CHAPTER XVITHE PRESENT AND FUTURE OF NORTH AMERICAN BIG GAME
CHAPTER XVI
THE PRESENT AND FUTURE OF NORTH AMERICAN BIG GAME
The subject of this chapter opens up a vast field of facts and conclusions, quite broad enough to fill a whole volume. In the space at our disposal here it is possible to offer only a summary of the subject, without attempting to prove our statements by the production of detailed evidence.
To say that all over the world, the large land mammals are being destroyed more rapidly than they are breeding, would not be literally true, for the reason that there are yet many areas that are almost untouched by the destroying hand of civilized man. It is true, however, that all the unspoiled areas rapidly are growing fewer and smaller. It is also true that in all the regions of the earth that are easily penetrable by civilized man, the wild life is being killed faster than it breeds, and of necessity it is disappearing. This is why the British are now so urgently bestirring themselves to create game preserves in all the countries that they own.
It is one of the inexorable laws of Nature, to which I know of not one exception, that large hoofed animals which live on open plains, on open mountains, or in regions that are thinly forested, always are easily found and easily exterminated. All such animals have a weak hold on life. This is because it is so difficult for them to hide, and so very easy for man to creep up within the killing range of modern, high-power, long-range rifles. Is it not pitiful to think of animals like the caribou, moose, white sheep and bear trying to survive on the naked ridges and bald mountains of Yukon Territory and Alaska! With a modern rifle, the greatest duffer on earth can creep up within killing distance of any of the big game of the North.
The gray wolf is practically the only large animal that is able to hide successfully and survive in the treeless regions of the North; but his room is always preferable to his company, because he, too, is a destroyer of big game.
I am tempted to try to map out roughly what are to-day the unopened and undestroyed wild haunts of big game in North America. In doing this, however, I warn the reader not to be deceived into thinking that because game still exists in those regions, those areas therefore constitute a permanent preserve and safe breeding-ground for large mammals. That is very, very far from being the case. The further "opening up " of thewilderness areas, as I shall call them for convenience, can and surely will quickly wipe out their big game; for throughout nine-tenths of those areas it holds to life by very slender threads.
To-day the unopened and undestroyed wilderness areas of North America, wherein large mammals still live in a normal wild state, are in general as follows:
The Arctic Barren Grounds, or Arctic Prairies, north of the limit of trees, embracing the Barren Grounds of northern Canada, the great arctic archipelago, Ellesmere, Melville and Grant Lands and Greenland. This region is the home of the musk-ox and three species of arctic caribou.
The Alaska-Yukon Region, inhabited by the moose, white mountain sheep, mountain goat, four species of caribou, and half a dozen species of Alaska brown, grizzly and black bears.
Northern Ontario, Quebec, Labrador And Newfoundland, inhabited by moose, woodland caribou, white-tailed deer and black bear.
British Columbia, inhabited by a magnificent big-game fauna embracing the moose, elk, caribou of two species, white sheep, black sheep, big-horn sheep, mule deer, white-tailed deer, mountain goat, grizzly, black and inland white bears.
The Sierra Madre Of Mexico, containing jaguar, puma, grizzly and black bears, mule deer, white-tailed deer, antelope, mountain sheep and peccaries.
I have necessarily omitted all those regions of the United States and Canada that still contain a remnant of big game, but have been literally "shot to pieces" by gunners.
In the United States and southern Canada there are about fifteen localities which contain a supply of big game sufficient that a conscientious sportsman might therein hunt and kill one head per year with a clear conscience.All others should be closed for five years! Here is the list of availables; and regarding it there will be about as many opinions as there are big-game sportsmen:
HUNTING GROUNDS IN AND NEAR THE UNITED STATES AND SOUTHERN CANADA WHEREIN IT IS RIGHT TO HUNT BIG GAME
The Maine Woods: Well stocked with white-tailed deer.
New Brunswick: Well stocked with moose; a few caribou, deer and black bear.
White Mountains Of New Hampshire And Vermont: For deer.
The Adirondacks, New York: Well stocked with white-tailed deer, only.
Pennsylvania Mountains: Contain many deer and black bears, and soon will contain more.
