Beast
Page 19
The outlaw Custer Wolf of South Dakota was alleged to have caused $25,000 worth of damage, but estimates may have been overstated. The wolf turned out to be smaller than expected, just 98 pounds. The Denver Public Library, Western History Collection, Z-1553.
We learn that pre-WWI, North American ranchers raised longhorns. This is a bolder breed of cattle, known to vigorously protect offspring. But individuals take up to a decade to mature. By the late 1920s, the preference was for breeds such as the Angus and Hereford. These types of cattle are ready for market much sooner, in as little as two years, but milder temperaments make them more susceptible to predation.
Famous wolves were often made so by mutilation. In their desperation to escape hunters’ traps, they lost toes and feet and broke their teeth. Upon the killing of Lobo Giant Killer Wolf of Minnesota, it was discovered the animal actually had had a “partially severed trachea” for some time. Foot injuries helped locals and hunter identify individuals by their tracks.
Study researchers also believe the popular accounts of wolves by Young, Seton, and others may have intimidated the wildlife researchers who followed these respected writers. It was only in the 1940s and 1950s, after wolves had vanished from locales frequented by famous lupines, that more unbiased studies were published, and so it is impossible to confirm the writings of Young and others. The researchers even describe possible fraud: The body of a suspiciously large three-toed wolf may have been a “stand in” for Three Toes of Harding County, South Dakota, supposedly destroyed by a Survey hunter in just fifteen days, after being hunted for thirteen years by 150 men.
A photographic mystery involves an image of Old Whitey of Bear Springs Mesa, Colorado, the photo of which is included in Young’s The Last of the Loners. This wolf reportedly exhibited bizarre behavior, such as “bobtailing” (biting off calves’ tails). The same image is identified in a photo caption provided by the US National Conservation Training Center Archives/Museum as “Old Three-toes, a Northern Rocky Mountain Wolf, endangered, Wyoming. C. J. Bayer, Photographer. July 26, 1920.” The US Fish and Wildlife Service library cites the wolf as “Old Three Toes, notorious Split Rock Wolf, trapped in 1920.” Researchers Gipson and Ballard reported that the photo and last caption mentioned appeared in a 1928 report on Wyoming wildlife damage control.
Wolf identified as “Old Three-toes, a Northern Rocky Mountain Wolf, endangered, Wyoming. C. J. Bayer, Photographer. July 26, 1920.” National Conservation Training Center Archives/Museum.
The studies’ authors state, however, that it is likely that some of the famous wolf stories were free from error or embellishment but these must stand up to continuing research.
Moving on, “surplus kills”—when a famous wolf was reported as causing extraordinary damages (Three Toes of Harding County, fifty-thousand dollars; Custer Wolf, twenty-five thousand dollars) with regard to loss of livestock, the researchers showed that in twenty-nine of the reports, not one but two or more wolves, or packs, could be accountable. Various factors could lead to surplus kills; an example is given of seventeen still-bleeding, newly dehorned, defenseless yearling calves in New Mexico, thought to be killed by one wolf, El Lobo Diablo, after they were turned out in a distant grazing area.
Hybrid Damage
Perhaps most related to the Beast is data based on reports of behavior and bodily characteristics, indicating that seven of the famous US wolves may have been wolf-dog hybrids: Gray Terror, Phantom, Rags the Digger, and Unaweep from Colorado; the South Dakota Custer Wolf; and Old Angora and Red Flash from Wyoming. As far as wolf coloring goes, thirty-nine of the canids were gray, sixteen white or almost white, and two black. The last two were odd-colored, again indicating hybridism: Phantom was collie-dog tawny, and Red Flash had a “glossy, red-tipped” coat. Gipson, Ballard, and Nowak state that wild dogs (Canis familiarus), wolf-dog hybrids, or coyote-dog hybrids—animals frequently confused with wolves—may have caused most of the damage. These types of animals “are sometimes aggressive and unpredictable … at times chasing and mutilating many individuals. Wolves usually kill more efficiently.”
In 1924, in New Mexico, dogs, coyotes, and wolf-dog hybrids were actually responsible for 75 percent or more of the losses said to have been caused by wolves. The authors state, “If, historically, dogs and hybrids were often mistaken for wolves, then the high killing rates reported may have resulted, not from exaggerations, but attributions of kills to the wrong predator species.”
