
among the female caribou is appalling.
The bull caribou in winter round-up together, peacefully content,
leaving the cows to protect themselves and yearling calves as best
they can. All are antlered, but they lack the weight of caribou bulls,
likewise the fighting strategy.
Air mail men operating in the Alaskan service have filed many reports
of instances where packs of wolves, hearing and seeing the planes in
the sky, gathered forces and raced the aviators, leaping and barking
at the birdlike machines after the manner of dogs barking at pigeons.
To the aviator it seemed that a large rock dropped into the packs
would easily kill or maim many.
The plan proposed is to drop bombs loaded with shrapnel and dynamite
into wolf-packs powerful enough to wreak terrific damage even hundreds
of feet away in all directions. Trappers and hunters believe that the
animals, seeing a bomb dropped, would instantly run to examine it,
thus bringing about their own destruction.
Timber wolves weighing 250 pounds, seven to eight feet in length,
have been killed by trappers this winter near Fairbanks. The same
breed of animal infests the territory from Ketchikan, far north in the
tundra, where herds of reindeer forage. The native herders report many
encounters with prowling brutes eager to pull down young reindeer.
A powder manufacturing concern has offered bombs free for the unique
hunting expedition.
The _Tribune_ account thus pictures not only a situation physically
serious but paints a discouraging view of the moral deterioration of
the Alaska bull caribou which were no longer willing to place at the
service of the smaller and weaker members of the herd their superior
antlers, greater weight and their fighting strategy.
But it was encouraging to read that the very head of the Alaska
territorial administration, Governor George A. Parks, was in charge
of the relief operations. I happened to know he was in Washington and
wrote him there February 19. His reply came dated February 23 from the
office of the Secretary of the Interior:
“Concerning the clipping from the Chicago _Tribune_, I am at a loss
to understand how it originated. I left Juneau, December 16, 1925,
and have been in Washington since early in January. I never have
authorized any such statement. It may be a fact that the bulls
separate from the rest of the caribou herd during the winter, but
my personal observation has been to the contrary. If any of the
pilots in the Air Mail Service have filed reports as alleged in the
newspaper account, these reports never have come to my attention. It
would be most unusual to hear a wolf bark like a dog. There may be
wolves in Alaska that weigh 250 pounds, but I do not know of any such
records.[13] I believe that it is conceded generally that a wolf-pack
usually includes only the members of the family--father, mother, and
pups--and they separate about the beginning of the next mating season.
I have no personal knowledge of any large bands of wolves, nor have
I been able to find any authentic cases where bands of wolves have
molested reindeer or caribou herds. Many times during my winter trips
through Alaska, I have been told about the wolf-packs, but so far as I
know the stories never have been founded on fact.
Geo. A. Parks
Governor of Alaska.”
Logically the Bureau of Biological Survey was concerned with the
situation and its Chief, Nelson, wrote me February 24:
“The other day I had a conference with Governor Parks on various
matters relating to Alaska and he showed me the copy of the Chicago
_Tribune_ clipping of January 17, a copy of which you sent me,
containing the weird tale of the plan to bomb wolves by the use of
airplanes. Governor Parks was inclined to be somewhat exercised over
the connection of his name with this absurd statement....
“Of course, the whole thing is an absurdity on the face of it ...
there is no such abundance of wolves in Alaska as indicated in this
article.... The claim that timber wolves weighing 250 pounds have been
killed near Fairbanks the present winter is another evidence of the
absolute unreliability of the article.”
This is trying to be a chronological statement but we are unable to
resist the temptation to print from a Washington despatch of the
_Associated Press_ as it appeared in the New York _Times_ of May 31,
1936:
“Plans for an airplane attack on savage packs of Alaskan wolves were
worked out today by three Federal agencies....
“Last Winter, Governor John W. Troy cabled for help....”