Northern Minnesota: Deer and moose.
Northern Michigan And Wisconsin: White-tailed deer.
Northwestern Wyoming: Thousands of elk in fall and winter; a few deer, grizzly and black bears, but no sheep that it would be right to kill.
Western And Southwestern Montana: Elk in season, mule and white-tail deer; no sheep that it would be right to kill.
Northwestern Montana: Mule and white-tailed deer, only. No sheep, bear, moose, elk or antelopeto kill!
Wyoming, East Of Yellowstone Park: A few elk, by migration from the Park; a few deer, and bear of two species.
Northern Woods Of Ontario And Quebec: Moose; deer.
Southern British Columbia: Goat, a few sheep and deer; grizzly bear. Moose, caribou and elk should not be killed.
Northern British Columbia: Six fine species of big game.
Northwestern Alberta: Grizzly bear, big-horn and mountain goat.
Under existing conditions I regard the above-named hunting grounds asnearly allin which it is right or fair for big-game hunting now to be permitted, even on a strict basis. Nearly all others should immediately be closed, for large game, for ten years.
Of course such a proceeding, if carried into effect, would provoke loud protests from sportsmen, gunners, game-hogs, pot-hunters and others; but I only wish to high heaven that we had the power to carry such a program as that into effect!Then we would see some game in ten years; and our grand-children would thank us for some real big-game protection at a critical period.
Except in the few localities above-mentioned, I regard the big-game situation in the United States and southern Canada as particularly desperate. Unless there is an immediate and complete revolution in this country from an era of slaughter to an era of preservation, as sure as the sun rises on the morrow, outside of the hard and fast game preserves, and places like Maine and the Adirondacks, this generation of Americans and near-Americans will live to see our countryswept clean of big game!
Two years ago, I did not believe this; but I do now. It is impossible to exaggerate the wide extent or the seriousness of this situation. In a country where any and every individual can rise and bluster, "I'm-just-as-good-as-you-are," and bellow for his "rights" as a "tax-payer," there is no stopping the millions who kill whenever there is an open season. And to many Americans, no right is dearer than the right to kill the game which by even the commonest law of equity belongs, not to the shooter exclusively, but partly to two thousand other persons who don't shoot at all!
Unless we come to an "About, face!" in quick time, all our big game outside the preserves is doomed to sure and quick extermination. This is not an individual opinion, merely: it is afact; and a hundred thousand men know it to be such.
Last winter (1911-12), because the deer of Montana were driven by cold and hunger out of the mountains and far down into the ranchmen'svalleys, eleven thousand of them were ruthlessly slaughtered. State Game Warden Avare says that often heads of families took out as many licenses as there were persons in the family, and the whole quota was killed. Such people deserve to go deerless into the future; but we can not allow them to rob innocent people.
OUR SPECIES OF BIG GAME
The Prong-Horned Antelope, unique and wonderful, will be one ofthe first species of North American big game to become totally extinct. We may see this come to pass within twenty years. They can not be bred in protection,save in very large fenced ranges. They are delicate, capricious, and easily upset. They die literally "at the drop of a hat." They are quite subject to actinomycosis (lumpy-jaw), which in wild animals is incurable.
Already all the states that possess wild antelope, except Nevada, have passed laws giving that species long close seasons; which is highly creditable to the states that have done their duty. Nevada must get in line at the next session of her legislature!
In 1908, Dr. T.S. Palmer published in his annual report of "Progress in Game Protection" the following in regard to the prong-horned antelope:
"Antelope are still found in diminished numbers in fourteen western states. A considerable number were killed during the year in Montana, where the species seems to have suffered more than elsewhere since the season was opened in 1907.
"A striking illustration of the decrease of the antelope is afforded by Colorado. In 1898 the State Warden estimated that there were 25,000 in the state, whereas in 1908 the Game Commissioner places the number at only 2,000. The total number of antelope now in the United States probably does not exceed 17,000, distributed approximately as follows:
To-day (1912), Dr. Palmer says the total number of antelope is less than it was in 1908, and in spite of protection the number is steadily diminishing. This is indeed serious news. The existing bands, already small, are steadily growing smaller. The antelope are killed lawlessly, and the crimes of such slaughter are, in nearly every instance, successfully concealed.
