possible to provide a sanctuary for these beasts, 

 in order that they may be protected from 

 wanton destruction. 



According to the trapper who first brought 

 the report of this herd to the Government 

 authorities, the animals appear to be increasing 

 in numbers. They live in a territory which is 

 thick with vegetation. In the summer they 

 range in the hills, and towards fall wander to the 

 lowlands, where they live on the plentiful red top 

 hay in the sloughs, which provides them with 

 food during the winter months. They are not 

 molested by wild animals. Wolves have not 

 been seen in the vicinity of the herd, and the 

 care with which a few of the older bulls mount 

 guard over the rest of the herd ensures safety 

 from attack. The trapper reports that during 

 all the time he was in the neighborhood of this 

 herd he saw only one dead buffalo, and that one 

 had apparently died from natural causes. 



Are Running In Small Herds 



The animals are accustomed to run in small 

 herds, but they have been seen in groups of 

 thirty to forty, and once in a bunch of fifty. 

 There is plenty of land for the herds to roam over. 

 There are no settlements within miles, and 

 occasionally trappers and stray Indians visit the 

 territory during their round of the traps. The 

 animals show little signs of nervousness in the 

 presence of human beings, and it is possible to get 

 within one hundred to one hundred and fifty 

 yards of them before they will take flight. The 

 buffalo are in splendid physical condition, and 

 a snap-judgment of one of the trappers places 

 the weight of many of the animals at well over 

 2, 000 pounds. 



The Canadian Government has met with 

 gratifying success in their endeavor to preserve 

 the buffalo from extermination on the American 

 continent. The original herd of tame buffaloes, 

 which numbered 700 and was purchased in 

 Colorado about twelve years ago, has grown 

 steadily and to-day numbers around 6,000. 

 They are enclosed in a park at Wainwright, 

 Alberta, approximately 100,000 acres in extent. 

 Instead of being depressed by coming into 

 contact with civilization and gradually dying 

 off, as a great many people expected, these 

 animals took to their surroundings immediately, 

 resulting in such rapid increases in numbers 

 that the Government has considered it necessary 

 to put into operation a plan for the killing-off of 

 a certain number each year in order to keep up 

 the physical standard of the herd. 



A representative of the Department of the 

 Interior is at present in the Northland investi- 

 gating the possibilities of establishing a sanctu- 

 ary for this new-found herd. The undertaking 

 will involve much expense and labor. It is more 

 than likely that the Federal Government will 

 authorize the creation of the proposed sanctuary, 



and if this is done, Canada will then be the 

 proud possessor of the two greatest known 

 herds of American bison in existence. 



Fur Farming in 1922 



According to revised figures of the Canadian Bureau of 

 Statistics, there were 821 fur farms in Canada in 1921, 

 comprising 775 fox farms, 12 mink, 10 racoon, 3 marten, 

 2 skunk, 3 beaver, 3 muskrat and 4 Karakul sheep ranches, 

 Of these ranches 375 were located in Prince Edward Island, 

 108 in Nova Scotia, 64 in New Brunswick, 109 in Quebec, 

 94 in Ontario, 25 in the Prairie Provinces and 37 in British 

 Columbia and the Yukon. The total value of the sale of 

 fur-bearing animals and pelts sold from fur farms in that 

 year was $1,498,105. Compared with the year 1920, 

 1921 showed an increase of 225 fur farms for the twelve 

 months, or over forty per cent, and in the sale of animals 

 and pelts an increase of $346,449. 



It will be some time before the statistics of the opera- 

 tion of Canadian fur farms in 1922 will be available, but 

 such a survey as can be made of the situation at the pre- 

 sent time reveals every indication of a further substantial 

 increase in this comparatively new Canadian industry 

 and the yet wider spreading of the popularity of the pro- 

 duct of the Dominion's domestic establishments. Not 

 only has Canada been the founder of the domestic fur- 

 breeding industry and continue to maintain her early 

 prestige in this regard, but she has been instrumental in 

 establishing the fur-breeding industry in many other 

 countries where Canadian foundation stock has been in 

 demand. 



Raw furs are the chief commercial product of the wild 

 life of Canada, and as such represent the only economic 

 return from a large area of the Dominion. Though the 

 greater part of this area will be a perpetual trapping ground 

 and source of raw furs, agricultural settlement tends to 

 curtail this region to some extent, and the increasing 

 establishment of fur farms is calculated to offset this 

 depletion and keep up to standard the Dominion's annual 

 fur output. The total value of the raw fur production of 

 Canada for the season 1920-21 was $10,151,594, com- 

 prising pelts of fur-bearing animals taken by trappers and 

 those raised on fur farms, the revenue from the latter, at 

 the present time, constituting only about six per cent of 

 the whole. 



Foundation Stock Widely Distributed 



In the experimentation with domestic fur farms in other 

 parts of the world the foundation stock has almost invari- 

 ably been secured from Canada, and where these farms 

 have been successfully established stock has been intro- 

 duced from the Dominion for purposes of improvement. 

 In the past and immediately previous years, foxes and 

 other fur-bearing animals have gone from Canada to the 

 United States, England, Japan, Switzerland, Russia and 

 Norway. A recent despatch from London, England, 

 described the development of silver and black fox raising 

 in Ross-shire, Scotland, into an important industry, 

 which district imported its foundation stock from Prince 

 Edward Island two years ago. Among the larger Canadian 

 fur shipments of the year were three hundred foxes from 

 Prince Edward Island for points in the United States and 

 100 foxes from New Brunswick for New York State, whilst 

 a large fox-ranching and fur-marketing organization in 

 Minneapolis made heavy importations from the Island. 



The year 1922 was marked by a substantial extension 

 in the number of ranches throughout the Dominion, the 

 extent of which will not be known until Government 

 statistics are published. It will be noticed in the figures 

 of past years that the domestic fur-raising industry of 

 Canada has been largely confined to the East, but the 

 outstanding feature of 1922 has been the development of 

 the Western provinces in this regard. Early in the year 

 a ranch with $100,000 worth of stock was established at 



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