152 WILD LIFE CONSERVATION 



He not only eats mice and other small rodents, 

 frogs, lizards, fishes, crawfish, a few sparrows and 

 other small birds, but he cheerfully and impartially 

 takes in every screech-owl and saw-whet owl that 

 he can catch. It is the only owl known to us that 

 can frighten small birds in an aviary, induce them to 

 dash against the wire netting and actually seize and 

 devour them through netting of one-inch mesh. 

 The barred owl should be killed, because it is a pest. 



Beyond question, throughout the Rocky Moun- 

 tain region, the Golden Eagle is a great pest to 

 certain species of large game. The destruction of 

 mountain sheep lambs, antelope fawns and moun- 

 tain goat kids by this bird is quite serious. For 

 this reason, and others, in British Columbia the 

 golden eagle is officially regarded as a pest, and 

 its numbers have been systematically reduced. In 

 1910 and 1911, 102 golden eagles were killed in that 

 province, as I believe with entire justice. 



The transactions of British Columbia in destroy- 

 ing wild animal pests afford an interesting and 

 instructive exhibit. During two years' operations, 

 1910 and 1911, there were destroyed a total of 

 2,896 gray wolves and pumas and 5,141 coyotes, in 

 addition to the horned owls and golden eagles 

 already noted. Allowing fifty head of game to each 

 gray wolf and to each puma, and ten to each coyote 

 (very fair estimates, we think) , the total number of 

 game and domestic animals saved each year by the 

 killing of those marauders would amount to 191,210 



