G6 



WILD ANIMALS OF GLACIER NATIONAL PAEK. 



fish-breeding ponds, and affording one of the interesting features of 

 animal life in the park. 



While it is possible even now for the tourist to find beavers that 

 can be observed at work, their study would be far more interesting 

 with ten times greater numbers of the animals, and the country would 

 be generally benefited by the surplus that would stock surrounding 

 areas. 



The beautiful dense furry coats of the beavers, which adapt them 

 to their peculiar mode of life, have put a price on their backs that 

 has almost proved their destruction. In spite of well- framed laws 

 imposing severe penalties for trapping or killing the animals, the 

 temptation for trappers to sneak in and get as many skins as possible 

 is often too great to be resisted. In spite of every precaution many 



Fig. 10. — Cottonwood tree, 46 inches across stump, cut down by beavers near mouth 

 of Camas Creek. Photographed April 14, 1918, several years after it had fallen. 



beavers are trapped each year and their numbers are kept down to a 

 very slight increase, if not to a dead level of meager existence. 



Family ERETHIZONTID^: Porcupines. 



Yellow - HAIRED Porcupine: Erefhizon epixanthum epixanfhum 

 Brandt. — Porcupines are sufficiently common in the park to be 

 often seen by the visiting tourists. At Granite Park one usually 

 came around the chalet every day and did not seem to mind bein^ 

 shut up occasionally in the woodshed where he could be released 

 after the tourists had arrived over the pass at roon and be watched 

 by a large number of people as he shuffled down the trail and over 

 the big snow bank to the rocks beyond. Several years ago while thi§ 



