Earnest Thompson Seaton and the Last Lobo

When we think of outlaws and bounty hunters of New Mexico, we probably don't picture a London-trained artist who authored the Boy Scout Handbook, or a pack of wolves who evade all pursuit, including that of a Texas Ranger, in Northern New Mexico. But that's just the beginning of a tragic story that began to change the narrative of wolves in America, a story that is still unfolding today in the wilds of the Gila and Western Colorado. 

Chapters

• 0:00 The Last Lobo and His Impact
• 17:48 Ernest Thompson Seton and New Mexico Wolves

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Bienvenidos. This is the Enchantment Chronicles. I am the man of enchantment, and with me is Drew Cedral. Today, we're gonna be talking about Lobo, the last Lobo. Drew, what do you know?

Speaker 2: 0:19

Well, you know, when you think of outlaws and bounty hunters, these might not be what occurs to you. First, a band of wolves that have established such a reputation that they get a bounty of Wasn't a thousand dollars set upon their head after Various Wolf hunters had tried to capture them, um and failed, including a Texas Ranger and and others. This band was led by the namesake Lobo, the original Lobo himself, I guess, and Consistent of just a few wolves, but they certainly had an outsize impact on the cattle ranchers of Little Texas, and you've got a good sense of that geography, right, johnny.

Speaker 1: 1:24

Little Texas is. We would say it's the eastern part of New Mexico. But specifically here the Lobo is up near the. I'm near Clayton, up near now. If you drew, if you know, the map of New Mexico, there's a little slit of New Mexico up there north of Clayton. It's a few miles wide. That's kind of where the Corumpo Valley is.

Speaker 2: 1:48

I'm in.

Speaker 1: 1:50

And yeah, and the Corumpo Valley, is it? There's a lot of tribute, small tributaries and it goes. Goes kind of into what northern Texas, maybe Oklahoma, the northern Texas area, and that's where this guy used to hang out.

Speaker 2: 2:09

Yeah, and that watershed coming through the mountains and Lobo, as Was noted by more than one bounty hunter, was very successful at evading capture by working through those Arroyos he'd cut away from Down paths that horses couldn't follow and in at least one case, in the case of the Texas Ranger that came out to hunt his pack, they separated through the arroyos and and then rallied. They gathered again Once the the dogs this guy had had had gotten themselves separated, and then they turned and when they outnumbered them, killed several of his dogs and Wounded several others and left him, you know, bereft of his wolf hounds.

Speaker 1: 3:03

So that was why he had had to turn away Come so there were a lot of a lot of folks that got called in and so who was lobo, why? Why was lobo and his pack a problem? I remember correctly it was a relatively small pack. You know few, a few a number, but lobo was a special, special kind of guy and and his girlfriend that we'll get to later. We we know her as Blanca.

Speaker 2: 3:30

But, what?

Speaker 1: 3:31

what was going on with lobo and Blanca in the pack?

Speaker 2: 3:34

well they were. They were extraordinary in their time. They were some of the last surviving wolves in that northern part of New Mexico. Um um.

Speaker 2: 3:49

The Khrompar ranchers estimated that more than 2,000 of their finest stock had been killed over the years by this pack. There were some exceptional wolves. In the words of Ernest Thompson Seton, he had five wolves that followed him. One was a yellow wolf of remarkable swiftness which, according to some of the ranchers, had been seen capturing an antelope, running down an antelope on its own. And these wolves, possibly more impressively than their ability to hunt, was their ability to evade capture. Lobo was known to dig out traps and was known to cut out unpoisoned meat from carcasses, after some cowboys, you know. One of the things they were trying was Stricknein, and later he would even be known to defecate on poisoned carcasses as a warning to his pack to stay away. So he certainly had observed all the methods they had to eradicate these wolves and evaded them. And, in the words of Ernest Thompson Seton, who would eventually be sent out there, lobo had been educated by gunpowder to let man alone, like many wolves.