Previously, we have based strong hopes for the preservation of the antelope species on the herd in the Yellowstone Park, but those animals are vanishing fearfully fast. In 1906, Dr. Palmer reported that "About fifteen hundred antelope came down to the feeding grounds near the haystacks in the vicinity of Gardiner." In 1908 the Yellowstone Parkwas credited with two thousand head.To-day, the number alive, by actual count, is only five hundred head; and this after twenty-five years of protection! Where have the others gone? This shows, alas! that perpetual close seasons can notalwaysbring back the vanished thousands of game!
PRONG-HORNED ANTELOPE
Here is a reliable report (June 29, 1912) regarding the prong-horned antelope in Lower California, from E.W. Nelson: "Antelope formerly ranged over nearly the entire length of Lower California, but are now gone from a large part of their ancient range, and their steadily decreasing numbers indicate their early extinction throughout the peninsula."
In captivity the antelope is exasperatingly delicate and short-lived. It has about as much stamina as a pet monkey. As an exhibition animal in zoological gardens and parks it is a failure; for it always looks faded, spiritless and dead, like a stuffed animal ready to be thrown into the discard. Zoologists can not save the prong-horn species save at long range, in preserves so huge that the sensitive little beast will not even suspect that it is confined.
Two serious attempts have been made to transplant and acclimatize theantelope—in the Wichita National Bison Range, in Oklahoma, and in the Montana Bison Range, at Ravalli. In 1911 the Boone and Crockett Club provided a fund which defrayed the expenses of shipping from the Yellowstone Park a small nucleus herd to each of those ranges. Eight were sent to the Wichita Range, of which five arrived alive. Of the seven sent to the Montana Range, four arrived alive and were duly set free. While it seems a pity to take specimens from the Yellowstone Park herd, the disagreeable fact is that there is no other source on which to draw for breeding stock.
The Provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, in Canada, still permit the hunting and killing of antelope; which is wholly and entirely wrong.
The Big-Horn Sheep.—Of North American big game, the big-horn of the Rockies will be, after the antelope, the next species to become extinct outside of protected areas. In the United States that event is fast approaching. It is far nearer than even the big-game sportsmen realize. There are to-day only two localities in the four states that stillthinkthey have killable sheep, in which it is worth while to go sheep-hunting. One is in Montana, and the other is in Wyoming. In the United States a really big, creditable ram may now be regarded as an impossibility. There are now perhaps half a dozen guides who can find killable sheep in our country, but the game is nearly always young rams, under five years of age.
That Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and Washington still continue to permit sheep slaughter is outrageous. Their answer is that "The sportsmen won't stand for stopping it altogether." I will add:—and the great mass of people are too criminally indifferent to take a hand in the matter, anddo their dutyregardless of the men of blood.
The seed stock of big-horn sheep now alive in the United States aggregates a pitifully small number. After twenty-five years of unbroken protection in Colorado, Dillon Wallace estimates, after an investigation on the ground, that the state possesses perhaps thirty-five hundred head. He credits Montana and Wyoming with five hundred each—which I think is far too liberal a number. I do not believe that either of those states contains more than one hundred unprotected sheep, at the very utmost limit. If there are more, where are they?
In the Yellowstone Park there are 210 head, safe and sound, and slowly increasing. I can not understand why they have not increased more rapidly than they have. In Glacier Park, now under permanent protection, three guides on Lake McDonald, in 1910, estimated the number of sheep at seven hundred. Idaho has in her rugged Bitter Root and Clearwater Mountains and elsewhere, a remnant of possibly two hundred sheep, and Washington has only what chemists call "a trace." It has recently been discovered that California still contains a few sheep, and in southwestern Nevada there are a few more.
In Utah, the big-horn species is probably quite extinct. In Arizona, there are a few very small bands, very widely scattered. They are in the Santa Catalina Mountains, the Grand Canyon country, the Gila Range, andthe Quitovaquita Mountains, near Sonoyta. But who can protect from slaughter those Arizona sheep? Absolutely no one! They are too few and too widely scattered for the game wardens to keep in touch with them. The "prospectors" have them entirely at their mercy, and the world well knows what prospectors' "mercy" to edible big game looks like on the ground. It leads straight to the frying-pan, the coyotes and the vultures.
