In a post lower down the poster refered to a wolf as possibly up to "160" pounds. Has there ever been a wolf actually weigh this much??? FNMauser

Don't know but it sounds like they're breeding some of those bullet proof wolves like the deer and hogs you read about that need a 458 as a min to kill. Ordinary cartridges that have served for years just bounce off of them.

The upper range of body mass for a male wolf (Canis lupus) is given as 75kg in several sources (= about 165 pounds). Another source I have considers 45 kg as the average size of a male, so the 75kg upper range for the bigger sex is in line with this I think...

75kg would be a pretty damn big wolf, and a mass reached only by a few percent of the aminmals I suspect.

John

They have 2 mounted ones at the Tok AK vistor center or they did have that are huge. I belive they are both close to 200lbs.

I saw one about 2 months ago that went I am guess 140 or so. I had a 120 lb lab and this wolf was bigger that.

I don't think that the avg is that heavey but with good food a long life some well get very big.

I weigh well over 100 Kg. I'll bet a .22-250 would take me down pretty quick, though. Bet it would a wolf, too.

It is not that uncommom for a big male wolf in Canada to reach 140 lbs. I've seen pics of wolves this year that have reached 140 and 150 lbs.

I took pics myself of a 110 lbs female this year that was trapped by my friend. The Alpha male in that pack will hit the 150 lbs mark. I seen him in the fall and he dwarfed his bitch. He has bigger feet than a MT Lion. It took me 3 years to get a look at him. I'm going to put a few days in trying to get him this winter.
The rancher that free ranges there lost 3 cows in November to that pack and we were just shy of witnessing that pack taking out a muley near camp.

Last year there were pics posted of a wolf taken that was around the 200 lbs mark. I can only go by the authors word but it was the biggest wolf I ever seen in a picture and I would shit if I ran into one that big.

About calibres for wolves, yes a 22 bullet will kill a big wolf. What you have to ask yourself is when? A big one might drop like a bag of crap but then what if the shoulder bone is hit at farther ranges, he may 3 leg it off. If your only aim is to kill them, it will die eventually. If you want a nice wolf as your trophy, and they can be hard to come by, then a small deer calibre will get the job done quick and at any reasonable range.

A 4 legged wounded animal can make it alot farther than a wounded 2 legged one.

There are a number of domestic dog breeds that have larger frames and will weigh more than wolves. Examples would include the St. Bernard and various of the mastiffs. Outside of an obese example of one of these breeds (overfed and inactive, which you will never find in the wild), 150 lbs is on the outer limits. Thus, even Canadian/Arctic wolves (which will necessarily grow larger than most European or sub-arctic North American and Asian wolves due to the cold climate) will rarely reach the 140 lb mark (except after gorging with twenty-five or thirty pounds of meat from a fresh kill).

A big wolf is a large animal, however, in that a large wolf pelt is typically larger (longer, at least) than an average black bear pelt. But you have to remember, these carnivores are made for running and endurance and naturally don't carry the weight that a similarly-framed herbivore would.

Two Hundred pound wolves appear only on pages made of pulp -- and now its 21st Century replacement, cyberspace.

I shot the worlds biggest in 1982 & he weighed almost 250, but was clearly outsized from the rest of the pack. his skull was 19 3/16 which would have made book for a black bear.

quote:

Originally posted by butchloc:
I shot the worlds biggest in 1982 & he weighed almost 250, but was clearly outsized from the rest of the pack. his skull was 19 3/16 which would have made book for a black bear.

Tell us a little more about the wolf hunt. What caliber did you use and what was the effect on the wolf?

quote:

Originally posted by butchloc:
I shot the worlds biggest in 1982 & he weighed almost 250, but was clearly outsized from the rest of the pack. his skull was 19 3/16 which would have made book for a black bear.

You're kidding me right?