It may have seemed a bit far afield in 1926 to go all the way to Alaska
for stories of wolf-packs, so the _Associated Press_ in 1927, with a
Chicago date line of January 24, had a story which one paper used under
“Hunters to Renew Search for Wolves Near Chicago. First Venture Fails
to Disclose Marauding Pack Reported by Farmers.” However, there was
skepticism (that’s the difficulty of having the stories too near home)
and Leroy Davidson, former chief of the Cook County Highway Police, was
quoted:
“Wolves--bah! Last summer there was a camp of Campfire Girls in the
forest preserve. They had three dogs--the dogs were a mixture of
Airedale and police dog. When the girls broke camp they left the dogs
behind. I also had an Airedale. He ran away and joined the other
three. These four dogs are the ‘pack of wolves’ that are causing all
the commotion.”
That pronouncement threatened at first to be a wet blanket. However,
there is in my files a press cutting dated February 4 with the
heading: “Fliers Hunt Wolves on Edge of Chicago. Posse Has Had No
Luck.” So the story did keep going awhile.
When it requires ten days on the edges of Chicago to dispose of a
wolf-pack, even with the assistance of the chief of the Highway Police,
no wonder stories from Alaska have a considerable lease of life. Some
of them promise to become, and to remain, a part of the source material
of Alaskan natural history.
The year 1927 proved rich in American wolf tales, making up for the
comparatively lean years since 1923. My favorite of that season, and of
many years, I was able to trace through the help of my old friend Lee
Smits, free lance writer and also columnist for the Detroit _Times_.
It is not a story of a wolf-pack, but we digress a moment to place
chronologically a striking episode of a lone Michigan wolf. We quote
the St. Ignace _Enterprise_ of February 3, 1927:
LARGE TIMBER WOLF
Entered the Home of Robert Alexander and Attacked Woman and Children
Mrs. Robert Alexander and children were made the victims of a savage
attack by a large timber wolf in their home in Brevort township last
Wednesday. The animal, made desperate evidently by hunger forced its
way through the doorway of the kitchen and made a rush at the children
who were playing on the floor. Mrs. Alexander got between the wolf and
the children and called to her husband to get a gun, and she also was
leaped upon by the animal and borne to the floor. Before it could do
serious harm Alexander appeared with a gun and first kicking the wolf
from the prostrate form of his wife fired as the wolf made its escape
through the doorway and slightly injuring it. It was making towards
the woods when Mrs. Lottie Page, a neighbor, hearing the shot came out
of her home with a loaded shotgun in her hand and seeing the wolf made
a lucky shot killing the animal.
While wolves have been reported as being numerous in Brevort and
surrounding townships, and have done considerable damage, this is
the first instance that one has been known to have attacked a human
being. The Alexanders are of the opinion that the attack was caused by
starvation as the animal appeared to be weak from exhaustion.
On seeing this gem, I wrote Smits, who replied April 29:
“State Conservation Officer George Gish, Jr., who patrols the area
in which the ‘attack’ occurred, called at the Alexander home and was
shown the dead wolf. It was a small mongrel of the collie type, with
a bob tail, a white blaze, yellow in color, weighing not more than 40
pounds. There is an epidemic of ‘running fits’ or ‘fright-disease’
among dogs, and this dog may have rushed into the cabin while
delirious, or it may have merely been cold, hungry and lonesome. It
was a male dog. The rumor that the animal was a timber wolf started
when someone in the neighborhood ‘guessed maybe’ there was wolf blood
in the dog. Not because of its appearance, but because it came out of
the woods and acted strangely....
“... The story is from a paper at the county seat. It was carried
extensively over the wires....”
Although chiefly known to the literary world for his novel _Spring
Flight_, Smits is, among other things, one of America’s connoisseurs
of un-natural history. So he could not resist going on:
“Not only can many bartenders and hotel clerks in the backwoods give
you good wolf yarns--attacks on mankind--but old lumberjacks know, by
direct hearsay, of some desperate encounters. The editor of the daily
paper at Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., ... has for several years offered
$100 for an authenticated report of a wolf attacking a person in the
Algoma district of Ontario. No takers.
