King County Stops Paying for Wildcat Scalps
Commissioners keep the bounty only for cougars and panthers—and end the days when wildcat scalps were burned as courthouse fuel.
The county commissioners have issued an order that after April 30 no bounties will be paid for the scalps of wildcats or other small predators. The only bounty to be paid will be for the scalps of cougars, panthers and mountain lions, which remains at the former rate and will be paid by warrant instead of cash as heretofore. The law makes the giving of bounties optional with the county commissioners, and the move has been made with an object of cutting down expenses. In the course of a year a great many wildcat scalps find their way into the furnace in the basement of the courthouse, but henceforward they will cease to be made fuel. No bounty has been paid on bear scalps for some time past.
“In the course of a year a great many wildcat scalps find their way into the furnace in the basement of the courthouse, but henceforward they will cease to be made fuel.”
Predator bounties still provoke debate in the West, but the image of wildcat scalps burned in a courthouse furnace is a reminder that civic cost-cutting has a long, sometimes grisly, local history. The story also shows how county commissioners have always negotiated between public expense and rural complaints.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.