This would be a caterpillar that thinks it’s a snake.
As a young man travelling from League City to go to College Station to attend Texas A&M, my college buddies and I mainly traveled up Highway 290. At that time 290 was under construction and became a grade separated 2 lane back top around where the Beltway 8 crosses it today. On occasion, to bypass all the traffic from the construction, we’d travel up Highway 6 to where it intersected 290. That route crossed FM 529 — not too far from the intersection of Highway 6/FM 1960. At that point, invariably, the conversation would turn to Wolf Corner. It was great conversation topic and possessing knowledge of Wolf Corner was considered very chic.
Now this was in 1979. That intersection today is all retail. Highway 6 and FM 529 have both been widened. There is no remnants of the intersection as I knew it. But, in 1979, Wolf Corner still existed and was a very rural intersection of two black top roads.
Wolf Corner was the place you could go see actual wolf pelts. A local farmer/rancher Charles Grisbee shot wolves for bounty money. And in that time it was a greeted as a good thing as wolves were a menace to the local ranchers and farmers.
Truth be told, I don’t recall seeing wolf pelts hanging on a fence. I think by then they were all taken down. We always tried to spy them, though.
I saw this article about Wolf Corner last year in the local newspaper and intended to blog about it back them. I forgot all about that article until recently when I was sent the photos of wolves taken in Idaho. I think those have been proven bogus by Snopes.com. Here is another discussion about Wolf Corner and Charles Grisbee with a republication of another article on him and his legacy.
Recently, I went to go see “The Grey”. That’s the movie with Liam Neeson where he plays a gunman hired to shoot wolves to protect oilfield worker lives.
The wolves in that movie are portrayed as aggressive hunters killing for sport. Most of what you think you know is incorrect about large gray wolves. Here is a fact sheet found on the movies’s web site that dispels some myths. For instance, wolves rarely kill and do not consume humans.
However, wolf attacks do occur. Read this about a jogger in Alaska that was attacked. The article tells of a pack that was exterminated when they became habituated near humans.
Here is a great blog post of wolves taking down a moose. And of course you can see the link to the right for other great posts concerning wolves.
Just a few of the wolves killed this year with the Idaho wolf tag. They sure do look cuddly and cute. If you are going into the Blues, Cascades, or north of Spokane hiking, game scouting, mushroom hunting, or something else you better start carrying a side arm. Can you even imagine being out by yourself and having 8 to 12 of these monsters surround you! Think about what kind of appetite a dozen of these must have and remember they are the only predator in our nation that kills for fun along with for food. The amount of animals they take are just a partial portion of what they need to eat. When elk are calving they will kill the calves just for fun after they have had all they can eat and leave the rest to rot.
