"The Custer Wolf is Dead." (1921) [pdf]

bento.cdn.pbs.org

51 points·joebig··12 comments

It's worth remebering this last phrase "In that simple fashion does the man who outwitted the cleverest of animal criminals tell his story."

whilst reading Aldo Leopold famous short piece from A Sand County Almanac, Thinking Like a Mountain:

https://ia600707.us.archive.org/6/items/ThinkingLikeAMountai...

"I now suspect that just as a deer herd Lives in mortal fear of its wolves, so does a mountain live in mortal fear of its deer." That's a great quote, right there.

I agree - that’s a standout even with a lot of beautiful prose in that piece.

Yes, as you both mention, great prose and great insight.

One of my favourite pieces of nature writing as it succinctly cuts through what seems to be the modern disease of problem creation masquerading as problem solving so elequoently and hard hitting. Obviously because we so often seem to fail at taking the long term and/or ecological and/or interconnected system view.

This was featured in This American Life 581, which is a nice episode

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/582/when-the-beasts-come-ma...

Farmers in South Dakota were so poor they couldn't afford to trap/stop the wolf, so they enlisted the federal government to do it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Custer_Wolf

"The price on his head was $500". In 1921. Inflation estimators say this is about $8800 now.

"the wolf took to fallen timber and so could not be tracked"

Do fallen trees give off a funky scent that masks a wolfs?

I take that to mean they walk on the fallen trees so they leave no tracks on the ground.

of course! thank you

So sad.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com