Yellowstone Park Protection Act 



to come. For some time after the year 1872, the reser- 

 vation was occasionally visited by a few adventurous 

 spirits or Government parties on exploring expeditions. 

 During that period it became the refuge of the large 

 game which had gradually receded from the lower coun- 

 try before the advance of settlement and railroads. The 

 abundance of game astonished all who beheld it. Bears, 

 deer, elk, sheep, moose, antelope, buffalo, wolverines and 

 many other kinds of wild beasts were collected within an 

 area which afforded peculiar advantages to each and all. 

 Nowhere else could such a gathering of game be found 

 in one locality. It should be remembered that those 

 who visited the Park in the early days we have men- 

 tioned confined their investigations to a limited portion 

 of it. The great winter ranges and breeding grounds 

 were almost unknown. During this period, game killing 

 was so slight and the supply so great that restrictions, by 

 those exercising a very uncertain authority in the reser- 

 vation, were hardly pretended to be enforced. 



But from about the year 1878 the depredations on the 

 game of the Park attained alarming proportions. The 

 number of visitors had largely increased. The skin 

 hunter and the record hunter — twin brothers in iniquity 

 — appeared on the scene, and their number grew from 

 year to year. It was then that regulations and prohibi- 

 tions were promulgated from the Department of the In- 

 terior, but they were known to contain only vain threats, 

 which could be defied with impunity. And so the slaugh- 

 ter continued, and likewise other depredations. Learned 

 associations, sportsmen's associations, visitors of all lands, 

 showered petitions upon Congress to pass some protect- 

 ive law. All that Congress did, however, was in 1883 to 



405 



