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Local outdoor folks know well what roams and swims in the Ohio countryside. But did you ever wonder what wild creatures were roaming Ohio in the Good Old Days or swimming in Ohio waters?
As a dedicated history buff I did. After some research, what emerged may be surprising.
For example, when Ohio became a state in 1803, there were still plenty of black bears, wolves, deer, and wild turkey. But the bears were hunted hard for their meat (bear bacon), skins, and most particularly fat. It was used for everything from cooking to smearing on face and hands as a mosquito repellent. Unfortunately, they didn’t last long after 1803.
Wolves were plentiful too, so much so that pig pens and cattle enclosures had to be built tight and sturdy to keep the big animals from feasting on an occasional stoat or calf. Some of the wolves were said to reach 100 pounds or more, and were formidable fighters. But they gradually succumbed to winter hunts with packs of hardy hounds.
Wild turkeys were shot off for food, and deer, which were not too numerous at that time, due to heavy forests with sparse browse, became extinct.
There were woods buffalo making their woodland trails to water and salt licks in 1803 too. True buffalo that were a little smaller than plains animals, but still excellent eating and a windfall to any pioneer’s larder. That year, 1803, was the last time they were seen in Ohio.
It’s hard to believe that elk, an animal mostly of the north and west, were common in the state, but they were and added both their meat and hides to early Buckeye residents. They disappeared in 1835.
Since early Ohio was densely wooded with only small farms here and there, squirrels were more than abundant. In fact, they were so thick that settlers were required to submit squirrel skins as part of their tax payment each year. It was no great hardship to bag the quick little animals, though. Their meat was (and is) considered excellent. Outdoorsmen from Daniel Boone to Lou Wetzel considered squirrel to be the best wild meat available, excluding cougar or mountain lion which was THE best!
Then there were passenger pigeons which flew across the state by the millions. The birds would land in beech trees to feed on their small seeds in such numbers that limbs would break off, sending some injured birds fluttering to the ground toward predators below.
Settlers hunted them hard when the big flocks arrived, killing them by throwing rocks and sticks into their roosts or shooting them with shotguns loaded with fine shot. The pigeons were cleaned and packed into barrels with salt for winter usage.
There was also an abundance of fish. In the Ohio River settlers fished for “black and yellow cat(fish),” weighing from 3 to 100 pounds, buffalo, from 5 to 30 pounds, pike from 4 to 30 pounds, sturgeon (highly prized) from 4 to 40 pounds, perch (walleye and sauger) from 3 to 12 pounds, sucker from 1 to 6 pounds, a few herring sometimes.... shad...eels, and soft shelled turtles were sometimes caught.” This according to the Navigator, a widely used almanac of the time.
In Lake Erie, fish were equally prolific. Lake Erie muskellunge were the most prized species, reaching 50 pounds on occasion. They were routinely speared below a small falls near Fort Toledo by soldiers and layabouts. There were hordes of walleye, perch, and smallmouth bass.
Indians living along such rivers as the Sandusky ate well by catching fish in traps or crude nets, or spearing them at night with torches and spears.
We’ve lost many animals forever. There will never be buffalo or elk in Ohio woods again, but otherwise, many wild creatures are returning. There’s a modest little population of black bears, mostly in eastern and southeastern Ohio, animals that swam the river from West Virginia or Pennsylvania and decided to stay.
Wild turkey are back by the thousands. Deer are enjoying the highest population our state has ever seen, and there are once again otters in the streams, beaver building dams, coyotes, and an occasional bobcat.
It is nothing like the Good Old Days, but a big improvement from almost no animals at all.
Dick Martin is a retired Shelby biology teacher who has written an outdoor column for more than 20 years. He can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.org.