Rabies, Wolves and Tyrany
by JIM BEERS
Who doesn’t know “about” rabies? Bats get rabies and it spreads quickly through their numbers. All animals contracting rabies die a slow, painful death during which they bite and injure other animals thereby spreading rabies. Dogs “get” rabies shots (preventative vaccines) not only to protect humans and other animals but because of nationwide laws that mandate such shots under strict and heavy penalties. Rabies “shots” for persons or animals suspected of having contracted rabies are not as painful or intimidating (a series of shots from a large hypodermic in the stomach area) as they used to be but failure to get quick treatment can surely end in death.
The World Health Organization tells us:
- “All wild and domestic animals can contract and spread rabies.”
- “If symptoms develop, rabies is nearly always fatal.”
- “55,000 people per year die from rabies.”
- “15 million people per year receive treatment for rabies thus saving an estimated 327,000 human lives per year.”
- “99% of all human rabies is contracted from dogs.”
- Most rabies cases are in Asia and Africa.”
Many years ago I worked with another USFWS law enforcement officer that had to “get rabies shots” in the late 1940’s. He was bitten by a muskrat thrown into an airboat during a night bird banding operation in Canada for molting ringneck ducks. The vaccine in those days was made with an albumen base and he could never again eat anything (cake, bread, biscuit –anything) made with egg whites without a violent reaction that might kill him.
To paraphrase a vicious animal rights maven (A boy is a rat, etc.); a wolf is a dog is a coyote. Wolves, dogs (all of them), and coyotes interbreed freely and produce fertile offspring. “Fertile offspring” is a clue. “Fertile” means that, unlike mules produced by crossing horses and donkeys, wolf/dog crosses are simply another dog or wolf as the case may be like the puppies produced when your neighbors Labrador “gets at” (to be sensitive here) your basset hound when she is “in heat”.
For purposes of this discussion; wolves are wild dogs, dogs are domesticated wolves, and coyotes are smaller (i.e. than wolves) wild dogs. Dogs live in and around human habitations. Coyotes live generally solitary lives in and around where they are born. Wolves range far and wide while ranging mostly in family groups or “packs”. They each eat fresh meat whenever available ranging from wild animals to domestic animal of all types including other dogs/wolves/coyotes. Depending on their size (from 150 lb. wolves to 10 lb. daschound), physical attributes (from short legs to “pug’ face to the massive jaw strength of wolves), and environment (from Northern forests to Long Island mansion); all of them are quite capable of killing large animals and even family members of their owners. Each contracts, carries, and spread rabies. Dogs (in North America) get rabies shots. Wolves and coyotes get no shots (excepting of course those from a rifle). Wolves move in groups and therefore, like bats, rabies infections move swiftly to other wolves thereby magnifying their roles as vectors of this as well as many other diseases and infections.
Oh, and then there is the one big thing to never forget. Wolves; the largest, most dangerous, and most destructive of these animals; were purposely eradicated over a 200 year period from the Lower 48 (i.e. settled landscapes covered with human communities) States with two exceptions. The States ( like all the others that Constitutionally held authority over all “resident” wild animals) of Montana and Minnesota, with the consent of their residents tolerated small, remnant wolf populations that were controlled when attacks or property destruction occurred or when wolves appeared in locations where they were not tolerated. All wolves in the Lower 48 States today (including Montana and Minnesota) are there ONLY present because of federal intervention and protection. This means that when; as you are about to discover; a wolf or wolves spread rabies or attack a child or kill a camper or (all these and more are in store) never forget that they are present among us because of the manipulation of unjust federal power by environmental extremists, animal rights radicals, pandering politicians, prevaricating professors, and ruthless federal and state bureaucrats. Those involved have assured promotions, grants, bonuses, retirement positions, retirement to gated communities, salaries in the hundreds of thousands per year, tenure, prestige, and vastly increased government power that some would call tyrannical as a result of their participation in this wolf return to the Lower 48 States.
What you are about to read was NOWHERE mentioned in all the EIS’s and other government documents created to justify the wolf’s return. Contrast that fact with the way that drives to stop logging or a dam, close farming areas or irrigation projects, eliminate grazing or mining, prevent a pipeline or energy project, etc., generates reams of paper from taxpayer “studies” that serve as the basis for a lawsuit that either causes the citizen victim to go broke or submit to a government edict that destroys private property, communities, local governments, and all manner of human activities. What you are about to read, is but one small part of what was withheld from the public and small though it may be if it does not shake your confidence in “our” government, you aren’t paying attention.
THE WOLVES OF NORTH AMERICA by Stanley Young and Edward Goldman was published by the American Wildlife Institute in 1944. It is a 600 page volume that attempts “to bring together the widely scattered literature of historical import concerning the wolves of North America, from the earliest times to the present day.” Stanley Young began his federal career as a government trapper and hunter in the western US for the Bureau of Biological Survey around the time of the First World War (1914-1918). At the time he wrote this book he was the Chief of Predator and Rodent Control in the US Fish and Wildlife Service in Washington, DC.
