28 CONSERVATION OF CANADIAN WILD LIFE 
the United States is 70,000,* of which nearly half are to be 
- found in Wyoming, mainly in and about Yellowstone Na- 
tional Park. 
Distribution and Abundance in Canada.—Its original 
range is shown in the accompanying map prepared by 
Ernest Thompson Seton; this also shows the present range. 
Formerly the wapiti occupied the greater portion of the cen- 
tral region of the continent. They ranged from Quebec, 
Massachusetts, and North Carolina in the east, to the 
Pacific coast of California on the west, and from the Peace 
River region and northern Manitoba in the north, to Mexico 
in the south. Now they are restricted to certain regions in 
the Prairie Provinces of Canada, as will be described later, 
to British Columbia, and to Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, 
and the Pacific Coast States. 
When Jacques Cartier ascended the St. Lawrence to 
Hochelaga in 1535, ‘‘stags’”’ were found in large numbers. 
The region of Kingston, Ont., is marked on Champlain’s 
map of 1632 as a region where these animals occurred in 
abundance. Father Lemoine, sailing on the St. Lawrence 
in 1653-4, found large numbers of what were undoubtedly 
wapiti in that region. To-day there are no ‘‘wild” wapiti 
east of Manitoba. 
In Manitoba they must have been very abundant in the 
early days, judging from the large numbers of antlers that 
are to be found, particularly in the southern portion of the 
province; but wapiti were exterminated from that region 
of the province many years ago. To-day they are to be 
found fairly abundantly in the Riding Mountains, and in 
the territory lying between Lakes Winnipeg and Manitoba. 
The increased protection afforded by the Riding Mountains 
Game Reserve is undoubtedly helping them to increase in 
numbers, and, in spite of much illegal killing that has taken 
* “Our National Elk Herds,” by H. S. Graves and E. W. Nelson. U.S. 
Dept. Agriculture, Circular No. 51, 1919. 
