March 25, 2004

Plains Folk: Hunting

Tom Isern, Professor of History
North Dakota State University

Frank Brown came into town, Cooperstown, in east-central North Dakota, and reported sighting two elk “as big as mules.” A few days later some fellows from Hope shot a young elk near Willow post office. I’m talking about July 1886, of course.

To hunters and admirers (the two groups overlap) of wildlife, it’s fascinating to read the reports of hunting and wildlife brought in by the settlement generation on the plains, which in Griggs County, N. D., was in the 1880s. I’m grateful to Cooperstown historian Myrtle Bemis Porterville for the amazing historical collections she made 60 and more years ago. Her compilations eventually came to the Institute for Regional Studies at North Dakota State University. Among them are her notes of hunting and wildlife in the early days.

Some of her notes are rather surprising. For instance, contrary to the present situation, deer were rather scarce, no more common than elk, much less so than pronghorn. If a fellow saw deer in the 1880s it was cause for notice in the newspaper. Pronghorn were often seen for a few years. A report in 1885: “Three antelope were found quietly grazing with the cattle and sheep of Amund Fleseram the other day. The house dog attacked one of them and held it until Amund arrived and killed it.”

The habits of pronghorn were incompatible with a farming settlement so the farmers killed them off rapidly. Likewise, soon after, they pursued the deer. It is easy today to forget that the pioneer generation essentially eradicated deer from the plains and that they resurged in good numbers only after the middle of the 20th century.

“Tuesday a cannonade was heard in front of Steven’s and Enger’s,” the newspaper reported on May 1, 1885, “and a brace of wild ducks came tumbling down on pedestrians.” A year previous came the report of one Mr. Jackson killing a passing goose from the porch of his saloon. Papers of the 1880s carried numerous mentions of the taking of geese, ducks, cranes and plover (upland sandpiper). Clearly, waterfowl were abundant.

On the other hand, quite early there were alarms that populations of grouse and prairie chicken were threatened. In retrospect we acknowledge that the transformation of the prairie environment to cropland, while providing an initial boost to grouse populations on the frontier, soon had to have taken the numbers down radically.

The common understanding in those days, though, focused on directly observable causes. One sportsman in 1886 complained, “Some farmers on the river are now trapping prairie chickens and grouse.” Evidently the birds were caught by baiting a pen with a trap door and catching them when they were “hungry and benumbed with cold.” Such meat harvesting offended his sense of sport; it was “not correct, morally.” Amusements are only too rare upon the Dakota prairies, and he who cuts off one source of harmless amusement from his neighbor is not doing as he would be done by.”

Several people reported seeing quail in the locality. I don’t get that. This was too early for them to be confused by partridge. Any quail seen must have been introduced by an enthusiast and, doubtless, perished.

Some animals were desired neither as food nor as sport, but rather were persecuted as pests. In 1887, for instance, neighboring Griggs County paid bounties totaling $4105.29 for 136,843 gopher tails. Mink often were killed in chicken houses. In March 1889 the paper reported, “Charles Stermer killed a seventy pound timber wolf the other day.”

There is no doubt the relationship between settlers and wildlife was something worse than predatory. As a kinder, gentler note, let me close with this wondering fragment from 1889: “I saw here, Sept. 3rd, and for the first time, a humming bird. It flew from a wild sunflower with a humming sound. As I was in doubts I could not believe what it was. I had to take a second look."

Click here for a TIF photo of Tom Isern that is suitable for printing.
(1.5MB b&w photo)

Click here for a TIF photo of Tom Isern wearing a hat that is suitable for printing.
(1.3MB b&w photo)

BeefTalk

Prairie Fare

Plains Folk

Hortiscope

Market Advisor:

Crop

Livestock

North Dakota State University
NDSU Agriculture Communication
NDSU Extension Service
ND Agricultural Experiment Station