This book credits over 50 scientists and professors for their help in writing this book. There is an 80 page “References and Selected Bibliography”. There are 131 “Plates”, i.e. photos. There are 25 pages of wolf skull comparisons and a long, un-numbered Index. Photos cover such diverse items as 11 whelp wolf litters and a truly ugly wolf/dog cross in Missouri to 6-7’ long wolf pelts (big wolves) and tidewater wolf trap sets in SE Alaska.
Although summarizing the wealth of knowledge in this book is a fool’s errand, let me cite and comment on a few items to give you a flavor for the text:
- Wolf presence and densities are always measured as relevant to “Human Welfare”; a quaint notion in our computer age.
- Wolves were finally extirpated after many centuries in England by 1500, in Scotland by 1743, and in Ireland by 1776 (a year also celebrated for another great liberation).
- Biblical references (from a bureaucrat?) such as Christ telling his Apostles “I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves” are not avoided. This obviously predated the ACLU et al.
- Wolf distribution maps cover nearly every square foot between Greenland and Point Barrow, Alaska to Central Mexico.
- Historical references and quotes from the likes of Puritan Roger Williams (“wolves are fierce bloodsucking persecutors”) to Teddy Roosevelt (wolves are “the beast of waste and desolation”) abound.
- Photos of wolf/coyote crosses and dog/wolf crosses to do everything from pull sleds to guard camps are interspersed with descriptions of how Beowulf means “War Wolf” and how 7th, 8th, and 9th century despots bore names like “Berthwolf”, “Cynewolf”, “Wulfstan”, “Wulfred”, “Wolfwig”, and Ceowulf” to scare and intimidate any challengers or restless serfs.
- How Oregon Wolf Organization meetings (to eradicate wolves) formed the basis for the formation of the Oregon Territorial government.
- How, in 1944 as he wrote, he stated that it would be admirable if wolves were allowed to exist in “Alaska and Northern Canada” but that “rigid control must be maintained where their presence clashes with human welfare”.
While the CONTENTS covers everything from “Fear of Man” and “Attacks on Man” (many, many documented accounts) to “Food of the Wolf” and “Denning and Rearing”, let us go to the 15 pages titled “Natural Checks, Parasites, and Diseases”. In fact, let us go to the five pages (nestled between descriptions of such diseases and infections as smallpox, distemper, tapeworms, gid, tick fevers, encephalitis, and tularemia et al) where RABIES is discussed.
Now 5 pages are a lot to type out for you by an old “hunt and pecker” like me; thus with your patient consent allow me to skim it for you. RABIES (from WOLVES OF NARTH AMERICA)—
- “Probably one of the most prevalent diseases found in wolves is rabies.”
- “It is related in the ‘Annals Cambriae’ that in 1166 a rabid wolf at Caermarthen bit twenty-two persons, nearly all of whom died.”
- “The records show this disease to be widespread and at times, very severe. The Indians were fully cognizant of the disease and greatly feared it.”
- “The Indian people of the Great Plains at times suffered from hydrophobia (Rabies) caused by the bite of the great buffalo wolf afflicted with rabies. In their crazed condition the wolves sometimes invaded the camps of the people, snapping and biting at them, their dogs and horses. The people through fear shut themselves in their lodges.”
- Regarding rabid wolves, “they went alone roaming aimlessly about, lacking the motions of a hunting wolf, t4rotting along, at intervals making a circling movement, snapping at the tail or hind parts as they made the circle, keeping up a trot until lost sight of. When killed they showed marks of self-inflicted wounds.”
- Washington Irving recorded at a fur rendezvous: “During this season of folly and frolic there was an alarm of mad wolves in the two lower camps. One or more of these animals entered the camp three nights successively, and bit several of the people. Captain Bonneville relates the case of an Indian, who was a universal favorite in the lower camp. He had been bitten by one of these animals. Being out with a party shortly afterwards, he grew silent and gloomy, and lagged behind the rest as if he wished to leave them. They halted and urged him to move faster, but he entreated them not to approach him, and, leaping from his horse began to roll frantically on the earth gnashing his teeth and foaming at the mouth. Still he retained his senses, and warned his companions not to come near him, as he should not be able to restrain himself from biting them. They hurried off to obtain relief; but on their return he was nowhere to be found. His horse and accoutrements remained on the spot. Three or four days afterward, a solitary Indian, believed to be the same was observed crossing a valley, and pursued; but he started away into the fastness of the mountains and was seen no more… One of the men of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company had been bitten. He set out shortly afterwards, in company with two white men, on his return to the settlements. In the course of a few days he showed symptoms of hydrophobia, and became raving towards night. At length, breaking away from his companions, he rushed into a thicket of willows, where they left him to his fate.”
- Alexander Henry reported in his 1800 Journal, “Last night the wolves were very troublesome; they kept up a terrible howling at the fort, and even attempted to enter Maymiutch’s tent. A large white one came boldly to the door and was advancing toward a young child, when he was shot dead. Some of them are very audacious. I have known them to follow people for several days, attempt to seize a person or dog, and to be kept off only by firearms. It does not appear that hunger makes them so ferocious, as they have been known to pass carcasses of animals, which they might have eaten to their fill, but they would not touch flesh; their only object seeming to be that of biting. The Canadians swear that these are mad wolves and are very much afraid of them. (Red River near Grand Forks, N.D.)”