The Lower California peninsula contains about five hundred mountain sheep, without the slightest protection save low, desert mountains, heat and thirst. But that is no real protection whatever. Those sheep are too fine to be butchered the way they have been, and now are being butchered. In 1908 I strongly called the attention of the Mexican Government to the situation; and the Departmento de Fomento secured the issue of an executive order forbidding the hunting of any big game in Lower California without the written authority of the government. I am sure, however, that owing to the political and military upheaval it never stopped the slaughter of sheep. In such easy mountains as those of Lower California, it is a simple matter to exterminate quickly all the mountain sheep that they possess. The time for President Madero and his cabinet to inaugurate serious protective measures has fully arrived.
Both British Columbia and Alberta have even yet fine herds of big-horn, and we can count three large game preserves in which they are protected. They are Goat Mountain Park (East Kootenay district, between the Elk and Bull Rivers); the Rocky Mountains Park, near Banff, and Waterton Lakes Park, in the southwestern corner of Alberta.
In view of the number of men who desire to hunt them, the bag limit on big-horn rams in British Columbia and Alberta still is too liberal, by half. One ram per year for one man isquite enough; quite as much so as one moose is the limit everywhere. To-day "a big, old ram" is regarded by sportsmen as a much more desirable and creditable trophy than a moose; because moose-killing is easy, and the bagging of an old mountain ram in real mountains requires five times as much effort and skill.
The splendid high and rugged mountains of British Columbia and Alberta form an ideal home for the big-horn (and mountain goat), and it would be an international calamity for that region to be denuded of its splendid big game. With resolute intent and judicial treatment that region can remain a rich and valuable hunting ground for five hundred years to come. Under falsely "liberal" laws, it can be shot into a state of complete desolation within ten years, or even less.
Other Mountain Sheep.—In northern British Columbia, north of Iskoot Lake, there lies a tremendous region, extending to the Arctic Ocean, and comprehending the whole area between the Rocky Mountain continental divide and the waters of the Pacific. Over the southern end of this great wilderness ranges the black mountain sheep, and throughout the remainder, with many sheepless intervals, is scattered the white mountain sheep.
Owing to the immensity of this wilderness, the well-nigh total lack of railroads and also of navigable waters, excepting the Yukon, it will not be thoroughly "opened up" for a quarter of a century. The few resolute and pneumonia-proof sportsmen who can wade into the country, pulling boats through icy-cold mountain streams, are not going to devastate those millions of mountains of their big game. The few head of game which sportsmen can and will take out of the great northwestern wilderness during the next twenty-five years will hardly be missed from the grand total, even though a few easily-accessible localities are shot out. It is the deadly resident trappers, hunters and prospectors who must be feared! And again,—whocan control them? Can any wilderness government on earth make it possible? Therefore,in time, even the great wilderness will be denuded of big game. This is absolutely fixed and certain; for within much less than another century, every square rod of it will have been gone over by prospectors, lumbermen, trappers and skin-hunters, and raked again and again with fine-toothed combs. A railway line to Dawson, the Copper River and Cook Inlet is to-day merely the next thing to expect, after Canada's present railway program has been wrought out.
Yes, indeed! In time the wilderness will be opened up, and the big game willallbe shot out, save from the protected areas.
The Mountain Goat.—Even yet, this species is not wholly extinct in the United States. It survives in Glacier Park, Montana, and the number estimated in that region by three guide friends is too astoundingly large to mention.
This animal is much more easily killed than the big-horn. Its white coat renders it fatally conspicuous at long range during the best hunting season; it is almost devoid of fear, and it takes altogether too many chances on man. Thanks to the rage for sheep horns, the average sportsman's view-point regarding wild life ranks a goat head about six contours below "old ram" heads, in desirability. Furthermore, most guides regard the flesh of the goat as almost unfit for use as food, and far inferior to that of the big-horn. These reasons, taken together, render the goats much less persecuted by the sportsmen, ranchmen and prospectors who enter the home of the two species. It was because of this indifference toward goats that in 1905 Mr. John M. Phillips and his party saw 243 goats in thirty days in Goat Mountain Park, and only fourteen sheep.
