Canis lupus hominis

In the 1890’s,  the frontier closed.

The wildness that once characterized the land that lay beyond the setting sun had been mostly choked out.

Only little vestiges of the great herds of bison and elk remained. The skies were no longer blackened with multitudes of migrating birds. Market hunting for Eastern restaurants that were eager to serve wild table fare had taken their toll upon the wild herds and flocks.   Bison were also killed as a way of closing off the main source of sustenance for the various indigenous people.

European man had conquered virtually every part of North America that makes up the lower 48 states. The whole throng of humanity heading West sought to “improve” the wild prairies and desert. Western agricultural civilization sought to extend itself into the most parched deserts, making the whole of the continent productive and providing a decent living for large numbers of people who sought their fortunes in taming the wild country.

The last decades of the nineteenth century were the story of the cattlemen. The open range was soon covered with vast herds of beef cattle, animals so poorly adapted to the arid and semi-arid wilderness that mortality from starvation and a lack of water were always a constant worry.

And then there were wolves.

Without the herds of ungulates to sustain them, the wolves learned to take on the dim-witted, short-haired buffalo. They had no way of knowing that these animals were owned. They had know way of knowing about things like capital and investment and profit– all the things that drove men to run these cattle into the wild ranges. They knew nothing of  our concepts of Manifest Destiny, in which Americans claimed the whole continent for themselves,  and the American Dream, in which those on the east streamed West to seek their fortunes and to have a little piece of it and rise above the station in which they were born.

The wolves knew only that they were hungry and that there were fewer wild prey species left.

But the land was filling with cattle.

And cattle were like naive elk calves.

The wolves killed the cattle, and the ranchers shot the wolves.

Then the wolves grew smart enough to stay out of rifle range– to always run with the scent of human graced the air.

They still could prey upon the cattle on the range, just so long as they avoided people.

The remaining wolves taught their young to fear people at all costs.

So the ranchers turned to steel traps.

The wolves were caught and killed, but they soon learned to avoid the traps.

Then carcasses were laced with poison, and the poison did claim some wolves.

The rifle, the trap, and the poison laced carcass wreaked havoc upon the last wolves of the West.

Those that remained were only the most cunning and clever animals. They became legendary for their abilities in tripping traps and of avoiding poison-laced beefs that killed scores of vultures, foxes, ravens, crows, dogs and coyotes.

One of these wolves became immortalized in Ernest Thompson Seton’s Wild Animals I Have Known.

Born of Scottish parents in County Durham in the north of England,  his ancestors had been involved in the extermination of the last British wolves. His family left England for Toronto, where he would often run into the forest to escape his abusive father. He would draw and write about the animals he encountered there.

His expertise at capturing the images of the wild animals on paper earned him a scholarship to study art at the Royal Academy in London. After completing his studies,  he returned to Canada, where he drew and wrote about all sorts of wild animals.

Working in Manitoba, he became interested in wolves.

He later moved to the United States, taking jobs as a trapper and hunter and working on his drawing and manuscripts.

In 1893, Seton traveled to the New Mexico Territory to take care of a problem wolf pack. The Currumpaw Valley was ideal cattle country for the Desert Southwest, but because the wild game species had been killed off.

The remaining wolves lived on cattle.

And one wolf had developed an amazing reputation for his cunning. His name was Lobo– Spanish for wolf– and many hunters and ranchers had tried to kill him. He would not touch poisoned carcasses or baits. He would kill off hunting dogs that tried to catch him, and he would pull up poisoned baits that were laid for him.

A $1,000 bounty was put on Lobo’s head, and Seton decided to see if he could claim it.

Seton knew about wolf behavior, so he thought that he would be able to catch this outlaw.

He thought it would just be a few weeks of work, and he’d have his money.

He had no traps available, so he set poisoned baits out.

Lobo pulled them up.

He then set traps for him.  Lobo exposed them.

No matter which way Seton set the traps, Lobo found them.

Seton learned that Lobo had a possible weakness– his mate.

Blanca was white bitch wolf that had lived well with her mate.

But she was less cunning than Lobo, and Seton was able to trap her using a buried cattle head.

When he came across her, she was standing in a trap howling with Lobo standing beside her.

Lobo ran when the men approached, but Blanca was killed.

They lassoed her and tied the ropes to horses. The horses were then made to run hard,  and her neck was broken.

Lobo started howling in mourning of his mate.

He searched and searched for her, eventually coming to Seton’s doorstep. Seton had taken her body home.

It was then that Seton realized he might be able to overcome Lobo’s cunning. He rubbed several traps with Blanca’s scent and set them the next night.

The next morning, Seton found Lobo ensnared in four of them.

The outlaw of the Currumpaw had been captured.

But Seton was so moved by Lobo’s loyalty to his mate that he couldn’t kill him. Here was an animal that had survived so many attempt to kill him and whose cunning had kept him from falling for all the traps, poison baits, and poison-laced carcasses but who had risked his life just to be with his mate.

Seton roped him and muzzled him. Lobo was removed from the traps.

He was put on a chain and taken to a nearby ranch.

But Lobo was not meant for the captive existence.

He died that night– perhaps it was his poor health, perhaps it was his yearning for freedom, perhaps it was his broken heart.

But he died.

After Lobo’s death, Seton became an advocate for the wolf– among the first in the world.

It would take many years for Westerners to appreciate the wolf.

But eventually the wolf would become the avatar for the conservation movement– a totemic animal that came to symbolized all that once was.

Whether the story of Lobo is exactly true or perhaps a bit embellished, it is a story that changes the wolf figure in the Western consciousness. Lobo is a romantic figure who holds out from all attempts at the modern world to do away with him. His cunning and intelligence keep him alive, but like any hero, he has a flaw, and like any character from a Medieval romance, his weakness is his lady fair.

Lobo is a wolf worth conserving. He has so many human qualities that are redeeming. Despite his depredations upon the cattle herds, his intelligence and deep love for his mate are deeply human virtues.

Remaking the wolf in this image has been what has ultimately saved the species. Later writers, including Adolph Murie and Farley Mowat, would use the human virtues of the wolf to change its status in the Western consciousness.

The story of Lobo is among the first to begin this change in status.

And for that reason, we should always think of him and Blanca when we see wolves on television or read about them in a magazine or book.

Through their deaths, the way we viewed the wolf was changed.

And that’s what saved them.

***

The BBC made a documentary about Lobo called Lobo: The Wolf That Changed America.

It is worth watching– Sir David Attenborough narrates.