Wilderness Reserves 



ness life are to be kept unspoiled for the benefit 

 of our children's children. Eastern people, and 

 especially eastern sportsmen, need to keep steadily 

 in mind the fact that the westerners who live in 

 the neighborhood of the forest preserves are the 

 men who in the last resort will determine whether 

 or not these preserves are to be permanent. They 

 cannot in the long run be kept as forest and game 

 reservations unless the settlers roundabout believe 

 in them and heartily support them ; and the rights 

 of these settlers must be carefully safeguarded, and 

 they must be shown that the movement is really 

 in their interest. The eastern sportsman who' fails 

 to recognize these facts can do little but harm by 

 advocacy of forest reserves. 



It was in the interior of the Park, at the hotels 

 beside the lake, the falls, and the various geyser 

 basins, that we would have seen the bears had the 

 season been late enough; but unfortunately the 

 bears were still for the most part hibernating. We 

 saw two or three tracks, and found one place where 

 a bear had been feeding on a dead elk, but the ani- 

 mals themselves had not yet begun to come about 

 the hotels. Nor were the hotels open. No visi- 

 tors had previously entered the Park in the winter 

 or early spring — the scouts and other employes be- 

 ing the only ones who occasionally traverse it. I 



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