During this time of westward expansion and development, wolves and other feared predators were trapped, shot and poisoned. The priority was to civilize the West, and predators were seen as the enemy.

“My grandmother moved to Peavey, Idaho in 1906,” said John Peavey of the Flat Top Ranch in Carey. “She raised seven kids. “Milk supply was really important. And she had a milk cow. Something that would harm that milk cow wasn’t welcome at all because it was really important to growing family, growing kids. There was no store down at the corner to go buy a half-gallon of milk; it was go out there and get it before the calf did.

“So the chickens and the milk cow and maybe a few beef cattle and a horse or two were really really important, and wolves were a threat to all of that. It was survival!”

At a federal level, the U.S. Biological Survey took on the responsibility of eliminating wolves and other predators in the West in the 1930s. The Animal Damage Control Act gave the Secretary of Agriculture broad authority to expand the control of predators and animals with disease. By the early 1930s, wolves were believed to be extirpated from Idaho and the Northern Rockies.