By Caleb McClain
There are few animals more controversial among wildlife conservationists and hunters than wolves. Regardless of where you stand, we can all agree that no one is going to agree on the subject. But in the not-too-distant past, everyone agreed on what to do with wolves: you killed them, and any government agency worth its salt would pay you a bounty if you got one.
Hell, it was that way ever since the Puritans in Massachusetts tried to carve out the first piece of America for settlers, and it did not end in Canada until about the time that Rush was singing on the radio, and some conservation groups still offer them in states where the population is over the management objective. These policies extirpated the gray wolf and its subspecies from everywhere except the most remote corners of the North American continent, including the entirety of present-day South Dakota. But 100 years ago, one wolf terrorized that state and its neighbors for over a decade.
The Legend of Three Toes
The year was 1912. Across America, news headlines were breaking that the RMS Titanic had sunk, and a failed assassination attempt against Teddy Roosevelt led to him giving his famous “Bull Moose” speech. Back on the Great Plains, a strange situation was brewing. Livestock depredations were occurring at a noticeable rate, and each one had a similar calling card: a three-toed wolf track in the sand. Ranchers sprung into action, trying to protect their flocks of sheep. Over the next decade, Three Toes dodged bullets, traps, and poison many times over, to continue striking when he was least expected.
He began to develop a reputation for killing multiple sheep or cattle at a time and being completely uncatchable. One report had him killing six lambs in a single night, leaving behind only a single liver. After a different set of killings, he was pursued by a posse of men over 150 miles in a week, outsmarting them at every turn along the way. Other accounts of his reign of terror included hamstringing cattle so that he could come back over the next few days to kill them and eat his fill. The stories spread like wildfire across the Great Plains, ascribing a sort of mythical quality to the wolf. Every time he struck, he made local papers, and he morphed into a local “Public Enemy No. 1,” well before Al Capone ever held that title.
Over the 13 years of his killing, he is estimated to have caused about $50,000 in damages. All this destruction led to him receiving a special bounty on his head. In 1924, Congress authorized a $25,000 reward for anyone who brought in Three Toes, dead or alive, giving him the distinction of the only animal against which the United States Congress ever authorized a bounty. Obviously, this was a ridiculous amount of money back then, and it caught the attention of every man who could sling a rifle or set a trap, including Clyde Briggs.
Clyde Briggs—Wolf Hunter
Clyde Briggs was born in South Dakota, but he spent the latter part of his career hunting wolves on behalf of the U.S. government. When he finally retired, the headlines were booming with stories of Three Toes. He packed up and went back to his home state to chase the beast. After interviewing local ranchers and tracking Three Toes, he came up with a game plan. Briggs set a trapline over the course of 30 miles with each station composed of a series of leg-hold traps.
On the morning of July 23, 1925, Briggs was working his trapline when he spotted something in one of his sets. As he approached, he knew he had finally done it. The weakened and aging canine was caught in two leg-holds, finally outsmarted by man. He put a muzzle around Three Toes, placed him in a car while he was still alive, then headed to town. Shortly into their drive, the wolf died, and he was buried in a marked grave, to be later exhumed by the feds.
The government never paid the bounty, claiming that Briggs was ineligible for the reward since his pension had him on the federal payroll as a professional wolf hunter. He left South Dakota with $96 from his uncashed pension checks, a couple extra bucks from some local ranchers, and a hell of a story to tell back home.
