Part 8

The coyote population in Harding County and adjacent areas is low owing to an active predator control program that is supported by local ranchers and by state and federal agencies. Our field parties neither saw nor heard coyotes, although tracks were found at one or two places in March of 1963. According to Robert Kriege (personal communication), the few coyotes that do reside in the area find refuge in the most rugged parts of the hills and buttes. Visher (1914:90) reported that this carnivore was "generally considered as abundant." Our specimens all are skulls of individuals killed by a federal trapper in the winter of 1961-62.

~Canis lupus nubilus~ Say, 1823

Gray Wolf

Visher (1914:90) stated that wolves were "quite plentiful" in the early 1900's; he quoted figures for a two-month period in 1910 when a government trapper took five adults and 25 pups in the vicinity of the Short Pine Hills and two adults and 11 pups in the general area of the Cave Hills. According to local residents, wolves were common in Harding County in the 1920's. One (the famous "Three Toes") trapped 20 mi. NW Buffalo in July of 1925 had eluded capture for more than 13 years, and in that period caused an estimated $50,000 in damage to livestock (Young, 1944:259, 277). It seems likely that the skull of this animal, in the U.S. National Museum, is the one referred to by Goldman (1944:445).

Wolves apparently had become rare by about 1930. The last one known to have been killed in northwestern South Dakota was taken on January 27, 1945, near Red Elm, Ziebach County (Carl Cornell, personal communication). We have seen a photograph of this wolf, which was mounted and now is on display in Deadwood, South Dakota.

As noted by Goldman (1944:442), the subspecies nubilus probably is extinct.

~Vulpes vulpes regalis~ Merriam, 1900

Red Fox

Specimens examined (6).--1 mi. S, 5 mi. E Ladner, 3; 3 mi. S, 12 mi. E Ludlow, 1; 2 mi. W Camp Crook, 3200 ft., 1; 4 mi. S, 1 mi. E Buffalo, 1.

This fox was present, although apparently not abundant, in Harding County in the early part of this century (Visher, 1914:90). He reported knowledge of "two or three" that had been trapped in the county and further noted a report that red foxes were "not rare along the Lone Pines." Visher's paper evidently was overlooked by Hall and Kelson (1959: map 447), who did not include the western half of South Dakota within the distribution of the species. The only foxes observed by our field parties were two seen in July of 1970--one an immature animal held captive in Camp Crook and remains of another that had been killed on a county road about 18 miles north of that place. Five specimens that had been killed by hunters were acquired in March 1963 and an isolated skull was picked up west of Camp Crook in 1970.

There is a continuing demand from sheep ranchers in the county that foxes be controlled, yet this species seems to maintain considerably higher populations than does the coyote. According to federal trapper Robert Kriege (personal communication), dens of the red fox have been found principally in the badlands and in certain grassland areas, but rarely in the buttes proper. Records kept by Mr. Kriege indicate that litters are born in mid-March in Harding County. He estimated that over the past few years he has examined whelps from an average of 50 dens a year, but that more than 170 dens were found in the spring of 1963.

~Ursus americanus americanus~ Pallas, 1780

Black Bear

Visher (1914:91) reported that a black bear "was seen near the Cave Hills in July, 1910." He further noted: "Bears have been recently killed in the Long Pine and Ekalaka forests [of adjacent Montana], but their day of extermination is here near at hand." We know of no other reports of this carnivore from the area.

~Ursus arctos horribilis~ Ord, 1815

Grizzly Bear

According to Visher (1914:91) a grizzly bear was killed in the early 1890's a short distance southwest of Camp Crook.

~Procyon lotor hirtus~ Nelson and Goldman, 1930

Raccoon

Specimens examined (10).--2 mi. N, 5 mi. W Ludlow, 4; 1/2 mi. W Reva, 1; 4 mi. E Reva, 2; NW 1/4 sec. 32, R. 1 E, T. 20 N, 3.

The raccoon evidently is one of the commonest carnivores in Harding County. On June 24, 1961, a den with three young (average total length, 429) was found in one of the numerous pockets eroded from the caprock of the North Cave Hills, and on May 21, 1968, another den, this one containing five young (average total length of three, 271), was found in a similar situation on the east edge of the Long Pine Hills. A female trapped on June 20, 1961, was lactating.

Three individuals that had been killed at Ralph, along nearly treeless Big Nasty Creek, were examined on May 28, 1968.

~Mustela frenata longicauda~ Bonaparte, 1838

Long-tailed Weasel

This mustelid seems uncommon in northwestern South Dakota. The only recent reports from Harding County that have come to our attention are of a female and four or five young that were found in a haystack "several years prior to 1963" (Robert Kriege, personal communication), and of several individuals seen by a rancher in a hay field along the Little Missouri about 7 mi. N Camp Crook during mowing operations in July 1970. Visher (1914:91) regarded the species as "quite common," and noted that "4 or 5 dead ones" were seen along roads in the summer of 1910.

~Mustela nigripes~ (Audubon and Bachman, 1851)

Black-footed Ferret

In a recent summary of the natural history of this species in South Dakota, Henderson et al. (1969) listed seven localities in Harding County (all in prairie dog "towns") at which ferrets had been sighted or trapped as follows (dates in parentheses): near Ladner (March, 1963); 17 mi. N Camp Crook (about 1956 or 1957); T. 20 N, R. 3 E (1964); T. 20 N, R. 4 E (winter, 1964); T. 19 N, R. 1 E (late November, 1966); T. 17 N, R. 8 E (summer, 1965); T. 15 N, R. 1 E (winter, 1963). These authors also reported a specimen in the U.S. National Museum (no. 243990) that was taken at Govert on November 1, 1923. Additionally, Wesley Broer, then the local game warden, reported to one of our parties that a ferret was seen on February 27, 1963, at a place 7 mi. N and 16 mi. W Buffalo.