Speaker 1: 5:16

And so we'll get into this. But Ernest Thompson Seton writes a little short story called Lobo, the King of Krumpov, in here. In his little short story he talks about how this pack of wolves allegedly kills up to one animal or one livestock a day approximately. And so what had happened was these ranchers were getting tired of losing so many animals and they called in many different people. And Ernest Thompson Seton called, accepted the challenge of $1,000 in the late 1800s, which today's value, just for what it's worth, is approximately $30,000 to $35,000 a bounty on this Lobo. So he comes out in the late 1800s, ernest Thompson Seton comes out and says he's going to take over. Take out, mr Lobo.

Speaker 2: 6:18

Right. So he is considered the preeminent wolf hunter at that time. His background is he was born in England. Ironically, he was named after an ancestor of his mothers from Scotland, ernest Evans, who had supposedly helped eradicate wolves in Scotland. That he, his family, moved to Canada when he won a gold medal from the Ontario College of Art and Design in 1879 at 18.

Speaker 2: 6:55

And so he was sent to London to study for $25 a month at the Royal Academy of Arts and Science and there he would get permission from, among other trustees, the Prince of Wales, to study famed naturalists like Audubon's Art and others. And he realized that people could make their money off this. And he only gets to study in London for about three years before he has to head back. I guess $25 a month you figured it out earlier, a thousand dollars was significant and $25 a month was still pretty significant. So he heads back and with $3 in his pocket he connects with Jay Fraser and becomes an illustrator, Buddies encouraged to continue his scientific studies and publishes some books in 1896 and the Art Anatomy of Animals and others, briefly returns to Paris and studies art at the Julian Academy in 1890.

Speaker 1: 8:17

So in the meanwhile, this guy comes from Thompson Seton, comes from a relatively well off family. At the time England has to move to Canada. He grows up kind of on the frontier of Canada, if you will, and so he's kind of caught between two worlds. And in 1893, he jumps on a train. He accepts the call for $1,000 and jumps on the train to come out to and goes through Fort Worth, texas, and gets off at Clayton, new Mexico, to try to take out Lobo and his pack. He heeds the call, if you will.

Speaker 2: 9:04

Yep, he, he does. They agree to provide him a horse and they, they would pay for ammunition, poisons, traps and travel expenses 80 dollars, you know, just to just to hunt. When he stays there and in Clayton at a Boarding house that is, and that they hasten to add, is is run according to the highest standards, probably meaning that it wasn't a brothel, that's a Clayton. At the time, clayton was a pretty, pretty, pretty rock in town.

Speaker 1: 9:40

I guess at the time there was a bunch of stuff going on and we've been talking about Folsom and the different areas and people were moving in and that was actually a stop on the Santa Fe Trail Before that and so people had been moving in and out for the previous, you know, 60, 80 years or so. Blackjack catch him was up there at some point. That will, I'm sure, and get into it at some point. But he gets off and he gets into Clayton, new Mexico, and says let's go.

Speaker 2: 10:10

Yeah, yeah, and, and as we already learned from a previous episode, that that area is Kind of the home to some of the largest cattle stations in North of Texas at the time. So it's, it's a big, it's a booming economy and there's enough money to be gathered that you could bring in the best. And that was Ernest Thompson seat. He was not unsympathetic to the wolves. In fact he kind of Comes to believe that they've. The part of the reason they can evade traps is there. They're communicating with each other, they're passing on information, and he's also keenly aware that their natural prey had been Decimated. Thing in, the buffalo were gone, a lot of the Deer and elk and antelope were Fading, and so they didn't have a lot of choices besides to hunt cattle.

Speaker 2: 11:11

And he, he, his sympathies, however, did not prevent him from doing his best to Eliminate these wolves, and for quite a while his best was, like others, simply not good enough. They they tried various methods at first, including poisoned carcasses. Again, that's where Lobo Revealed himself to Thompson Seton by Defocating On those poisoned carcasses as if to warn the other animals away. That's certainly not a usual wolf behavior around around meat. So there was some, there was some communication going on there, and Thompson Seton had no doubt about that.

