112 CONSERVATION OF CANADIAN WILD LIFE 
hunter from the United States had five grizzly bears to his 
credit. Comment on such butchery disguised under the 
name of ‘‘sport” is hardly necessary, but it indicates the 
abuse on the part of unscrupulous persons that is liable to 
accompany the absence of any restriction. Bears will prob- 
ably hold their own in our mountains and forests for many 
years to come, even without protection, owing to their dis- 
like for man and the sparse population in or near their 
haunts. But there are a number of adverse natural factors 
that tend to reduce their range, of which, perhaps, the chief 
is forest fires; and it is with a view to counterbalancing the 
effect of such factors and the gradual diminution of their 
range by the increase of settlement and population that 
some form of protection should be granted this interesting 
and economically valuable group of our wild life while such 
protection will have the desired effect. 
