Hunting at High Altitudes 



large and varied fauna, their actual capacity to 

 sustain life is limited to such animals as can there 

 find sustenance during the heavy snows of winter. 



Before the arrival of white men, the animals, 

 which lived in the mountains during the summer, 

 during the cold season sought refuge in the shel- 

 tered valleys and foothills. These favored locali- 

 ties, however, were at once occupied by settlers, 

 and the game was deprived of its winter feeding 

 grounds. This has done more in recent years to 

 exterminate the large animals of the West than 

 the actual shooting of individuals. 



During the closing years of the nineteenth 

 century the American people had obtained no little 

 experience in game protection, and had embodied 

 it in Federal statutes and the game laws of the 

 various States. Of all the regulations established 

 for the preservation of wild life, the most prac- 

 tical and effective have been found to be, first, the 

 prohibition of hide and head hunting; second, the 

 prohibition of market hunting; third, and most 

 important of all, the establishment of sanctuaries 

 where game can roam and breed absolutely un- 

 disturbed. The most conspicuous example of such 

 refuges is the Yellowstone Park, the success of 

 which is admitted on all sides. 



At the end of the century, the gold discovered 

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