The Condition of Wild Life in Alaska 



is not as serious in Alaska as it is in parts of British 

 Columbia and the Canadian Northwest, and is 

 settling itself by the rapid decline of the Indian 

 population. Indians, after they have been in 

 contact with white men, certainly are extremely 

 destructive to animal life. An Indian with a gun 

 will shoot at anything he sees until his ammunition 

 is gone. These people seem to be devoid of any 

 idea of economy in slaughtering, even though they 

 know that they are certain to suffer from starvation 

 as a result of their indiscriminate waste of game. 

 Any legislation, therefore, that gives Indians priv- 

 ileges superior to the whites is based, not on scien- 

 tific, but on sentimental considerations. 



To exempt the Indians from the limitation of 

 game laws in a district partly inhabited by white 

 men, simply puts the white hunter at a disadvan- 

 tage, and always results in a contempt for the law 

 on the part of the latter. If an Indian is allowed 

 to hunt freely during the closed season, he is 

 usually employed by whites for market hunting. 

 The game he kills finds its way to the white man's 

 market rather than to the tipis of the tribe, or is 

 used as food by the Indian's dogs, with the ulti- 

 mate result that the food supply of the entire tribe 

 is killed off for the benefit of a few hunters. 



In the abundance of the salmon the Indians of 



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