Unless the preferences of western sportsmen and gunners change very considerably, the coast mountains of the great northwestern wilderness will remain stocked with wild mountain goats until long after the last big-horn has been shot to death. Fortunately, the skin of the mountain goat has no commercial value. I think it was in 1887 that I purchased, in Denver, 150 nicely tanned skins of our wild white goatat fifty cents each! They were wanted for the first exhibit ever made to illustrate the extermination of American large mammals, and they were shown at the Louisville Exposition. It must have cost the price of those skins to tan them; and I was pleased to know that some one lost money on the venture.
MAP OF THE FORMER AND EXISTING RANGES OF THE AMERICAN ELK
From "Life History of Northern Animals," Copyright 1909 by E.T. Seton
At present the mountain goat extends from north-western Montana to the head of Cook Inlet, but it is not found in the interior or in the Yukon valley. Whenever man decides that the species has lived long enough, he can quickly and easily exterminate it. It is one of the most picturesque and interesting wild animals on this continent, and there is not the slightest excuse for shooting it, save as a specimen of natural history. Like the antelope, it is so unique as a natural curiosity that it deserves to be taken out of the ranks of animals that are regularly pursued as game.
The Elk.—The story of the progressive extermination of the American elk, or wapiti, covers practically the same territory as the tragedy of the American bison—one-third of the mainland of North America. The former range of the elk covered absolutely the garden ground of our continent, omitting the arid region. Its boundary extended from central Massachusetts to northern Georgia, southern Illinois, northern Texas and central New Mexico, central Arizona, the whole Rocky Mountain region up to the Peace River, and Manitoba. It skipped the arid country west of the Rockies, but it embraced practically the whole Pacific slope from central California to the north end of Vancouver Island. Mr. Setonroughly calculated the former range ofcanadensisat two and a half million square miles, and adds: "We are safe, therefore, in believing that in those days there may have been ten million head."
The range of the elk covered a magnificent domain. The map prepared by Mr. Ernest T. Seton, after twenty years of research, is the last word on the subject. It appears on page 43, Vol. I, of his great work, "Life Histories of Northern Animals," and I have the permission of author and publisher to reproduce it here, as an object lesson in wild-animal extermination. Mr. Seton recognizes (for convenience, only?) four forms of American elk, two of which,C. nannodesandoccidentalis, still exist on the Pacific Coast. The fourth,Cervus merriami, was undoubtedly a valid species. It lived in Arizona and New Mexico, but became totally extinct near the beginning of the present century.
In 1909 Mr. Seton published in the work referred to above a remarkably close estimate of the number of elk then alive in North America. Recently, a rough count—the first ever made—of the elk in and around the Yellowstone Park, revealed the real number of that largest contingent. By taking those results, and Mr. Seton's figures for elk outside the United States, we obtain the following very close approximation of the wild elk alive in North America in 1912:
In 1905, a herd of twenty of the so-called dwarf elk of the San Joaquin Valley, California, were taken to the Sequoia National Park, and placed in a fenced range that had been established for it on the Kaweah River.
The extermination of the wapiti began with the settlement of the American colonies. Naturally, the largest animals were the ones most eagerly sought by the meat-hungry pioneers, and the elk and bison were the first game species to disappear. The colonists believed in the survival of the fittest, and we are glad that they did. The one thing that a hungry pioneer cannot withstand is—temptation—in a form that embraces five hundred pounds of succulent flesh. And let it not be supposed that in the eastern states there were only a few elk. The Pennsylvania salt licks were crowded with them, and the early writers describe them as existing in "immense bands" and "great numbers."
Of course it is impossible for wild animals of great size to exist in countries that are covered with farms, villages and people. Under such conditions the wild and the tame cannot harmonize. It is a fact, however, that elk could exist and thrive in every national forest and national park in our country, and also on uncountable hundreds of thousands of rough, wild, timbered hills and mountains such as exist in probably twenty-five different states. There is no reason, except man's short-sighted greed and foolishness, why there are not to-day one hundred thousand elk living in the Allegheny Mountains, furnishing each year fifty thousand three-year-old males as free food for the people.
