Exaggeration, braggadocio and plain tomfoolery were employed by Wolf hunters and the Ranchers who employed them to stoke the everyday citizen into fearing and demonizing Wolves...............Encouraging their absolute extermination wherever they were found to exist from early Colonial days right on up and into the early 20th Century-------Those fears and hatreds are very much alive in a segment of our population as the current calls for "Forever Wolf delisting" from Endangered Species consideration attest

Famous North American Wolves and  the Credibility of Early Wildlife Literature Philip S. Gipson, Warren B. Ballard,  and Ronald M. Nowak 1998

Abstract In early accounts, many famous wolves were reported to be  older than they actually were, and the authors estimate that  they did not live long enough to have caused purported  damage to livestock and game animals. Some famous  wolves may actually have been dogs, wolf-dog hybrids,  or possibly coyote-dog hybrids. They document instances  where early authors appeared to embellish or fabricate information. Contemporary perceptions about gray wolves (Canis lupus) and red wolves (C. rufus) were influenced by accounts of individual depredating  wolves by Seton (1898, 1929, 1937), Bell (1921), Carhart and Young  (1929), Graham (1938), Young and Goldman (1944), Young (1946, 1970),  Wiley (1954), King (1965), Brown (1983), and others. Stanley P. Young, in  particular, created lasting and negative perceptions about wolves among  ranchers, hunters, and wildlife managers through his popular articles, agriculture publications and 4 books*....Recent studies of public perceptions  of wolf restoration attributed some of the fear and hatred of wolves to accounts  of notorious livestock killers. Mech (1970) noted that a number of notorious  wolves earned reputations for possessing almost supernatural qualities that  allowed them to avoid capture by the best trappers. Famous wolves commonly were recognized by unique tracks caused  by injuries to their feet when they were caught in traps and escaped . Wolves called "Old Two Toes," "Peg Leg," and "Club Foot" were  widely known. Occasionally, a famous wolf such as "Three Toes"  of Harding County, South Dakota was thought to be the last wolf  in a region; consequently, it was credited with any local damage  believed to have been caused by a wolf. Other famous wolves were  known by unusual coloration, such as the "Phantom Wolf" that had  a tawny pelt similar to a collie dog. Atypical behavior made other  famous wolves easy to recognize: the "Custer Wolf" traveled  with coyotes (C. latrans).... Understanding of wolf-prey relationships has increased greatly during  the past 20 years and reliable aging techniques for wolves have  become available. These advances now allow for comparisons of  current data with historical literature to determine the credibility of  earlier accounts. We examine the credibility of early literature about  famous North American gray wolves and the negative perceptions  created by the literature that influenced wolf management at the time. METHODS We searched literature from North America for reports of famous  gray wolves. Based on published accounts summarized by Gipson  and Ballard (1998), we estimated minimum periods of time during  which depredations reportedly occurred, kill rates, and extent of  damage, and we summarized the physical and behavioral  characteristics of the wolves in question. We contacted museums  and managers of private wildlife collections in the United States,  Canada, and Mexico to locate skulls and mounted skins o f famous wolves.... We compared the length of time that famous wolves  reportedly damaged livestock and wild game to their  estimated age at the time of death. Tooth wear was  used to estimate wolf ages....When the literature  provided only a minimum amount of time that a wolf  was known to damage livestock, we assumed the  minimum age of that wolf to be the period of reported  depredation plus 1 year, because it is unlikely that a  wolf younger than 1 year old would have been a serious  predator of range livestock. This allowed us to evaluate  whether famous wolves lived long enough to cause the  damage attributed to them.... We summarized reported kill rates and consumption rates  for wolves preying on wild ungulates and livestock from recent literature. We then compared recently reported kill  rates with depredation rates reported for famous wolves.... RESULTS At least 59 famous gray wolves are reported to have existed in North America during 1739 through 1958. The reputations of 56  of these wolves were based on the purportedly significant amounts  of damage they caused to livestock and wild game. We examined  the skulls of 7 of the 56 wolves, and close-up photographs of the  teeth of 3 additional mounted specimens, for age determination  . Our estimates of age were significantly lower than the original  estimates of age reported in the literature. Our estimates of age  for the 10 wolves averaged 6.2 years whereas reported estimates  averaged 10.6 years. We calculated kill rates for 14 famous, depredating wolves ; each purportedly killed an average of 57 cattle annually.  