Speaker 2: 12:11

But eventually he finds a weakness in Lobo. He finds that one of the wolves Seems to be Running alongside and running in front and running around with smaller footprints, and, and he concludes that Lobo has found a mate I think his words were the marauder had fallen in love, right, and so he resolved to go back and try something that he tried before, which was traps. But in this case he thinks he can trap Lobo's mate because she's scampering around with him. She's running ahead, she's running back as he's reading these tracks, which is Incredibly impressive to me, johnny, I don't. I get out hiking and you know I'm excited if I could tell a deer track from a horse and he's reading these tracks and understanding what they're doing as they're playing right.

Speaker 1: 13:18

Yeah, and I think it was a different time. There, you know, there wasn't YouTube or TV or cell phone, so we understood the world a little bit differently. And I think at one point I read that this animal Lobo Was and the reason why you could tell it apart. This animal was so large that his paw was about five inches in diameter, which is pretty remarkable, for for a wolf, he was about a hundred pounds. But his buddy, his friend, his girlfriend, blanca, was a little bit, was a little bit smaller, and Blanca had gotten her name from the Spanish. Obviously, in the area because of her coat she looked different.

Speaker 1: 14:00

But these, these wolves for all intents and purposes and will come to learn through his, his writing, what was it called? The Lobo, the king of the carumpa, which is just a remarkable piece because he is how do you say? He flips the script a little bit and he's the bad guy in it. He, being Ernest Thompson Seton, is the bad guy, but he learns in this and he writes in this how he, the Lobo, just had this undying or dying, rather, whichever love for his mate, which ultimately Was his downfall.

Speaker 2: 14:41

Yeah, it's, it's truly tragic and it's remarkable how he tells that story. You're right, and it's available online and from the Google Books archive. It's. It's the first chapter of a book called wild animals. I have known and he is very explicit that that in that story he is not deviated from the truth one bit in any embellishment or anything. He Talks about a lot of various animals in the book. He's a remarkable writer. It becomes. It becomes a bestseller kind of sits around many a nursery and child's Reading room, I guess in the 1900s. So it shapes a lot of people and it it shifts the narrative of wolves in general from bloodthirsty and emotionless killers, which is what he's been brought to pursue in the in the valley there, to one of social animals capable of love. Right, he Is his mate.

Speaker 2: 15:50

Blanca is captured by those traps. She does run ahead and Lobo is staying with her when Ernest Thompson Seton arrives with his gun. But at that point Lobo follows you know his protocols, I guess and runs away. He knows he can't stand against a gun. He flees. So Thompson Seton kind of brutally drags Blanca's corpse along a trail, thinking that he can lure Lobo back in the hopes that he'll be able to find and somehow rescue is made or accompany her in some way, and that works. He sets more traps along Blanca's trail and Lobo winds up captured not in one but four separate leg traps.

Speaker 2: 16:50

And that's kind of when Ernest Thompson Seton has this turn. He comes and he sees this wolf and there's a remarkable photograph of the wolf and you can see how big it is. But he kind of resolves he's gonna, he's gonna not kill it, he'll put it on display. But Lobo refuses to eat and just kind of wastes away. He dies there and Ernest Thompson Seton maintains that he died of a broken heart. So it's a truly tragic story, but one that really shifts, begins to shift the world's perceptions of wolves as it is popularized and spread out, and they begin to be seen more as loyal animals that are worthy of respect and protection. So, johnny, do you want to talk a little bit more about Ernest Thompson Seton and his connection to New Mexico?

Speaker 1: 17:57

Well, after this he decides to stick around. If I remember correctly, he came out and this was obviously in Union County, there near Clayton, which is the county seat. But he decides to stick out, stick around here and he becomes an environmentalist Afterwards because of Lobo and he starts writing essays and he ends up living in Santa Fe for a long time, buys a ranch out near, I think near the Picos, builds a big old house and I think he ends up dying out there. I could be wrong, but Ernest Thompson Seton, he was how do?

