Wolves in Wisconsin

I ran across this picture while I was working on the biography of George Herbert Anderson. George was born in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1897 but came to live with his grandmother, Christina Olson Long, in Stockholm township, Pepin county, Wisconsin after the death of his mother in 1901. He lived most of his life in the Stockholm area until later in life when he moved to Minneapolis. He is pictured here holding a dead wolf.

The wolf population of Wisconsin prior to European settlement was estimated to be from 3,000 to 8,000. No one really knows for sure. What we do know is that as fur trappers and farmers began to move in to the area in the 1830's, the animals that the wolves preyed on began to disappear. Typically the wolves prey included bison, elk, and white-tailed deer in the south and moose, deer, caribou, and beaver in the north. Hungry wolves began to feed on easy-to-capture livestock. This was unpopular with farmers as one would expect. The Wisconsin Legislature, under pressure from farmers, passed a state bounty in 1865 of $5 for each dead wolf. By 1900, no timber wolves existed in the southern two-thirds of the state. As the sport hunting of deer became an economic boost in Wisconsin the bounty for wolves was raised to $20 for adults and $10 for pups. Millions of taxpayers dollars were spent to kill Wisconsin's wolves. George Anderson was the beneficiary of at least one of these payments as this photo will attest to.

Wolves were reintroduced to Wisconsin and are managed to keep the number of wolves at 350 in the state, outside of reservations. They have moved from "threatened" to a "protected wild animal" in the state.

Big Bad Wolves: A Lesson in Tolerance. A Look at Wolves in Wisconsin. Altoona School District, Copyright 1999. https://newweb.altoona.k12.wi.us/schools/Middle/departments/7&8/solfest/history.htm. Accessed 20 DEC 2020

Rasmussen, James (2017). History of the Gray Wolf in Wisconsin. Blog post 9 MAY 2017. Accessed at https://medium.com/@JamesPlusR/history-of-the-gray-wolf-in-wisconsin-31f4efc120ea on 20 DEC 2020.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Fact Sheet. Revised December 2011. https://www.fws.gov/midwest/wolf/aboutwolves/r3wolfrec.htm. Accessed 20 DEC 2020.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Gray Wolves-Western Great Lakes States: HIstory of Decline, Protection and Recovery (2 JAN 2020). https://www.fws.gov/midwest/wolf/history/index.html. Accessed 20 DEC 2020.

Comments

Great Hanging of Gainesville, Texas

Oswald J. Hitz [1] married Sarah J. Harper in December of 1883. While researching Sarah Harper an interesting incident was discovered that involved her father, Manadier D. Harper. The event is known as the Great Hanging of 1862 at Gainesville, Texas. Rising tensions in Cooke county, Texas were the result of increased migration to the area following an expansion of the Butterfield Overland Mail route, a semi-weekly mail and passenger stage service that traveled from St. Louis, through northern Texas, terminating in San Francisco. The new migrants to the area did not own slaves which caused the numbers of slave owners to dwindle. By 1862 only 10% of the population of Cooke county owned slaves. Cooke and surrounding counties voted against secession which focused the fears of the slave holders in the county on the residents of the county that did not own slaves. A rumor circulated that 1,700 men had joined a Union League and were going to at...

Place and date of birth of Benjamin Coffman (Kaufman, Kauffman)

Problem: Place and date of birth for Benjamin Coffman (Kauffman, Kaufman) The process of finding the date and place of birth for Benjamin Coffman was probably no different than what other researchers have faced. Family stories led us all astray for many years. The family told us that Benjamin was born in Germany. The tales went on to say that on the journey from Germany, Benjamin's father died. We were told that Benjamin had 12 brothers that also traveled with him and his parents to America. The one kernel of truth that was related to us was that a name associated with the family, besides Kauffman, was Omlör. Unraveling the family stories Through DNA analysis, I found a match with the surname Omlor. A record was found for Catherine Omlor who married Lewis Kauffman in Lorain County, Ohio on 27 SEP 1835. In the 1840 U.S. Census a record was found for a Lewis Coffman household in Sherman township, in the adjoining county of ...

Elisabeth Kaufman Zoll: How I Found Her Date of Death

St. Joseph Catholic Church, Wright, Ottawa County, Michigan I have been researching the lives of the siblings of Benjamin Kaufman in an effort to view Benjamin's life in relationship to what was happening with his family. Benjamin had three full siblings, Elisabeth, Lewis and John and six half siblings from his mother, Catherine Omlor's, second marriage to Anthony Armock: Nicholas, Theobald, Mary, Anthony, Christian and Catherine. This post will deal with attempting to find the death date of Elisabeth. Elisabeth was born to Lewis and Catherine Omlor Kaufman in Ohio in 1836. Unable to find a birth record I am relying on the baptismal record from the St. Alphonsus Ligouri Catholic Church in Peru, Ohio for an approximate birth date. She was baptized in that church on August 9, 1836, the sponsors being her grandparents, Theobald and Elisabeth Stutzman Omlor. Elisabeth's father died when she was four years old and her mother remarried Anthony Armock...

SHARE AND SHARE ALIKE

Search This Blog