A taxidermy specimen identified as a timber wolf-collie cross from 1919. NGS Image Collection/The Art Archive at Art Resource, N.Y.
In 1971, Canadian zoologist C. H. D. Clarke brought forward the concept of “hybrid vigor” in relation to the Beast to Western audiences in Natural History magazine. He explained how the first generation of a wolf-dog mating may be bigger in size than its parents and wolfish looking, despite the breed of dog involved. The coats of these individuals may also present more varied hues than wolves, blackish or rufescent (reddish) with possible random white coloring, a canine trait. He states that coyote-dog individuals observed in Canada were “more cunning than dogs or coyotes, not the least bit tame, and far more destructive than the wild parent, with less fear of man.” Hampton speculates that Native Americans perhaps crossed wolves with dogs to obtain bigger, stronger service animals, but echoes Clarke in saying that first-generation animals “can be high-strung and difficult to train, often unpredictable, and perhaps even dangerous.”
Ernest Thompson Seton mentions a hybrid incident occurring in 1919 in Westchester County, New York. A farm family thought they were losing chickens to a fox, but when the trap-evading creature began taking poultry from the henhouse’s highest perches, they determined it must be something bigger. A pair of creatures was then observed; they did resemble foxes, albeit very large examples. Finally, the farmer shot one of the pair after the creatures attempted another raid (in which the invaders fought and injured the farm’s dogs). The farmer took the animal’s remains to a New York City taxidermist who stated he did not know what it was. Seton says its coat was of a fine texture and fox-red and its ears were short. Prominent naturalists Dr. Roy Chapman Andrews (famed for discovering fossil dinosaur eggs in the Gobi Desert, among myriad other accomplishments) and Dr. Harold E. Anthony of New York City’s American Museum of Natural History, after deliberation, identified it as a second or third dog-coyote cross, the offspring of a dog-coyote hybrid “with a collie, common shepherd, or possibly a police dog.” The skull was broad, and the brain cavity too large for a coyote, yet too small for a dog.
Regarding the Beast of Gévaudan, Richard Thompson contends that the individual “was … in all likelihood a large, powerfully built, highly intelligent, and undoubtedly somewhat warped representative of the species Canis lupus.” He also believes that it was two or more wolves.
He may be right.
Wolf Attacks
Lupine predations upon people were not exceptional, neither in France nor in Europe. In England, where wolf populations were so overwhelming that wolf taxes were required in some parts, dedicated hunters were to render services “daily.” Hospitals (originally the word meant “an inn or resting place for travelers”) were constructed to protect wayfarers from wolves during the reign of Athelstan (927–939) in order that “they should not be devoured by them.” Wolves were so rampageous in Scotland’s highlands that in 1577, Scots set up “spittals” to serve the same purpose. Wolves were hunted to extinction in both countries, but they disappeared much earlier in England, during the reign of Henry VII (1485–1509). In Scotland, where conditions were much like the Gévaudan, with “vast tracts of forest and moor, rugged and well-nigh impenetrable in parts …[an] absence of roads, and the consequent difficulty of communication between scattered and thinly populated hamlets,” the wolf survived until 1743. And in Ireland—nicknamed “Wolf-land” at the time of William and Mary—wolves hung on until about 1760. The redoubtable Irish wolfhound, or Wolfe Dogge (forbidden by Cromwell to be exported), was in gr
eat part responsible for their final extermination.
In France, in the region of Vosges, near the German border, there was a saying, “If the he-wolf doesn’t get you, the she-wolf will.” Devlin cites Allier river valley sharecropper Tiennon Bertin recalling childhood apprehensions about wolves while watching over sheep with his sister in the nineteenth century. Moriceau has studied the accounts of wolf attacks, both rabid and otherwise, from early medieval times to the nineteenth century. He believes non-rabid attacks are indicative of clashes between predator populations competing for space and the “dysfunction of rural society,” with, for example, children perhaps as young as four years old caring for farm animals.