“The state prison at Marquette, Mich., fronts on Lake Superior and,
although on the outskirts of a small city, is at the edge of a strip
of wild country extending into rather large areas of swamp and timber
and offering cover for a fugitive for hundreds of miles. Very few
escapes are attempted, and the fear of wild animals is unquestionably
a deterrent. One gang got loose and were rounded up because they made
straight for roads and kept on them. They spent one night in the
brush, with a few hares, porcupines and owls about them, and perhaps a
fox or coyote, and said when they were caught that they all were sorry
they ran away when darkness closed in on them. They had a terrible
night. All city gunmen.”
That there are at times very special motives behind wolf-pack stories
appears from a letter from B. H. Divine, published in the Utica, New
York, _Press_ of April 12, 1927:
“To the Editor of _The Press_:
The following wolf story recently appeared in _The Press_:
‘Huntsville, Ont., March 31--While making his way to a lumber camp
near Algonquin Park, Elwood Bloss was pursued by a pack of wolves. He
fled onto the open ice, where the animals, 16 of them, surrounded him.
Their howling attracted the attention of a game warden, who arrived
before they closed on their intended victim. He shot seven before the
pack fled.’
Upon writing to the authorities at Huntsville for the truth of the
matter, I received the following letter from T. Muyhum, postmaster:
‘This story was first published here early in January last, but since
that time it has been pretty thoroughly exploded.
‘The young man (aged 22) started out to walk six or seven miles to the
railroad station early in the morning. The howling of some wolves at
a distance frightened him so badly that he did not recover for some
days. It was necessary to make some explanation of his condition,
and the truth sounded so inadequate he built the story to suit his
condition. It was soon into the papers, and after being contradicted
from the pack end he acknowledged that much of it was not true.’”
For some reason there did not come to my attention until 1931 a
support of wolf-packs by book reviewers and press commentators who
relied on a volume published in 1929, _The Last Stand of the Pack_, by
Arthur H. Carhart and Stanley P. Young. At last, said the reviewers,
a distinguished biologist and student of wild life has spoken out,
resentful about the sniping at wolf-packs by amateur naturalists.
Young was chief biologist of the U. S. Biological Survey, exclaimed the
champions of the pack, in consonant triumph. They were right, for I
looked him up in _American Men of Science_ and found this substantial
record:
“... U. S. Govt. hunter, bur. biol. surv., U. S. Dept. Agr., Ariz.,
17-19, in charge ground squirrel control work, 19, coyote control
crew, southeast N. Mex., 20, asst. leader predatory animal control,
20-21, leader, Colo-Kans. dist., 21-27, asst. head div. econ.
investigations, Washington, D. C., 27-28, prin. biologist in charge
div. predatory animal and rodent control, 28-....”
The reviewers did not notice, but I did, a sensational angle. To have
Young opposing Nelson was like Roosevelt falling out with Smith--the
chief of a division of the U. S. Biological Survey opposing that
retired chief of the Survey who had brought him to Washington. It was
a delicate situation but I had to get Nelson’s view and wrote him
discreetly April 28, 1932. He replied May 14 from California:
“... It will surprise me very much if he has recorded a pack of any
considerable size beyond that which you and I believe to be normal
(mother with litter of pups). I will look up the matter soon after I
return and talk to him about it. Will then write you....”
An invalid, and busy though officially retired, Nelson did not
communicate until March 22, 1933. There was to be no Smith-Roosevelt
situation, it now appeared, for the retired Chief said:
“Under date of March 14, 1933, Stanley P. Young of the Biological
Survey writes....
“‘With regard to your question on wolves, I heartily agree with you
that the great packs of wolves such as have been often described
in books and newspapers exist only in the minds of writers. In my
experience the typical wolf-pack consists of the two parents and
their young of the year. One is apt to see this so-called pack in
the late fall and up until the early spring. Also it is possible in
the formation of this so-called pack for two families of wolves to
intermingle for a short time in the fall of the year, particularly if
one family group is in close proximity to another, and a kill is in
progress. My experience, even under these conditions, however, is to
the effect that wolves of several families never unite in a long and
friendly association....