If these estimates were correct, then each wolf had an  average of 48 kg of cattle flesh available per day. A famous  wolf from Minnesota killed 1,200 deer over a 12-year period , i.e., 100 deer each year. According to Fuller's (1989) estimate  of 42 kg of edible flesh per deer, this would have provided  approximately 11.5 kg of deer flesh to the wolf per day. DISCUSSION Most famous North American wolves lived in the relatively brief  period from 1890 to 1930, although efforts to control wolves  extend back to the colonial period....We traced the notoriety  of 29 famous wolves to documents published by the U.S. BiologicalSurvey and information supplied by its employees. This information was developed to enhance support for  predator-control programs....A technique used by district  inspectors...was to write accounts of notorious wolves and  use these accounts to develop support for their program.... Publications by naturalist writers...were a second  source of notoriety for individual wolves. These were written to appeal to the public, hunters, livestock  producers, and natural resource managers. Seton (1898) was the first of the naturalist writers to publish  accounts about notorious wolves. His account of the New Mexican wolves, Lobo and Blanca, was popular  throughout the world, and, during the 1960s, a  full-length Disney movie was released about Lobo and Blanca. Accounts of famous wolves by naturalist  writers that followed Seton often originated from  information provided by the U.S. Biological Survey . For example, S.P. Young was an employee of the  Biological Survey and a prolific writer, who based  many of his wolf publications on records from the Biological Survey.... Our age determinations for 10 notorious wolves, compared  with the original reports of their age, suggests that most  estimates of age provided by early writers were  exaggerated. For example, Young (1970) claimed that  Big Foot ranged between DeBeque and Grand Junction,  Colorado for 17 years, a period equal to the longevity record  for captive wolves, which seems highly unlikely....Mech (1988) noted that a few wild wolves in Minnesota might reach  13 years of age.... We found that reported damage to livestock in early  accounts was far greater than recently documented  wold kill rates of wild ungulates and domestic livestock  in North America....One famous wolf, Lobo-Killer Wolf of the North, reportedly preyed almost exclusively on  deer and other wild game in Minnesota. From estimates  of deer killed by the wolf, we calculated an average of 11.5 kg of deer flesh available to the wolf per day. This estimate appears high when compared with the  consumption rate of 2.9 kg of der flesh reported by Fritts and Mech (1981), working in the same general area of Minnesota during winter, when energy  demands of wolves should be expected to be high. We considered 3 possible explanations for the relatively  high kill rates reported for famous wolves: (1) some famous  wolves engaged in surplus killing of livestock and game,  (2) a few famous wolves were wild dogs or wolf-dog hybrids,  and (3) early authors exaggerated damage by famous wolves.... Surplus killing may provide a logical explanation for  high kill rates on sheep, but not for cattle. During the  period when famous wolves purportedly caused  excessive damage on free-ranging cattle, the most  commonly ranged breeds were longhorns and  longhorn-Hereford crosses. Longhorn cattle were  selected for their ability to defend themselves and  their calves against predators. Most accounts of  lone wolves surplus killing free-ranging longhorn  cattle probably were exaggerated.... Some famous wolves may have been wild dogs, wolf-dog hybrids, or coyote-dog hybrids, crosses commonly  mistaken for wolves....Dogs and hybrids are sometimes  aggressive and unpredictable when attacking sheep and cattle, at times indiscriminately chasing and mutilating many  individuals....Furthermore, some famous wolves had physical  features or reproductive seasons that suggest hybridization  with dogs. Wolf-dog hybrids and wild dogs were encountered often  during early predator-control operations. For example,  in 1918 and 1919 Biological Survey inspectors for New  Mexico and Arizona developed a cooperative plan to kill  wolves, hybrids, and a pack of wild dogs....If, historically , dogs and hybrids were often mistaken for wolves, then  the high killing rates reported may have resulted, not  from exaggerations, but attribution of kills to the wrong  predator species. Finally, high kill rates may be a result of exaggerated or  misleading accounts of famous wolves. Seton (1929)  admitted taking a "writer's liberty" in writing the stories  of some individual wolves, attributing adventures to them which actually belonged to other wolves.... Examination of evidence presented by Young and  Goldman (1944) about "Three Toes" of Harding County,  South Dakota suggests that parts of their account were  fabricated. These authors indicated that [more than] 150  men attempted to capture the wolf during a 13-year period  during which it was believed to have killed [more than]  $50,000 worth of livestock.....Nowak (1995) conducted  a multivariate analysis comparing the skull of this wolf  to wolves in other populations. He concluded that the  wolf, which was significantly larger than other wolves  from South Dakota and neighboring states, probably  originated in Canada. It is possible that the wolf  dispersed from Canada, or that the carcass of a large  wolf with a missing toe was transported to South Dakota  and presented as the legendary Three Toes. Although  these cases are not directly applicable to the issue of extraordinarily high kill rates attributed to famous  damaging wolves, we believe they support our  skepticism about the credibility of the historica l accounts.