A brief history of Bounties paid to residents of New York State for doing in Predators and other "varmints"is reflective of the mentality that existed in the first 400 years of the American experience---bounties still exist in certain States................in 1802, land cost $2.00 per acre in New York State................Killing a wolf in Chenango County, NY fetched you $60 and a Cougar $75................You could buy a 675 acre farm if you killed 10 wolves and 10 cougars.................pretty good incentive to wipe out our top-of-the-foodchain Carnivores.................What sucks is that this mentality is alive and well in a still too large segment of the American, Canadian, Mexcan population

B Y R O B E R T W. A R N O L D I I I

archives around

NewYork

New York's settlers

regarded wild animals

as either food or foe

and exterminated them at an

appalling rate. Food animals

such as passenger pigeons

were slaughtered with no real

idea that they could vanish

entirely; the world's last

passenger pigeon died in a zoo

in 1914. The extermination

of other species, however,

particularly alpha predators

such as panthers, bears, and

wolves, was assisted by the

payment of bounties.

From colonial times until

within modern memory, many

New York communities paid

bounties on "pest animals"

killed for public benefit.

Where the state was sparsely

populated and agricultural,

such animals were viewed as

predators that took domestic

animals, ravaged crops, or

made life dangerous for settlers,

and were therefore impediments

to survival.

The wolf, cougar

 hawks, wildcats, foxes,

crows, rats, lynx, blackbirds,

and probably other animals

were all bountied.

Clinton County was still paying

wolf bounties in the early

1820s, and Montgomery

County's Board of Supervisors

resolved to "allow the sum of

fifteen dollars for every full

grown wolf killed in this county

and the sum of seven dollars

and fifty cents for any wolf

whelp killed within the same."

As settlers pushed into western

New York, Chautauqua County

wolves in 1815 "were as

plenty [sic] as black-berries in

harvest." At that time, wool

was a lucrative farm product

that provided uniforms for the

armies of the Napoleonic Wars,

and sheep farming increased

in response to this demand.

Wolves were a threat to the

valuable sheep, so the county

increased its appropriation for

wolf bounties, but by 1820 the

county supervisors petitioned

the state to have the bounty

reduced because there were

so few wolves left. The last

wolf was killed there in 1841.

In more modern times,

the bounty on a rattlesnake

in Essex County during the

Depression was one dollar; on

a hawk, half that. This was

money much-needed by locals,

some of whom evidently

became at least part-time

bounty hunters. In November

1935, the county paid bounties

on thirty-five rattlesnakes and

seventeen hawks. The warm

months, when the snakes

were on the move, proved the

most lucrative. In mid-August

of 1930, H.M. Lawrence was

paid for thirty-seven rattlesnake

rattles, and Francis Kelly

was paid for eighteen rattles

in September 1939, although

most bounty payouts recorded

in the Essex County Clerk's

Office were for one to three

animals. While men were

usually collectors of bounties,

in 1933 one Lavina Lewis was

paid for two hawks.

Since 1983, the timber

rattler has been a threatened

species—not entirely due to

bounty hunting, but certainly

not helped by it.

Minutes of the Ulster County

Board of Supervisors indicate
that the county paid bounties
on 232 wolves between 1711
and 1731. A bounty was also
paid on whelps, the young of
wolves. As late as 1793, the
board of supervisors paid a
bounty on a panther. At the
other end of the pest chain
was the squirrel. In 1793, “the
Freeholders and Inhabitants
of the Town of Rensselaerville
[Albany County] Resolved
unanimously that one penny
be allowed for every Squirrel’s
Scalp, of any Squirrel kind
which shall be killed... .”
Honest bounty hunting
could be lucrative, at least
when taking alpha predators
like cougars. In Chenango
County in 1802, Daniel Buck
paid for his farm with bounty
money: $60 for each wolf and
$75 for each panther. In a
single year, Buck killed eleven
panthers at a time when land
in New York State sold for
two dollars an acre. However,
in a cash-scarce rural economy,
bounty money raised temptation:
in 1820 in Chautauqua
County, a certificate was
issued for a full-grown wolf
that was later determined to
have been caught as a whelp,
raised until fully grown, and
then killed in order to collect
the twice-larger bounty paid
for adult animals.
Physical evidence of a kill
had to be presented, and to
receive payment hunters had
to swear that these animals
had been killed within town
limits. When a squirrel scalp
was submitted, for example,
the appropriate town officer
immediately clipped off its
ears and burned them so that
the same scalp could not be
submitted again by ethically
challenged citizens. A certificate
was then signed, and the town
supervisors, who collectively
formed the county’s board of
supervisors, paid the bounties
from town funds, to be
reimbursed by the county.
However, sometimes the rules
got broken. In Essex County
rattlesnakes were a threat,
and a higher bounty was paid
for them than in neighboring
Warren County, leading to
the occasional bounty-jumper
crossing the county line to
collect. Rattlesnakes also
regenerate their rattles, so
enterprising citizens would
keep snakes alive, repeatedly
trim off the rattles, and
submit them for payment


 

As times changed, so did

the outlook on the environment

and the appreciation of

the ecological roles of various

species. Bounties were outlawed

in New York State in the

early 1970s, and efforts have

been made—sometimes hotly

opposed in public debate—

to re-establish populations of

some formerly bounty-hunted

predators. Today, research

and sensitivities look upon

pest animals as occupants of

important environmental

niches, or as helpful predators

that eliminate true pests such

as rats and mice, or simply as

prey themselves in the natural

food chain

Bounty Hunting in New York