“‘It is therefore possible from the foregoing that newspaper writers
and authors have in mind the family groups of wolves rather than the
packs of adults. However, these writers usually give the impression
that these packs are made up of adult wolves. The greatest number of
wolves in one litter that I have ever seen totalled eight. This pack
was made up of the eight young, which were apparently whelped in early
March, and the old female and old male.’”
Nelson felt Young was a bit too generous “in explaining what the
writers have in mind in their tales of big packs. Really they are
drawing from an inexhaustible store of ignorance on the subject.
Probably less than 1 per cent of them ever saw a wolf in the wilds.”
The year 1933 closed on a note ominous for New York State. For the
_Herald-Tribune_ of December 30 reported:
“Lithgow Osborne, State Commissioner of Conservation, has assigned Ray
Burmaster, game protector of the Saranac Lake district, to exterminate
the wolves which have been seen in the northern counties in recent
weeks. Ten dozen snares and traps have been set in the wolf-infested
areas and seventy-five skilled hunters and trappers will be employed.
Wolves recently attacked two farm hands near Fort Covington, in
Franklin County.... The pack now at large numbers from twelve to
fifty.”
The New York _Times_, evidently not jealous, supported its rival the
_Herald-Tribune_ by saying in an editorial of January 5 that: “...
one pack hunting in Franklin County at this time is estimated at from
twelve to fifty in number....” They added that: “An application has
been made to the Biological Survey at Washington for the services of an
expert wolf trapper to rid New York of the unwelcome visitors.”
I wrote the Conservation Department of New York at Albany January 5,
and Lithgow Osborne, Commissioner, replied January 12:
“... we do not have any definite information to indicate that the
wolves which have recently appeared in the vicinity of Owls Head in
the Adirondacks are running in packs. We are sending one of our field
investigators, Mr. Darrow, into the region which the wolves apparently
inhabit, in an effort to determine just what the situation is. I shall
be pleased to request a report from him as to whether or not the
wolves are actually hunting in packs, and to see that the information
is forwarded to you sometime early in the spring.”
The Commissioner’s follow-up slipped and I did not remind him for two
years. On July 13, 1936, came a letter from John T. Gibbs, Deputy
Commissioner. He mentions several reports on the Adirondack wolves “all
of which resulted in our deciding that there were no packs of timber
wolves in the Adirondacks.”
One of the reports was from E. A. Goldman of the U. S. Biological
Survey. He had been in the region of the packs and “we crossed a fresh
track of one of these canine beasts in a remote section of the forest.
Owing to the softness and depth of snow it had been making slow
progress. The track, about one day old, appeared like that of a rather
small dog.”
Two animals from the supposed wolf-pack had been captured, but “general
appearances indicated, however, that both are dogs.”
The skin and skull from another animal killed was sent to the American
Museum of Natural History of New York. On February 15, 1934, H. E.
Anthony, curator, reported that in his judgment the relics were those
of a dog.
By 1935 the news magazine _Time_ had already secured a wide public
for its news radio broadcast. They had enough nobility or were secure
enough to print in their “Letters” of January 21, 1935, an indignant
protest from Manitoba against what the correspondent felt was their
nature-faking. Axel Nielsen wrote them from Cranberry Portage, Manitoba:
“Your radio representation of the wolf story (Dec. 21, 1934), was most
unconvincing. Don’t let yourself be taken in by such stories....
“For 15 years I have traded and prospected in the North, over a vast
territory, a belt 1,200 miles long by 500 wide, the top of all the
prairie Provinces and beyond. I have met wolves, traveled with them,
trailed them. They have trailed me too; they’re a curious lot. But
my own sleigh dogs were ten times more dangerous.... Your terrified
passengers were probably stretching the imagination valiantly, thanks
to the nursery version of wolves in general.... In all my experience,
all my questioning of Indians, whose language I speak fluently, I have
never yet discovered a single wolf half as dangerous as the ordinary
pasture bull, an irritable sow, or a gander.”
THE WOLF PACK IN THE OLD WORLD
The _American Mercury_, July, 1927, statement on the wolf-pack closed:
“The case seems to be definitely settled against the wolf-pack in
North America. But there still remains Russia. Well, why not let
Russia remain? No one seems to have checked wolf-pack stories in
Russia for everyone is so sure they are true. And perhaps they are.
