HOW ELK MAY BE SAVED 269 



to kill the elk than to starve them, and hu- 

 manity here demands some such course. No 

 stockman in the world would attempt to main- 

 tain a hundred steers on a range that would not 

 support seventy. We must not permit the sen- 

 timental point of view to overtop the practical. 



On the other hand, Wyoming has consider- 

 able ranges in other sections of the State far un- 

 derstocked. Wherever this is the case a perma- 

 nent close season should be established and 

 maintained until the ranges are fairly well 

 stocked. The idea of game protection is to 

 stock ranges that are adapted to animals, but 

 not overstock them, and when conditions war- 

 rant, to permit hunting, but not to so great an 

 extent as to kill each year beyond the annual 

 increase. 



In view of the fact that Wyoming considers 

 her elk of greater value than the domestic sheep 

 now occupying the old desert ranges of the elk 

 to the latter's exclusion, it is a pity that the Fed- 

 eral government ever permitted the sheep to 

 ruin the ranges. What shift the Federal au- 

 thorities expected their Yellowstone Park elk 

 to make when they did this is hard to imagine, 

 if indeed they ever gave the park elk a thought. 



No one understanding the true meaning of 

 game preservation can be in the least in sym- 



