In the 1760s, the Languedoc region of France was beset by a number of man-eating wolves, who seemed to possess supernatural powers. They attacked over a hundred humans, mostly women and children, and killed between 80 and 100.
Louis XV offered a 300 livre reward to a man who merely fought the Beast of Gevaudan, and set a 6,000 livre bounty on its head, and sent the royal wolf-hunter to hunt it.
On February 7, 1765, over 20,000 men accepted the quest to try to claim the bounty, but it escaped after being shot. Over the next several months, the royal wolfer conscripted farmers to help hunt for the wolf, which kept escaping after being shot, bayonetted, many attempted poisonings, and so forth. It was finally cornered in the woods of an abbey and killed in September by the Royal Arquibuser, who was given a 1,000 livre pension quest reward and a magic item (a stuffed werewolf) for his efforts.
However, there were multiple wolves in the region, and the deaths continued until a man named Jean Chastel reputedly befuddled the beast with the Bible, and then shot it with a silver bullet that he'd made from a medallion of the Virgin Mary.
Modern day Louisiana offers a bounty on nutria tails: http://nutria.com/site10.php