The trouble is,—the greedy habitantscould notbe induced to kill only the three-year-old-males, in the fall, and let the cows, calves and breeding bulls alone! By sensible management the Rocky Mountains, the Sierra Nevadas and the Coast Range would support enough wild elk to feed a million people. But we Americans seem utterly incapable of maintaining anywhere from decade to decade a large and really valuable supply of wild game. Outside the Yellowstone Park and northwestern Wyoming, the American elk exists only in small bands—mere remnants and samples of the millions we could and should have.
Ifthey could be protected, and the surplus presently killed according to some rational, working system, thenevery national forest in the United States should be stocked with elk! In view of the awful cost of beef (to-day 10-1/2 cents per pound in Chicagoon the hoof!), it is high time that we should consider the raising of game on the public domain on such lines that it would form a valuable food supply without diminishing the value of the forests.
Just now (1912) the American people are sorely puzzled by a remarkable elk problem that each winter is presented for solution in the Jackson Hole country, Wyoming. Driven southward by the deep snows of winter, the elk thousands that in summer graze and grow fat in the Yellowstone Park march down into Jackson Hole, to find in those valleys less snow and more food. Now, it happens that the best and most of the former winter grazing grounds of the elk are covered by fenced ranches! As a result, the elk that strive to winter there, about fifteen thousand head, are each winter threatened with starvation; and during three or four winters of recent date, an aggregate of several thousand calves, weak yearlings and weakened cows perished of hunger. The winters of 1908, 1909 and 1910 were progressively more and more severe; and 1911 saw about 2500 deaths, (S.N. Leek).
In 1909-10, the State of Wyoming spent $7,000 for hay, and fed it to the starving elk. In 1911, Wyoming spent $5,000 more, and appealed to Congress for help. Thanks to the efforts of Senator Lodge and others, Congress instantly responded with a splendid emergency appropriation of $20,000, partly for the purpose of feeding the elk, and also to meet the cost of transporting elsewhere as many of the elk as it might seem best to move. The starving of the elk ceased with 1911.
Outdoor Lifemagazine (Denver, Colo.) for August, 1912, contains anexcellent article by Dr. W.B. Shore, entitled, "Trapping and Shipping Elk." I wish I could reprint it entire, for the solid information that it contains. It gives a clear and comprehensive account of last spring's operations by the Government and by the state of Montana in capturing and shipping elk from the Yellowstone Park herd, for the double purpose of diminishing the elk surplus in the Park and stocking vacant ranges elsewhere.
The operations were conducted on the same basis as the shipping of cattle—the corral, the chute, the open car, and the car-load in bulk. Dr. Shore states that the undertaking was really no more difficult than the shipping of range cattle; but the presence of a considerable proportion of young and tender calves, such as are never handled with beef cattle, led to 8.8 per cent of deaths in transit. The deaths and the percentage are nothing at which to be surprised, when it is remembered, that the animals had just come through a hard winter, and their natural vitality was at the lowest point of the year.
The following is a condensed summary of the results of the work:
In order to provide adequate winter grazing grounds for the Yellowstone-Wyoming elk, it seems imperative that the national government should expend between $30,000 and $40,000 in buying back from ranchmen certain areas in the Jackson valley, particularly a tract known as "the swamp," and others on the surrounding foothills where the herds annually go to graze in winter, A measure to render this possible was presented to Congress in the winter of 1912, and without opposition an appropriation of $45,000 was made.
The splendid photographs of the elk herds that recently have been madeby S.N. Leek, of Jackson Hole, clearly reveal the fact that the herds now consist chiefly of cows, calves, yearlings and young bulls with small antlers. In one photograph showing about twenty-five hundred elk, there are not visible even half a dozen pairs of antlers that belong to adult bulls. There should be a hundred! This condition means that the best bulls, with the finest heads, are constantly being selected and killed by sportsmen and others who want their heads; and the young, immature bulls are left to do the breeding that alone will sustain the species.
