142 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



working under the direction of a representative of the 

 Boone and Crockett Club. 



With information concerning the winter location of 

 the herds and the number of animals thus made available 

 it will be a comparatively simple matter to delimit the 

 necessary winter range for the elk and reserve it for the 

 use of the elk herds. The elk herd which spends its simi- 

 mer along the .southern border of the Yellowstone Park 

 and descends in winter into the Jackson Hole region, is 

 now carried through the stress of severe winter storms by 

 being fed hay on the Jack- 

 .son Hole winter refuge, 

 which has been purchased 

 Ijy the government in order 

 to care for these animals. 

 This refuge is in charge of 

 the Biological Survey, which 

 has a resident warden there 

 who, each summer, superin- 

 tends the putting up of 

 more than 600 tons of hay. 

 The available lands on the 

 refuge may be planted and 

 made to yield approxi- 

 mately double this amount 

 of hay when it becomes 

 necessary. 



The refuge and feeding 

 station in Jackson Hole is 

 located on the ancient win- 

 tering grounds of thousands 

 of elk and has been neces- 

 sitated by the influx 

 of settlers who have taken up a large part of the 

 former wintering ground of the elk for fanning and 

 stock raising purposes. The available summer grazing 

 for this herd, which numbers over 20,000 animals, 

 is abundant. 



In order to carry out the conservation program for 

 game on National Forests outlined above it will be neces- 

 sary to secure Congressional action to set aside game 

 refuges on the forests. 



As soon as the plans suggested above are well under- 

 stood, the states will no doubt join in cooperation to 

 secure the benefits which would flow to them from such an 

 arrangement. They would thereby secure the protection 

 and increase of their game resources with no added cost 

 to themselves and with no added burden of wardenship. 

 By this arrangement the rights of the states to legislate 

 for the hunting of its game, making sea.sons, licenses 

 and other essential features would still remain witli them; 

 the onl)^ check would V)e to prevent the waste of their 

 game resources. 



With the series of game refuges and control of the 

 game on the forests as outlined above it will be a com- 

 paratively simple matter to restock or breed up game on 

 nearly all of the National Forests to a reasonable aliun- 

 dance. Deer, elk, and possiljly mountain sheep, may be 



From Biological Survey. 



STARVING ELK AT JACKSON HOLE, WYOMING 

 Before the Federal winter refuge was established by the Government, hundreds 

 of elk died because they were not able to obtain food. The photograph is of 

 a victim of starvation and a survivor. 



restored to the point where excellent hunting may again be 

 obtained, although, of course, never on so large a scale as 

 was possible in the early days. Experiments in restock- 

 ing ranges have already been made on a sufficient scale to 

 show how simply and easily this may be done under 

 proper conditions. 



A herd of about 70 elk introduced a few years ago 

 from the Yellowstone Park to the Sitgreaves Forest 

 in Arizona has thrived amazingly and in a few years will 

 undoubtedly restock a large area in that region. In 



Colorado elk have been 



successfully reintroduced, 

 and, under stringent pro- 

 tection due to local senti- 

 ment , mountain sheep which 

 once were on the verge of 

 extermination have bred up 

 in considerable numbers. 



A few years ago Alaska 

 contained some of the finest 

 hunting grounds in the 

 world. The giant moose 

 with the noblest antlers of 

 any of the living deer kind 

 existed in astonishing 

 abundance. The snowy 

 white mountain sheep, 

 noted for its gracefully 

 formed horns, was extremely 

 numerous in many places, 

 and caribou of several races 

 roamed the tundras and 

 scanty interior forests in 

 coimtlcss numbers. During the last 15 years all have 

 tremendously decreased, mainly through over-shooting to 

 supply the miners' camps and for dog food. Now the Fed- 

 eral Government is building a railroad from the south coast 

 into the interior to develop the resotirces of that territory, 

 but the thousands of men employed in its construction 

 have created a demand for meat which is threatening the 

 annihilation of the superb game animals of a belt more- 

 than 150 miles broad right through the finest remaining 

 game country; thus at the outset the railroad may be- 

 come responsible for the destruction of one of Alaska's, 

 most valuable resources. 



In an eflort to stay this ill-judged slaughter the Sec- 

 retary of Agriculture, under authority vested in him, has 

 issued a regulation prohiljiting the sale of game killed on 

 the Kenai Peninsula and adjacent region, but the prox- 

 imity of the new road to this splendid game field and the 

 number of possible hunters make the outlook there dark 

 for the many moose and movmtain sheep. 



National Forests in Alaska co\-er not only the Kenai 

 Peninsula, but also the heavily wooded islands along the 

 south coast, where the Sitka deer lives in great abundance 

 and has been killed in large numbers for commercial 

 purposes. In all this region occur representatives of the 

 huge brown and northern grizzly bears, the largest living 

 carnivores of the world. 