- “Mc Gowan believed that the wolf is very much of a carrion eater when there is famine in the land. And furthermore at such times mange is not uncommon and outbreaks of rabies have also been noted by trappers and traders.”
- “Recording his observations in Greenland, as in Canada, Freuchen states ‘Wolves, foxes, and ermines can be infected by it (rabies) and will attack all the dog teams they come across, or at any rate will make no attempt to get out of the way. Until the last moment, and then they will bite thus transferring the infection to the team.’”
- “Mad wolves were apparently recognized by the early trapper-explorers of the Far West… A day or so later (1833) we learned that a mad wolf had got into Mr. Fontenelle’s camp about 5 miles from us and bitten some of his men and horses…. Larpenteur had one of his bulls bitten, which later ‘went mad’ and died shortly after being bitten. As a result of the bitings, George Holmes, a member of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, became afflicted with rabies, and died a horrible and agonizing death.”
- “According to Lt. Col. Dodge Indians say that wolves, not unfrequently go mad, rush into their villages and do great damage. The following most interesting and perfectly authenticated facts are taken from the record of the Hospital at Fort Larned on the Arkansas River. ‘On the 5th August, at 10 PM, a rabid wolf of the large gray species, came into the post and charged round most furiously. He entered the hospital and attacked Corporal ____, who was lying sick in bed, biting him severely in the left hand and right arm. The left little finger was nearly taken off. The wolf next dashed into a party of ladies and gentlemen sitting in Colonel ___’s porch and bit Lieutenant ___ severely in both legs. Leaving there he soon afterward attacked and bit Private ___ in two places. This all occurred in an incredibly short period of time; and although the above mentioned were the only parties bitten, the animal left the marks of his presence in every quarter of the garrison. He moved with great rapidity, snapping at everything within his reach, tearing tents, window curtains, bed-clothing, etc., in every direction. The sentinel at the guard-house fired over the animal’s back while he ran between the man’s legs. Finally, he charged upon a sentinel at the haystack, and was killed by a well directed and most fortunate shot. He was a very large wolf, and his long jaws and teeth presented a most formidable appearance.”
- Indians “say that the appearance of mad wolves in their village is not infrequent; that the time of year at which they are most often seen is in the months of February and March; that once having entered the village , the wolf will make no attempt to leave it, but will rush furiously from place to place until he is disabled; and that in no instance have any of them ever known a person to recover after having received the smallest scratch from the teeth of the rabid animal.”
- Regarding Mexican sheep herders, “whenever a member of a party became afflicted with rabies as a result of the bite of a mad wolf, his companions would seldom associate with him , believing ‘all would die if they associated with him.’”
- “To what extent rabies was a factor in the elimination of wolves east of the Mississippi to the Atlantic seaboard is not definitely known. Dodderidge was of the opinion that the wolves formerly so numerous and destructive to the cattle are now seldom heard of in our older settlements. It may seem strange that this ferocious and cunning animal, so long the scourge of the mountain districts of Europe, should have so suddenly disappeared from the country. He believed the wolves died of hydrophobia.”
- “Hutyera and Marek describe wolves throughout the world as being involved in the spread of rabies.”
Knowing about all this as I do, I am still chilled to type it out for you. Why Americans were re-exposed to this deadly threat by their own government is a travesty of unimaginable proportion. Men, women, and children will die – FOR WHAT? Those that perpetrated this, just like the USFWS big wigs that stole millions from state fish and wildlife hunting and fishing funds to illegally introduce the wolves, have no responsibility for the carnage they have and will wreak.
As an old USFWS bureaucrat I should say, “Just move along citizens, there is nothing to see here. Move along.”
As a father, grandfather, and concerned American, I say; “Wake up America. They have LIED (the right term) to you. They have taken advantage of you and betrayed you. If you do nothing about this – Nothing will ever get done.”
From the top down we are suffering from tyranny and tyranny left unchecked, like those rabid wolves, only gets worse. The Endangered Species Act should either be repealed or severely amended. Unless and until authority over animals like wolves is returned to state governments responsive to local community governments where wolves exist, rural Americans will die like Christian martyrs in the Coliseum for the entertainment of urban mobs necessary for the continued power of despots and their sycophants.
Jim Beers
15 February 2012
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This article and other articles written by Jim Beers since January 2009 can
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Articles by Jim Beers written from March 2006 to January 2009 can be found
at http://jimbeers.blogster.com (Jim Beers Common Sense)
Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist, Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow. He was stationed in North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York City, and Washington DC. He also served as a US Navy Line Officer in the western Pacific and on Adak, Alaska in the Aleutian Islands. He has worked for the Utah Fish & Game, Minneapolis Police Department, and as a Security Supervisor in Washington, DC. He testified three times before Congress; twice regarding the theft by the US Fish & Wildlife Service of $45 to 60 Million from State fish and wildlife funds and once in opposition to expanding Federal Invasive Species authority. He resides in Eagan, Minnesota with his wife of many decades.
Jim Beers is available to speak or for consulting at jimbeers7@comcast.net