ok - short story - I had a friend who went to nunivik muskox hunting in march of 82. having been to alaska several times he had accumulated several friend and stopped on his way back and asked them about going wolf hunting. Sony Hedlund volunteered to take him. He called me and asked if i wanted to go to, so the following day I'm on the way north. Stewart had shot 3 by the time i got to illiamna, and was on his way home. I got there just in time for a fresh snowfall.. At at time you could hunt wolves with a trapping liscense, which allowed you to shoot the same day airborne. You couldn't shoot for the plane,but you could spot. Anyway the next day it was nice and sunny. It had to be sunny because the sun would shade the tracks and you can follow the wolves from the air. Anywas we jumped into sony's supercub early and started flying. The side story by the way is that when I got into the plane i overstreached by pants and split the crouch. Anyway after a couple of hours of circling, tipping up on one wingtip, wagging back & forth I got airsick. Finally about mid morning we came upon a caribou kill, which wasn't quite all eaten yet. We knew the pack was around but couldn't find them, so we backtracked. In about 40 miles or so we found where they had killed and eaten a yearling moose 2 days before, but then we lost the tracks. We continued flying (& I continues puking) until we found a wolverine traveling the valleys. We landed and shot the wolverine and got back into the plane (by this time I was very willing to to lay there and die) sony figured the wolves would have been back to their caribou kill by then so we went back. They had indeed been back finished the kill, and traveled on. In about 20 miles we found them again. there were 4 in the pack, 2 black and 2 gray. They were herding a group of caribou into a bunch of trees where they could kill easier. The one gray one was clearly outsized. When the plane goves over them they started to run, and we followed until we could find a place to land. In doing so, I would get up and sit on the side of the door with my feet on the struts and as soon as the place would slow down enough I'd jump out and start shooting. I was using a rebarelled mini 14 with GI ammo so as not to ruin the pelt. Anyway on the 1st landing we dropped this big fellow about 200 yds away. We didn't stop there, buy jumped back into the cub and tried for another one. We were after his mate, the other gray. This one was one smart wolf. Every time we would commit to land, she would flip out to the right. I asked sony what was with here, and he said that she had been shot at before, out of the pilots window and knew right from left. Anyway we finally had her on a frozen lake where when she fliped to the right sony could kick the rudder and go after here. If you can imagine all this, it is pretty exciting. And I was pretty excited when he kicked the rudder and I could get out and start shooting. In anycase I learned a few things then. !st was not to jump out of a plane still going 40 MPH on a frozen lake. 2nd to make sure the hole in my pants wasn't cought on the leg of the old backpack that was the back seat. When I came to, I must have had 40#'s of snow rammed up the rear of my pants, my sunglasses were 2 snowballs, my rifle was laying back 100 yds or or and sony, well he was no help, because he was holding himself up on the struts laughing his head off. We went back & picked up my wolf and flew back home. That day by the time we landed we had flown out both wing tanks and a 32 gal belly tank full of fuel. We had 4 gals of gas left when we landed. Sony just kept looking at the wolf and saying that it was biggest he'd ever seen. That night when we skinned him, we nailed the nose to the ceiling of a 8' shed and the tail was dragging on the floor. If my memory serves, when we weighed in he was 236#'s. The story takes a bad turn however. We wanted to go out again but the weather locked us in for the next 23 days. During this time sony and i had become close friends. He was a native, and had been shot in the throat in nam, not far from where I was at the same time. We had made plans to come back fishing, hunting moose, and brown bear etc., but before that happened, sony was walking down the street of his native village of nondalton when some guy went bezerk, ran outside with a 20 ga shotgun, shoved it into the face of the 1st person he saw and pulled the trigger. Sony left a wife and 3 littles behind. As i said, we had become quite close, perhaps because of the war experiences or what ever causes this, but I still miss him and whenever I look at the wolf (its mounted lifesize) thoughts come flooding back. If I can ever figure out a computer enough I'll post a picture or two. In the meantime if you want to see it, look in the sci record book under wolf & his picture is there.

oops forgot - when we speak of #1's my friend that had set the hunt up - Stewart Shaft, this fall just took a new #1 quebec-lab caribou 504 pts. his picture is in the hunt reports..com

Pretty crazy story. A couple of arctic hill billies!

Sorry to hear of your friends fate.

You would be great if you could get someone to help you post pics.

yeah Id like to see pics too

Butchloc

Boy here I was reading this thread getting myself all hyped up. Now you tell me you killed that immortal beast with a MINI 14 Man here I was getting my .378 Weatherby ready for a trip to Alaska. Trying to figure out where I was going to get some kryptonite or spent uranium rounds for the thing. Now I’m just totally deflated.

Probably just going to have to use my 22-250.

Just pulling you leg a little. Sorry to hear about your friend. That's life sometimes shit happens.

But you used a MINI 14 good to know that those wolves aren't invincible. I'll see if I can find that picture. Thanks for getting back to me.

butchloc, if you email me a photo of your wolf, I can post it on here. That sounded like an exciting trip. I am very sorry to hear about your friend.

butchloc , thank you for that ausome true story,so very sorry to hear about your friends death. all the best jjmp