Speaker 1: 18:47

you say he was a big New Mexican, important New Mexican, assumed Mexican for a long time and he died. He is cremated. He was cremated in Albuquerque, new Mexico, and he died in Seton Village, new Mexico, which is outside of Santa Fe, because of Ernest Thompson Seton, he and, by the way, the the the Pelt of Lobo, is on display on some level at the Filmont Scout, ranch Boys Scout, which is in Colfax County, in their museum. So I haven't seen it. I'd like to go but it's up there somewhere. But Seton built a castle outside of Santa Fe. I haven't seen that. It was run down for a while. I think an art institute bought it and redid it on some level.

Speaker 2: 19:46

But yeah, he was a successful writer for many years. He wrote his autobiography in the 1940s and it was being released, and he wrote the original Boy Scout Handbook which might, it might, be the connection to the Filmont Ranch there he's, you know, a legendary, I guess, figure in his own right Right.

Speaker 1: 20:13

Yeah, and from what I've read he was friends with all the big name artists at the time, I think George O'Keefe and all those those types of types of folks. He at least knew them, they were, they were hip to each other.

Speaker 2: 20:28

So yeah, yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 1: 20:35

No, but but that's who he was. He, he was an interesting cat and he he, like many New Mexicans who don't originate here, he came here with intent and he lived his life the way New Mexicans do, with intention, and made a, made a life and name of himself because of his experiences here.

Speaker 2: 20:59

Yeah, one of one of the most striking examples of someone who falls under the enchantment of the land of enchantment. Right, johnny, I agree, yeah, and and today we still see that impact, you know, in in places like New Mexico and Colorado, and that that might be a subject for a future episode. Right, johnny, that the, the reintroduction of the Lobo and and some of the reintroduction programs going on throughout the West these days.

Speaker 1: 21:33

Certainly, and we've. We've been seeing on the news recently references to wolves and we've been doing it since the 70s, I think, down on the Gila. But we have, I don't know, 150, 170, 200, some packs of wolves running around and and hopefully we'll get into the impact, the impact of the wolves, and it's a pretty controversial subject.

Speaker 2: 21:57

But, but?

Speaker 1: 21:59

but there there's a documentary out on the reintroduction of the wolves in Yellow Stone. I don't know if you've seen it, but it's pretty, pretty remarkable. And if you've ever been down, I like to go down to the Gila and I've heard the wolves howling at night. It's just a, it's a an experience. It's an experience that you don't get to see much in the city.

Speaker 2: 22:22

No, no, I've, I've, I've not heard the wolves when I've been in the Gila. The last times I was camping in the Gila was shortly after their reintroductions, and yeah, they are, you know they're apex predators.

Speaker 2: 22:38

They we reintroduced them back in 98. The Fish and Wildlife Service conducted a reintroduction with various rules and there's those are still changing to this day. But it certainly has been controversial. It hasn't been without its conflicts. At one point One of the packs was led by two, three legged wolves. But that's enough for another. That that's a whole other episode, johnny, don't you think?

Speaker 1: 23:07

I think. So let's wrap this up and okay, and for today. But today, yeah, was all about Lobo, the enchanting Lobo of New Mexico, the last Lobo, which really wasn't last, but for the, for all intents and purposes, the the the last Lobo of New Mexico.

Speaker 2: 23:28

There you go, there you go, certainly the Crumpaw Valley, and, and certainly the one to be the one that inspired the reintroduction. I will say that there is a, I think, a nature documentary available on PBS that covers this, and we'll we'll post some links to that on the website, right, johnny?

Speaker 1: 23:49

I hope so.

Speaker 2: 23:50

Okay. All right, all right. Have a good one. All right, take care Bye. Bye.