GAME PROTECTION xxi 



WILD LIFE IN THE PARKS 



Most of these parks have more or less big game, and this element of the fauna is probably 

 the one of the most general interest. The General Grant and Wind Cave Parks have little 

 or no native big game, but a movement was started several years ago to utilize the latter 

 as a game preserve, and the park is now stocked with buffalo, elk, and antelope. The 

 National Zoological Park in Washington, D. C, contains one of the largest collections of 

 living animals and birds in the United States, and is especially rich in native species. 

 The Yosemite and Sequoia Parks have little big game beside deer and bears, although the 

 Sequoia has a few mountain sheep (recently described as a new species) on some of the 

 higher peaks and a small herd of dwarf elk in an enclosure on the Kaweah River. Crater 

 Lake and Mount Rainier have deer, bear, and beaver. Mount Rainier has also a number 

 of mountain goats, and Glacier Park, beaver, deer, elk, moose, sheep, and many goats and 

 bears. 



The Yellowstone Park has by far the greatest herds of big game, including antelope, 

 mountain sheep, buffalo, deer, moose, bear, and beaver, and the largest herds of elk on 

 the continent. A recent document issued by the Department of the Interior contains these 

 interesting paragraphs in regard to the wild life of the Yellowstone: "It is the largest 

 and most successful preserve in the world. Its .3,300 square miles of mountains and valleys 

 remain nearly as nature made them, for the two hundred miles of roads and the five hotels 

 and many camps are as nothing in this immense wilderness. No tree has been cut except 

 when absolutely necessary for road or trail or camp. No herds invade its valleys. 



" Visitors for the most part keep to the beaten road, and the wild animals have learned 

 in the years that they mean them no harm. To be sure, they are seldom seen by the people 

 filling the long trains of stages which travel from point to point daily during the season; 

 but the quiet watcher on the trails may see deer and bear and elk and antelope to his heart's 

 content, and he may even see mountain sheep, moose, and bison by journeying on foot 

 or by horseback into their distant retreats. In the fall and spring, when the crowds are 

 absent, wild deer gather in great numbers at the hotel clearings to crop the grass, and the 

 officers' children feed them flowers. One of the diversions at the road builders' camps 

 in the wilderness is cultivating the acquaintance of the animals. There are photographs 

 of men feeding sugar to bear cubs while the mother bear looks idly on. ' 



" Thus one of the most interesting lessons from the Yellowstone is that wild animals 

 are fearful and dangerous only when men treat them as game or as enemies. Even the 

 big grizzlies, which are generally believed to be ferocious, are proved by our national parks 

 experience to be entirely inoffensive if not attacked. Even when attacked they make every 

 possible effort to escape, and only turn upon men when finally driven into some place from 

 which they can not get away. Then only are they dangerous, and then they are dangerous 

 indeed. 



"This wild animal paradise contains thirty thousand elk, a thousand moose, innumerable 

 deer, many antelope, and a large and increasing herd of bison. 



It is an excellent bird preserve also; more than a hundred and fifty species live natural, 

 undisturbed lives. Eagles abound among the crags. Wild geese and ducks are found 

 in profusion. Many large white pelicans add to the picturesqueness of Yellowstone 

 Lake." 



Concerning the Rocky Mountain National Park, the same report says: " This range 

 was once a famous hunting ground for large game. Lord Dunraven, the English sportsman, 

 visited it yearly to shoot its deer, bear, and bighorn sheep, and once he tried to buy it 

 for a private game preserve. Now that the Government has made it a national park, the 

 protection offered its wild animals will make it in a few years one of the most successful 

 wild-animal refuges in the world." 



