Wild Animals You May Know 



"As I watched the wild life of the park today, unconcerned and 

 unmindful of the human beings about them, manifesting their confidence 

 in the security of the situation, I thought how helpful it would be to 

 humankind if we could have a like confidence in one another in all the 

 relations of life." 



President Harding, who made the foregoing observation following 

 a visit to Yellowstone Park, is not the only visitor who has thrilled at 

 this neighborliness of the animals of the national parks. Having no one 

 to fear, other than their natural enemies of the forest, the other animals 

 have followed the lead of the bears and made friends with mankind. 



Though the bears have been the favorites of the Dudes and the 

 Sagebrushers, they are by no means the most numerous of the wild 

 animals of the parks. In all the parks together there are probably not 

 more than a thousand bears, of which perhaps two hundred are grizzlies, 

 the latter found only in Yellowstone, Mount McKinley, and Glacier 

 parks. On the other hand, there are more than thirty thousand deer, 

 scattered through all the parks. In Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, and 

 Wind Cave together there are eight hundred antelopes. In Yellowstone, 

 Glacier, Rocky Mountain, and Yosemite parks there are twenty thou 

 sand elk. In Glacier and Mount Rainier there are two thousand moun 

 tain goats. In Glacier, Mount McKinley, and Yellowstone parks there 

 are seven to eight hundred moose. In Mount McKinley, Glacier, Yel 

 lowstone, Rocky Mountain, and Grand Canyon parks are perhaps 

 seventy-five hundred mountain sheep. And so on. Of smaller animals 

 and birds there are countless legions, well distributed through all the 

 parks. The rangers are often asked how they know how many wild 

 animals there are in the parks. 



"We go out and count them," is the answer. Dudes usually take 

 that to be a joke and laugh. The rangers do take a census of the 

 animals each year, and the job is no joke. 

 It is not as impossible as it sounds, for 

 the reason that many of the wild animals 

 congregate in the wintertime, when the 

 snows are deep, in certain sheltered areas 

 where the rangers provide them with 

 food. Quite true, the count is not en 

 tirely complete, but is sufficiently so to 

 enable the rangers to estimate the number 

 of animals each winter, so that they know 



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