Besides, it is a distant country, and the fancy must somewhere have
play.”
For many years I sought and found reliable information on conditions in
what is now the U.S.S.R. from a learned and far-traveled officer of the
Russian Navy, Commander N. A. Transehe, who was doing scientific work
in New York. One of our conversations dealt with packs of wolves.
Transehe had journeyed through recognized wolf districts of Russia
and Siberia so extensively that few could have had more experience.
He never saw more than single wolves or a pair (doubtless male and
female), except when it seemed clear that the group was one or both
parents with a litter. I suggested that doubtless the wolf-pack, then,
existed in Russia only as folklore, but this he considered did not
follow at all. “I have lived in New York several years,” he said. “I
have never been to Wall Street but I know there is a Wall Street. I
have lived in the United States without seeing the Rocky Mountains but
I know there are Rocky Mountains. It is that way with packs of wolves
in Russia. They are of common knowledge.”
This was the considered view of a Russian whose judgment I had often
found good. Also there were two of the foremost authorities on wild
animals in the United States, who had expressed to me the feeling that
Eurasian wolves might be quite different from ours and that we had
better not get too dogmatic about their not running in packs or in
general about their being just behavior replicas of American wolves.
These authorities were the above-cited Nelson, in several letters and
conversations, and C. Hart Merriam in a letter of December 9, 1924.
In 1926, with the hilarious Lake Winnipeg (Ben Cockrane) and Ignace
yarns fresh in mind, I found myself an after-dinner speaker at a New
York banquet of the Western Universities Club where Kent Cooper, then
recently elected General Manager of the _Associated Press_, presided.
The opportunity was too good, and I dealt with press faking, spinning
yarn after yarn and alleging, in some cases not correctly, that these
had been carried by the _Associated Press_.
On July 8, 1926, I received a letter from Jackson S. Elliott, Assistant
General Manager, saying that the _Associated Press_ was making “use of
the information you gave to us about the wolves not running in packs in
order to have our own service as near accurate as possible.”
Three things seemed to me: that the _AP_ carried fewer American wolf
stories during the next several years, that most American wolf stories
in the press during that time were not of _AP_ origin, but that stories
of wolf-packs from abroad failed to decrease in number.
Magazines were active in European tales. Through an article, “Russia of
the Hour,” by Junius B. Wood, the _National Geographic Magazine_, for
November, 1926, p. 521, said:
“It is only a step from Moscow ... into the wide open spaces. Wolves
and bears still roam in the Moscow district, and when the dull winter
dusk comes at 2 o’clock in the afternoon and the country is under its
white mantle of snow, hunger drives them to prey on mankind.
“They boldly attack villages and, this year, even assailed a railroad
train of cattle. No peasant ventures alone far outside his village,
and one group of 20 men, fancying safety in numbers, was attacked by a
wolf-pack. Several were killed and all seriously torn before the pack
was driven off.”
The author proved to be a correspondent of the Chicago _Daily News_,
with broad experience of travel, including Russia. I wrote him July 14,
1927, with interest in his picture of Russia under the Soviets, asking
several questions, mainly ones that would enable me to check on the
reports further:
On what railroad and near or between what towns was the cattle train
attacked, whence did the information come, when did the attack take
place? Could the author furnish corresponding information regarding the
twenty men attacked? What further information could he give regarding
wolves in Russia, as to their traveling or working in packs? What
sources for still more knowledge could he suggest?
Wood wrote from Paris, France, August 31:
“Your letter of July 14, in which a certain unidentified group
designated as ‘we’ requests further information concerning my
reference to Russian wolves in an article in the _National Geographic
Magazine_ has been forwarded to me here. From time to time this
coming winter when I return to the U.S.S.R. I will be pleased to send
you what information I receive on this subject as wolves are as active
a source of news in that country as bootleggers are in the U. S. A.
