LEAFLET NO. 59HINTS ON WOLF AND COYOTE TRAPPING
By Stanley P. Young, Principal Biologist, in Charge Division of Predatory-Animaland Rodent Control, Bureau of Biological Survey
Issued July, 1930
HE RANGE of coyotes and wolves in the United States to-day isconfined mainly to the immense area west of the Mississippi River.Wolves, however, have been so materially reduced in numbers westof the one-hundredth meridian that except for those drifting into theUnited States from the northern States of Mexico, they are the cause oflittle concern. The areas now most heavily infested with wolves arein Alaska, eastern Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Wisconsin,Minnesota, and Michigan. A few r of these animals are found alsoin northern Louisiana and eastward along the Gulf coastal area intoMississippi. Coyotes, on the other hand, exist in all the WesternStates, as well as in the Mid-Western States above listed as inhabitedby wolves. They have also been reported in Orleans County, N. Y.,and in southeastern Alabama where introduced.
Is Necessary
Coyotes and wolves make serious inroads on the stocks of sheepand lambs, cattle, pigs, and poultry, as well as on the wild gamemammals and the ground-nesting and insectivorousbirds of the country. Wherever these predatory animalsoccur in large numbers, they are a source of worry andloss to stockmen, farmers, and sportsmen because oftheir destructiveness to wild and domestic animals. The coyote isby far the most persistent of the predators of the western rangecountry; and moreover, it is a further menace because it is a carrier ofrabies, or hydrophobia. This disease was prevalent in Nevada,California, Utah, Idaho, and eastern Oregon in 1916 and 1917, andlater in Washington and in southern Colorado. Since this widespreadoutbreak, sporadic cases of rabid coyotes have occurred each yearin the Western States. The coyote has also been found to be acarrier of tularemia, a disease of wild rabbits and other rodents that istransmissible and sometimes fatal to human beings.
Much of the country inhabited by coyotes and wolves is purelyagricultural and contains vast grazing areas, and a large percentageof the food of the animals of those areas consists of the mutton, beef,pork, and poultry produced by the stockman and farmer, and the wildgame that needs to be conserved. It is a matter of great importance,therefore, to the Nation’s livestock-producing sections, as well asto the conservationist’s plan of game protection or game propagation,that coyotes