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.

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