“This information was taken from Soviet newspapers. The attack on the
cattle train standing on a siding was later corroborated from other
sources. The attack on the villagers went into details to the extent
of giving the names of those killed. Both occurred in the winter of
1926-7. As I do not have my papers here and do not remember the names
of villages, railroad, casualties and other details requested in
questions 1, 2 and 3, I must postpone answering further until I return
to Moscow and have opportunity to look them up.
“Your statement ‘You know, of course, that of all wolf-pack stories
published by the American newspapers, more than 75 per cent are
without any foundation whatever, and that most of the rest are
based on some misapprehension’ indicates a clairvoyance worthy of
your fellow explorer ‘Doc’ Cook. It is the first suggestion which
has come to me that I ‘know’, or even admit such a theory. It is
far from proven.... (I) have serious doubts of your impartiality on
the gregariousness of wolves. Though entirely personal, my humble
opinion would accept the version of unscientific but not blind
natives, including rural correspondents, who are living with wolves in
preference to scientists’ dogmas which appeal to publishers and lyceum
managers....”
The letter then goes on to valuable and no doubt accurately quoted
statements by Russians on wolves, ending with: “Packs are reported as
varying from 5 to more than 100 which, while leaving the figures open
to doubt, cannot be entirely an optical illusion.”
The promised letter of information from Moscow did not come, but I
secured Moscow and general U.S.S.R. information from other sources.
Waldemar Jochelson, distinguished Russian traveler and anthropologist,
was then in New York and wrote me twice concerning the Wood article,
July 27 and August 11, 1927. The letters do not say it outright, but
there is to be inferred from them a view that wolf-packs do exist, or
at least may exist. In this Jochelson resembles most Russians whom I
know. But, again like most, he holds this belief, or this willingness
to believe, in spite of, rather than because of, his own experience. He
says in the August 11 letter:
“As to my own observations in Siberia before the railroad was built
and in places far away from the railroad after its construction I
may say that I never saw a single wolf in my numerous voyages except
puppies taken from wolf’s den.
“I was told by my reindeer drivers of instances when single wolves
attacking herds of reindeer seized calves in spite of the presence
of the herdsmen. I remember one case when a reindeer of my team came
running and fell exhausted at the entrance of my tent and the team
driver told me that the reindeer was pursued by a wolf.
“Siberian hunters told me the following on the habits of the Siberian
wolf. He does not like the woods, preferring the tundra and other open
places, where he can see and smell his prey from a distance. Grown up
wolves do not like company. Wolves have separate dens and she-wolves
abandon their puppies when they become able to hunt for themselves.”
The outstanding foreign wolf tale of 1927, not so much in itself as in
what it led to, was printed as an _Associated Press_ release by the New
York _Times_, February 9:
CAUCASUS WOLVES BOMBED FROM AIRPLANE; HUNGRY PACKS INVADE TOWNS,
KILLING PEASANTS
GENEVA, Feb. 8 (AP).--Wolves in the Caucasus have become so numerous
that the military authorities there sent an airplane to the infested
districts, where poison gas bombs were dropped on packs, killing 200
of the invaders, say reports received by the League of Nations.
Wolves are becoming a menace to the lives of peasants in remote
regions of Russia, Poland and some other countries of East Central
Europe, the reports say. Ferocious from hunger, these beasts, which
have multiplied surprisingly, are reported as frequently making
attacks on villages, and in some cases have killed and devoured
helpless peasants.
Austria reports that one farmer kept twelve wolves at bay with an
axe, wounding them all with powerful swinging blows, and that he was
finally rescued by villagers, who saved his life by quick bandaging of
bleeding arms and legs.
In the district of Vilna, Poland, packs of wolves, maddened by cold
and hunger, descended on the town of Ostrovsk and boldly attacked
the inhabitants, who, during several hours, were obliged to put up
an organized defense with rifle and shotgun before the savage enemy
retired. Poland is reported to have mobilized several regiments to
carry on an offensive against wolves.
From Russia come even more terrifying stories. In the rural region
wolves by hundreds attack villages and even boldly enter the smaller
cities in broad daylight. At Verchofourye five peasants were slain by
the beasts before the packs were driven off.
