28 



WILD ANIMALS OF GLACIER NATIONAL PARK. 



them which a man well shod and used to the mountains could not 

 travel, and others who have been long familiar with the animals on the 

 native peaks are frank to say that a man can go anywhere that they 

 do. From the highest and most inaccessible slopes where they spend 

 the summer days the sheep are forced to descend at night or at cer- 

 tain times to lower levels where thoy may obtain their food from the 



scanty growth of alpine meadows. 

 It is probable that they would re- 

 main throughout the day at these 

 more accessible levels but for their 

 persistent enemies, the big moun- 

 tain coyotes, which prowl along 

 the trails and over the slopes as 

 high as their unshod feet will 

 allow them to travel with com- 

 fort. Apparently these are the 

 principal enemies of the sheep, 

 and if their destruction could be 

 accomplished the sheep would in- 

 crease more rapidly and would be 

 more conspicuous along the trails 

 and over the mountain passes 

 during the tourist season. As the 

 sheep meat is considered by many 

 the most delicious of all game 

 meats, the animals are not easily protected from poachers outside the 

 park areas, but with the excellent ranger service they should steadily 

 increase in the park until it is stocked to its full capacity, when they 

 will overflow into neighboring ranges where hunting may at some 

 time be resumed. 



Mountain Goat: Oreaminos montanus missoulue Allen. — White 

 goats are common on all of the high peaks and ridges throughout 

 the park. During the tourist season they are generally found above 

 timberline or from the last scrubby growth of timber up to the tops 

 of the highest peaks. Occasionally the goats or their tracks were 

 seen where the animals crossed from one range to another, along 

 some of the trails well down in the timber, and little festoons of 

 fine white goat wool were found on bushes along the trails near 

 Elizabeth Lake on the head of the Belly River, and in the 

 upper part of Waterton Lake valley. While the goats do not make 

 the same vertical migration up and down the slopes as the mountain 

 sheep, they wander considerably and keep some of the trails well 

 worn between the different ranges. ITnless disturbed by their 

 enemies, their travel is mainly in daily trips up the slopes to high 

 ledges and shelves during the morning hours, often to the very crests 



Pig. 2. — Head of 5-year-old ram from 

 Chief Mountain country. Mounted and 

 photographed by H. II. Stanford. Kal- 

 ispoll. 



