Remembering Dr. E. H. McCleery, the father of the American Endangered Species Movement, seems appropriate in honor of Endangered Species day this Friday.
McCleery is credited with single-handedly, and locally, saving an entire subspecies of wolves from extinction — known as Canis lupus nubilus, the Buffalo or Lobo wolf.
The Kane Historic Preservation Society, after considerable research, concluded that McCleery was truly the first individual in the U.S., and perhaps the world, to save an entire subspecies of animals. In turn, they are responsible for dubbing McCleery the father of the American Endangered Species Movement.
The lobo wolves came under threat of extinction near the end of the 1920s due to them being hunted down in their natural western U.S. habitat for their pelts, but mostly because they were a threat to cattle and other herd animals. McCleery saved these wolves from extinction by paying men to hunt and trap them, instead of killing them, the society reported.
McCleery had his first lobo wolf, Jerry, shipped to him from the west in 1921 and from then until 1929 he raised multiple pairs of wolves on his property on the corner of Tionesta Avenue and Pine Street in Kane. He and his family continued to live on that property for many, many years but in 1929, McCleery moved his wolves to another, larger location along U.S. Route 6 in Kane, where they stayed for nearly 40 years, according to the historical information.
McCleery continued to raise the wolves until he was well into his 90s when a man, Jack Lynch, bought the farm from him and carried forward McCleery’s legacy.
Eventually Lynch moved himself and the wolves to a warmer climate in Washington state, but after a few years that proved to be too moist of an environment for the wolves to thrive in; so they eventually ended up moving to Montana where the wolves are still kept and bred to this day, the society’s information indicated..
Once Lynch died, the torch was passed to his wife Mary who carried the tradition on with her son and daughter-in-law, Ed and Terry Wheeler. In March of 2016 Mary also passed away leaving the farm in Montana to her son. He and his wife still care for the wolves today with the assistance of the McCleery Buffalo Wolf Foundation, the society reported.
For more information on McCleery or the subspecies of wolves he rescued, the Kane Historic Preservation Society provides the McCleery Discovery Center at the Kane Depot.