At Orenburg three packs entered the town from different points,
throwing the population into a panic and forcing all to barricade
themselves in their houses, from which they launched a steady fire,
finally killing all the wolves, which tenaciously refused to abandon
their attack.
Perhaps through too much Edgar Wallace and E. Phillips Oppenheim I got
on this story a slant which appears from a letter written by N. M.
Stiles, Foreign News Editor of the _Associated Press_, to their Geneva
correspondent, Joseph E. Sharkey, on February 24:
“Please recall your Wolf story which you sent us by mail. We used it
on February 8, but before it got to the wires we sent out a note to
editors suggesting its elimination for two reasons, the first being
that the incidents described were so extraordinary, the second being
that the statement that wolves travel in packs has been disputed.
However, although the story did not get on the wires, two of the New
York papers nevertheless printed it--the New York _Times_ putting it
in a box on the front page.
“Now comes a letter from Vilhjalmur Stefansson, in which he asks the
following somewhat startling and curious question:
‘Do you suppose the wolf dispatch you carried about two weeks ago
from Geneva could possibly have been some sort of a cipher message on
behalf of almost any sort of secret organization? If so, you are the
people to do detective work on its origin. I am putting out two or
three lines to trace it from the pseudo-natural history point of view.’
“As you recall we cabled you for confirmation of the story, and
you replied that the reports were received unofficially leanations
(League of Nations) circles also printed widely Swiss newspapers.’
Now when you come to read this story with the thought in mind that
the word ‘wolves’ might be a code word to identify some sort of an
organization, as for instance an anti-Bolsheviki outfit, the dispatch
does read most interestingly. One can imagine that the organization
was putting these messages over on the Swiss newspapers.”
Meantime I tried to find out directly how the League was connected
and wrote to the League of Nations Non-Partisan Association of New
York City. Their librarian, A. G. F. Aylmer, replied February 24 that
they could not understand how the wolf stories should interest the
League, and while, like me, they had seen the press despatch, they had
no direct information of any similar kind from Geneva. Their office
would let me know if they found later that there had been some League
connection.
The Stiles letter brought a reply from Sharkey, dated March 12. It puts
the case reasonably and shows, particularly in the last of our quoted
paragraphs, how normal it is in Europe to read, pass on, and believe
wolf-pack stories.
“Answering your letter of February 24 concerning the wolf mail story
let me say that this was founded on stories and despatches appearing
in Swiss newspapers and on confirmatory talks with secretaries of the
League of Nations....
“The League interest in the wolf reports is chiefly economic. The
reason was explained to me at the time by ... member of the League
information section....
“He told me about recent cases of wolf-packs attacking peasants in the
outlying districts. I have never before heard disputed the statement
that Russian wolves ‘carry on’ in packs. When I was in Siberia in
the winter of 1918-19 a detachment of the British Hampshire regiment
which ‘en-sleighed’ from Omsk to Ekaterinburg was attacked by a pack
of wolves. The soldiers killed most of them. Participants told me the
story personally and I wrote it at the time. The whole history of
Russia shows that wolves, desperate with hunger, will attack in packs.
The word pack means what it says.
“Since mailing you my story there has appeared a despatch from
Constantinople declaring that wolves had attacked people in the
outskirts. There is a general idea that the lack of arms in Russia
(the Soviet government not favoring extensive arsenals in the outlying
districts) has led to a big increase in wolves while the present
severe winter has brought the beasts out into the open to secure
food. I am sorry I have thrown away all my clippings. Certainly Mr.
Stefansson’s theory is startling and interesting and I shall follow
any new wolf despatch from a new angle, letting you know, of course,
the result.
“The wolf narratives have created no stir in Europe whatsoever because
they are regarded as entirely probable, given the circumstances
outlined above.”
