Since I have little experience with the Eastern slopes region of Alberta I did a little research to find out if in fact wolf populations were low in that region during the 1950s.
What I found supported that claim to some extent, and it supported those who claim that wolves were present in relative abundance in the Peace River area through that time period.
A paper written by E. E. BALLANTYNE, President of the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association through the 1950s had this to say;
Quote:
The Alberta Department of Lands and Forests is responsible for controlling predators in the forest areas of the province. The director of forestry, with his staff of approximately 70 men, i.e. forestry superintendents, and rangers, worked out a plan for traplines under the supervision of the speaker.
The methods, etc. used have been published previously (1) so will not be repeated. Briefly, 5,000 miles of traplines were established in the forest close to farming areas to provide settlement protection of humans and livestock. That was a long distance, but it would take 40,000 to 50,000 miles to cover all of the forest area every 5 miles. In the spring of 1953, 150 professional trappers were employed. Due to the drastic reduction in wildlife predators through depopulation, Nature's crash and from rabies, the number of trappers was gradually reduced until in the spring of 1955 only two trappers were on staff for each of the nine forestry divisions. These were a mobile force working over pockets of wolves and coyotes. If circumstances required an increase in the number of trappers, these two men would act as trainers and supervisors. In one district though, two extra trappers were employed to handle a migration of coyotes. The depopulation program had no effect on prolonging the occurrence of Nature's crash.
From November 1952 to April 1955(inclusive),
the following figures indicate the estimated number of animals killed in the forest areas.
Foxes ............. 55,499
Coyotes. .......... 50,781
Lynx ............... 9,927
Wolves. ........... 5,271
Bear ............... 3,827
Skunk .............. 664
Cougar .............. 69
Fisher .............. 18
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Keep in mind, this is not talking about independent trappers, trapping for fur, these were government employees tasked with the drastic reduction of certain predator populations.
They called it a depopulation program.
So although it mentions the Rabies epidemic these programs were not part of the rabies response.
It does however show that there was a relatively healthy Wolf population in Northern Alberta at the start of the 1950s if one reads far enough.
The Alberta Government in a paper titled;
MANAGEMENT PLAN FOR WOLVES IN ALBERTA,
published in 1991 had this to say.
Quote:
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Stelfox (1959) estimated that wolves were very scarce along the eastern slopes of the Rockies and practically nonexistent in the prairies and parklands of the central portion of the province by 1900, although Williams (1946) reported two wolves with young and others near Milk River in extreme southern Alberta during 1923-25.
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Later on it has this to say about wolves in Northern Alberta.
Quote:
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As high as 1286 wolves were bountied during a single year, 1945-46.
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I'm not sure what is meant by, "I also question the rabies epidemic.
Does that mean one does not believe it ever happened or that it wasn't
as severe as history records?
Or perhaps something entirely different then I imagine it means.
As they say, google is your friend.
For those who would like to read more on both subjects from sources other then AOs self appointed experts, here's a few links;
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/art...00362-0029.pdf
Lots about the rabies epidemic on this link.
http://aep.alberta.ca/fish-wildlife/...ement-2009.pdf
https://books.google.ca/books?id=FIL...lberta&f=false
http://europepmc.org/backend/ptpmcre...8&blobtype=pdf
This one is a bit messed up for some reason I don't understand but it does still have some interesting data.
https://archive.org/stream/managemen...0albe_djvu.txt