HUNGRY ELK IN JACKSON HOLE, WYOMING
Part of a Herd of About 2,500 Head, being fed on hay, in the Winter of 1910-11
Note the Absence of Adult Bulls. Copyright, 1911, by S.N. Leek
It is a well-known principle in stock-breeding that sires should be fully adult, of maximum strength, and in the prime of life. No stockbreeder in his senses ever thinks of breeding from a youthful, immature sire. The result would be weak offspring not up to the standard.
This inexorable law of inheritance and transmission is just as much a law for the elk, moose and deer of North America as it is for domestic cattle and horses. If the present conditions in the Wyoming elk herds continue to prevail for several generations, as sure as time goes on we shall see a marked deterioration in the size and antlers of the elk.
If the foundation principles of stock-breeding are correct, then it is impossible to maintain any large-mammal species at its zenith of size, strength and virility by continuous breeding of the young and immature males. By some sportsmen it is believed that through long-continued killing of the finest and largest males, the red deer of Europe have been growing smaller; but on that point I am not prepared to offer evidence.
In regard to the in-breeding of the elk herds in large open parks and preserves throughout North America, there are positivelyno ill effects to fear. Wild animals that arecloselyconfined generation after generation are bound to deteriorate physically; but with healthy wild animals living in large open ranges, feeding and breeding naturally, the in-breeding that occurs produces no deterioration.
In the twin certainties of over-population, and deterioration from excessive killing of the good sires, we have to face two new problems of very decided importance. Nothing short of very radical measures will provide a remedy. For the immediate future, I can offer a solution. While it seems almost impossible deliberately to kill females, I think that the present is a very exceptional case, and one that compels us to apply the painful remedy that I now propose.
Premises:
Conclusion:—For five years, entirely prohibit the killing of adult male elk, and kill only females, and young males. This would gradually diminish the number of calves born each year, by about 2,500, and by the end of five years it would reduce the number,and the annual birth, of females to a figure sufficiently limited that the herds could be maintained on existing ranges.
Corollary.—At the end of five years, stop killing females, and kill onlyyoungmales. This plan would permit a large number of bull elk to mature; and then the largest and strongest animals would do the breeding,—just as Nature always intends shall be done.
South America
Of all the big-game regions of the earth, South America is the poorest. Of hoofed game she possesses only a dozen species that are worth the attention of sportsmen; and like all other animal life in that land of little game, they are desperately hard to find. In South America you must work your heart out in order to get either game or specimens that will be worth showing.
At present, we need not worry about the marsh deer, the pampas deer, the guemal, or the venado, nor the tapir, jaguar, ocelot and bears. All these species are abundantly able to take care of themselves; and to find and kill any one of them is a man's task. In Patagonia the natives do wastefully slaughter the guanacos; and there are times also when great numbers of guanacos come down in winter to certain mountain lakes, presumably in search of food, and perish by hundreds through starvation. (H. Hesketh Prichard.)
Mexico
About ten years more will see the extinction of the mountain sheep of Lower California,—in the wake of the recently exterminated Mexicansheep of the Santa Maria Lakes region. In 1908, I solemnly warned the government of President Diaz, and at that time the Mexican government expressed much concern.
It is a great pity that just now political conditions are completely estopping wild-life protection in Mexico; but it is true. If the code of proposed laws that I drew up (by request) in 1908 and submitted to Minister Molina were adopted, it would have a good effect on the fauna of Mexico.
In Mexico there is little hoofed game to kill,—deer of the white-tail groups, seven or eight species; the desert mule deer; the brocket; the prong-horned antelope, the mountain sheep and the peccary. The deer will not so easily be exterminated, but the antelope and sheep will be utterly destroyed. They will be the first to go; and I think they can not by any possibility last longer than ten years. Is it not too bad that Mexico should permit her finest species of hoofed and horned game to be obliterated before she awakens to the desirability of conservation! The Mexicans could protect their small stock of big game if they would; but in Lower California they are leasing huge tracts of land to cattle companies, and they permit the lessees to kill all the wild game they please on their leased lands, even with the aid of dogs. This is a vicious and fatal system, and contrary to all the laws of nations.