A Wolfs Fear of Iron.

Otago Witness, Issue 2817, 4 March 1908, Page 76

A Wolfs Fear of Iron.

In the early days wolves were comparatively unsuspicious, and it was easy to trap or poi&on them. Then new knowledge, a better comprehension of the modern dangers, seemed to spread among the wolves. They learned how to detect and defy the traps and poison, and in some way the knowledge was passed from one to another, till all wolves were fully possessed of the information. How this is done is not easy to say. It is easier to prove that it is done. Few wolves ever get into a trap and out again, and thus they learn that a steel trap is a thing to be feared. And yet all wolves have the knowledge, as every trapper knows, and since they could not get it at first hand, they must have got it becond hand — that is, the information was communicated to them by others of their kind.

It is well known among hunters that a piece of iron is enough to protect any carcase from the wolves. If a deer or antelope has been shot and is to be left out overnight, all that is needed for its protection ie an old horseshoe, a spur^ or even any part of the hunter's dress. No wolf mil] a;o near such suspicious-looking or

human tainted things. They will starv* ra f her than approach the carcase so guarded. With poison, a similar change has come about. Strychnine was considered infallible when first it was introduced. It did vast destruction for a time : then the wolves seemed to discover the danger of that particular smell, and would no longer take tho poisoned bait, as I know from numberless expei iences. It is thoroughly well known among tho cattlemen now that the only chance of poisoning wolves is in the late summer and c-arly autumn, when the young are beginning to run with the mother. She cannot watch over all of them the whole time, and there is a. chance of some of them finding the bait and taking it before they have been taught to let that sort of smellthinjr alone. The result is that -wolves are on th« inci-pase. They have been, indeed, since the late eighties. They have returned to many of their old hunting grounds in the cattle countries, and each year they seem I to be more numerous and more widely 3pread, thanks to their mastery of the nevr problems forced upon them by civilisation. — Ernest Thompson Seton, in the American Magazine.