Large timber wolves were a challenge for early settlers of Vancouver Island.
"1931::Man and Timber Wolf skin."
Photo: BC Archives (D-01009)
The size of the Timber Wolf skin in this photo lends much to the imagination in terms of its enormous size for scale. Timber Wolves are known to be the largest wolves in the world and they are likely to be the type of wolf witnessed by Vancouver Island's earliest settlers. By the onset of the Great Depression, the government bounty for a wolf's head was much as $35 dollars per head... 'actually' a head. Body was optional.
Destroying the wolves was more often a measure of survival. Livestock was imported and was therefore a precious commodity. Cows and sheep were a considerable food source in the mid-1800s and were to be protected as it was rarely known when the next shipment of livestock would arrive. For this reason, the large wolves presented a significant threat to survival on the remote Vancouver Island.