144 WILD LIFE CONSERVATION 



and intolerable pest. Wherever it is numerous it is 

 fearfully destructive to deer and young elk, and it 

 must be hunted down and destroyed regardless of 

 cost. In California the annual slaughter of deer by 

 pumas is said to be enormous. It is the deadliest 

 enemy of the big game of every region which it 

 inhabits. It kills mountain sheep, elk, deer, and 

 every other species of game of attractive size that 

 lives within its haunts. In the Yellowstone Park 

 so many elk calves were killed by pumas it became 

 necessary for Mr. C. J. Jones to procure a pack of 

 dogs and regularly exterminate as many pumas as 

 could be found. Around the entrance of one puma 

 den the hunters found the skulls of nine elk calves. 

 During that campaign a large number of pumas 

 were hunted down and killed; but for all that, the 

 number still remaining in the Yellowstone Park is 

 estimated by the Park officers at 100. In 1912 

 our forest rangers killed 88 pumas, and British 

 Columbia destroyed 277. 



The disappearance of wild game, and the spread 

 of stock-raising into the home of the Grizzly and 

 Black Bear of the West, very naturally has led to 

 the destruction of range cattle by bears, to an 

 unbearable extent. It is now a well-known fact 

 that if bears are left unmolested and permitted to 

 become numerous, they quickly acquire the idea 

 that they are immune and grow bold accordingly. 

 On such a basis, stock-killing is a quick and sure 

 result. While we are unalterably opposed to the 