Still, Richard Thompson and C. H. D. Clarke hold that the average gritty teen or adult Gabalitan could probably fend off the typical wolf with pikes, by throwing stones, by clapping their wooden clogs together, etc., or with the assistance of their cattle, known to boldly defend their own young and their caregivers. It is curious that many of the rural people, who would have been familiar with wolves, who lived “in a culture featuring twilight herding by unarmed children,” would find the Beast, if it was a wolf, exceptional.
CHAPTER 23
Two Dead Beasts
Toward the end, the bishop of Mende attributed the attacks to Bêtes Féroces, his Vicar settled the costs for the destruction of Bêtes Féroces (i.e., more than one).
—Abbé Pierre Pourcher
In the end, two Beasts were destroyed. The first, known as the Chazes Wolf, was hunted by royal gunbearer François Antoine and his hunting party in September 1765 near Saint-Julien des Chazes, France. This was a big animal: It measured approximately 190 centimeters (6.23 feet) in length (body plus tail), and weighed 56 kilograms (123.46 pounds). (It was heavier according to other sources, as we shall see.)
Jean Chastel was responsible for shooting the second Beast, known as La Ténazeyre Canid, in June 1767 along the slopes of Mont Mouchet. Chastel destroyed a canid that possessed 42 teeth and measured 151.54 centimeters (4.97 feet) long (body and tail). It weighed 47.4 kilograms (104.50 pounds). This hefty animal had a strange morphology, presenting rather short and stocky front legs, unlike wolves. But since this animal had 42 teeth, as most canids do (including wolves, with 20 upper-jaw teeth and 22 lower), perhaps it could have been some sort of “strange dog.”
A problem: The descriptions of various witnesses did not in all cases match the anatomy of the specimens killed. However, we may actually examine the Beasts’ anatomical details, thanks to the historical autopsies of these animals which have been preserved.
The Reports
The following summarizes the data known about the two Beasts killed.
An artistic recreation of the Beast, including the typical witness-described features, such as a massive head, huge jaws, thick snout, a long spiky mane, a powerful, stout body, and formidable claws. This rendering is depicted next to an adult human for scale.
Beast Number 1 (The Chazes Wolf)
Date: September 20, 1765
Place: Saint-Julien des Chazes (Pommier woods)
Hunter: François Antoine, assisted by a group of royal gamekeepers, as well as his son, Robert-François Antoine de Beauterne
Animal sex: Male
Animal length/weight: 190.7 centimeters, body and tail; 56.5 kilograms. According to François Antoine, the measurements were 1.85 meters and 63.6 kilograms, respectively. Per author Sánchez’s personal communication with researcher Alain Bonet, according to the autopsy, measurements were 190 centimeters, body plus tail, and 73.4 kilograms.
Autopsy by: Charles Jaladon
Corpse/taxidermy: Exhibited for King Louis XV and court at Versailles in October 1765. Later destroyed as a result of inadequate preservation.
Beast Number 2 (La Ténazeyre Canid)
Date: June 19, 1767
Place: d’Auvers swamps, or the Sogne d’Auvers, near Auvers, La Besseyre-Saint-Mary (La Ténazeyre woods).
Hunter: Jean Chastel, in conjunction with other locals and the Marquis d’Apcher
Animal sex: Male
Animal length/weight: 151.54 centimeters (body 97.44 centimeters, tail 54.1 centimeters); 47.4 kilograms
Autopsy by: Boulanger, father and son. Notary: Roch-Étienne Marin.
Corpse/taxidermy: Rotting body buried upon the king’s orders. Some researchers argue that this animal could have been mounted and preserved (but later destroyed by parasites) by then-prominent naturalist Buffon and stored for some time at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris.
What Were They?
After reading these accounts we can summarize the more unusual characteristics of both animals in the following manner:
Beast Number 1 (Chazes Wolf, hunter François Antoine)
Length: 190.7 centimeters body plus tail, 56.5 kilograms. According to François Antoine, 1.85 meters, 63.6 kilograms. According to autopsy, 190 centimeters body plus tail, 73.4 kilograms [per author’s personal communication with Alain Bonet].