In due course a letter came from the Information Department of the
League of Nations, dated Geneva, March 14, and signed by Arthur
Sweetser. This letter vouches for the generally high character of
the American press representatives at Geneva, the particularly high
character of Joseph E. Sharkey, and the authenticity of the news
conveyed by Sharkey so far as concerns its having been received by the
League of Nations organization and passed on by them. The general tenor
of Mr. Sweetser’s long and careful statement is that, without being
exactly able to prove the truth of the stories, he really knows them
to be correct, and that therefore the League is neither a victim of
propaganda nor indulging in any when it passes on information of this
kind. One section of his letter reads:
“... it is a fact that one of our officials has seen 6, 8, or 10 (he
does not remember the exact number) despatches from Eastern European
countries regarding the increasing depredations and boldness of
wolves.... The official in question is a native of that part of Europe
and his information, and the experience of his friends as to the
habits of wolves, differs from that of Mr. Stefansson.”
On June 1, Sharkey wrote me from Geneva:
“... there may be an inherent difference in the wolves found in North
America and those found in Russia, including, of course, Siberia.
I personally spent three months in Siberia during the winter of
1918-1919, and persons who had long lived there frequently spoke to me
about the depredations of wolves which seemed to run in packs....
“... I want to bring to your attention the testimony of a young
Frenchman who with others was conducting an aeroplane trip over
Ukraine during the latter part of the war.... He said: ‘I think I
can throw some light on that question, for when I and my colleagues
were flying over Southern Ukraine we distinctly saw a pack of wolves
marching slowly and somewhat solemnly through an opening in the
woods. The band seemed to have a distinct formation with one wolf
striding some feet ahead of the main pack as if he were their leader.
Stragglers were seen in the rear, but the whole band seemed to have a
distinct and almost military formation under a distinct leader.’
“I have talked again with the Polish friend whose father did a good
deal of hunting of wolves, and he repeated that there is no doubt but
that in Poland, where the wolves run over from Russia, the animals
operate in packs or groups.”
The _Associated Press_ received as late as March 23 pack despatches
from Geneva, “where interest in news of wolf activity is chiefly
economic.” One of the despatches closed with these three paragraphs:
“There is a general belief here that the lack of arms in the Russian
country districts has led to a big increase in the number of wolves,
while the severe winter has brought the beasts into the open to secure
food.
“Despite the assertions of many naturalists that wolves do not hunt in
packs those who have personal knowledge of wolf hunting, particularly
in Poland, assert that wolves, desperate with hunger, will attack in
packs.
“In the winter of 1918-19 a detachment of the British Hampshire
regiment in Siberia which went by sleigh from Omsk to Ekaterinburg
reported an attack by a pack of wolves. The soldiers killed most of
the animals by rifle fire.”
These despatches, though I saw them through the kindness of the
_Associated Press_, were not sent out to the newspapers--for the
reasons given in the already-quoted letter from their Foreign News
Editor. On June 22, Stiles wrote further:
“I have just read your article on wolves in the _American Mercury_,
and am reminded that I intended to send you a mail story on the
subject that we received some time ago from our then correspondent
in Moscow, Mr. James A. Mills. We did not make use of it, as it was
for the most part a denial of the wolf story that came from Geneva to
which you called our attention and which we had already endeavored to
‘kill.’”
The Mills contribution is valuable as a statement of the time from
Moscow and is, of course, wholly authentic to the extent that it is a
report of what was believed there then about wolves. We accordingly use
more than three-quarters of it:
“Moscow, March 17.--Soviet Government officials were amazed at reports
reaching the League of Nations recently that Russia was overrun with
wolves to such an extent that in the Caucasus region the military
authorities had to dispatch airplanes with poison-gas bombs to kill
the invaders. The wolves had become so numerous and ferocious, the
League reports said, that they devoured human beings and terrified
whole cities and towns.
“‘A wolf story is always as good as a fish story,’ said a prominent
Soviet official to the correspondent. ‘The more it is exaggerated, the
better it sounds. But such stories ought to be left to those whom the
late President Roosevelt called “Nature fakers.” It is in poor taste
for a dignified, serious organization like the League of Nations to
issue them. The story about an airplane being sent in pursuit of packs
of these wolves is pure fiction. Russia has its share of wolves, but
they are no more numerous nor savage than those of any other country.’