Initial anomalous characteristics:
• Reddish flank colors, whitish throat, black portion running down to end of tail
• Huge eyes
• 40 teeth, 18 upper jaw, 20 lower, later 41 (1 coming up). Wolf: 42 teeth (20 upper jaw, 22 lower); Hyenas, 34 teeth (17/17)
• Very thick and robust neck/shoulder region
• Powerful hind legs
• Massive lower jaw muscles
• Speculative similarities with a hyena, although later, and after comparison to sets of measurements for this species made by the French naturalist Buffon, there were differences mainly in:
• Snout length (1.27 centimeters longer than Buffon’s measurements)
• Ear length (2.54 centimeters shorter than Buffon’s)
• Size of longest claw: 2.6 centimeters (Buffon’s hyena specimen measurement was shorter)
Eventually, and after being dissected and mounted for King Louis XV for exhibition at his court, most of those who actually saw the prepared animal (a wooden model covered by the animal’s skin) stated it was a wolf of quite unusual size.
Following is a summary of the reactions of those who looked into the eyes of François Antoine’s Beast of Gévaudan (sometimes, later, in exchange for a small admission fee):
• A big wolf, François Antoine.
• A monster wolf, Mr. Ballainvilliers, the king’s representative in Auvers (in a letter to François Antoine).
• A carnivorous wolf, medical personnel at Clermont.
• A robust wolf no bigger than a large mastiff dog, William Cole, English traveler. Cole also bought two prints which allegedly portrayed the Beast and said, “neither were like the creature in shape or color.”
• It is an exceedingly large wolf, of enormous size, and, in some respects, irregular conformation … and the expression of agony and fierceness remains strongly imprinted on its dead jaws, Horace Walpole, British writer and politician.
The Gazette de France newspaper published a short article about the Chazes Wolf, stating that “the most experienced hunters have concluded that the beast was a true wolf that boasted nothing extraordinary, neither in its size nor in its composition.” The king reacted to this, stating, “There has been nothing extraordinary about the source of the nation’s anxiety.”
Beast Number 2 (La Ténazeyre Canid, shot by Jean Chastel)
Length: 151.54 centimeters body plus tail. Weight: 47.4 kilograms. Initial anomalous characteristics:
• Big claws and wide paws
La Ténazeyre Canid full body and skull reconstruction, based on Marin’s autopsy measurements and adapted from the French documentary La bête du gévaudan: autopsie d’un mythe, by David Teyssandier, Paris: La compagnie des Taxi-Brousse.
• Hindquarters similar to a wolf but more powerful
• Short front legs, but very robust, more so than in a wolf
• Big head, with a robust skull presenting a bony ridge at top. In the end, some said it was no bigger that a
man’s closed fist.
Top left, wolf skull reconstruction, long snout (top view). Top right, La Ténazeyre Canid skull reconstruction, wide and short, more dog-like (top view). Below, La Ténazeyre Canid reconstructed head, based on Marin’s autopsy measurements and adapted from the French documentary La bête du gévaudan: autopsie d’un mythe, by David Teyssandier, Paris: La compagnie des Taxi-Brousse.
Based on the weights recorded for both Beasts killed, and according to François de Beaufort, these specimens represented robust canids, weighing slightly more the average recorded for French wild wolves (36 kilograms males, 28 kilograms females). Beaufort also records that the heaviest French wolf shot was a male that weighted 82 kilograms, exceptional for Europe, and a hefty female of 48 kilograms, also a heavyweight for European populations.
In order to clarify this question further, presenting the reader with more data in this sense, we include now, in table format, average measurements and weights for the gray wolf (Canis lupus) from the scientific literature.
Table 1. Average measurements and weights for wolves worldwide in meters, centimeters, and kilograms. In the Handbook of the Mammals of the World, we find maximum “average” sizes: body and tail of 2 m (or 6 ft, 6.75 in), shoulder height of 1 m (3 ft, 3.25 in) and weight up to 62 kg (136.69 lbs). According to Geneviève Carbone, in 1942 an exceptionally large wolf was shot in the Carpathian Mountains. Its length—body plus tail—measured 213 cm (nearly 7 ft), and its weight was recorded at 96 kg (more than 211 lbs)—a true monster wolf!
Sex Male Female
Head to back (cm) 100-130 (115 average) 87-117 (102)
Tail length (cm) 40-52 (46) 35-50 (42.5)
Weight (kg) 20-79.4 (50) 18-55 (36.5)