PESTS AND THEIR TREATMENT 153 



head. I think that an estimate of one victim per 

 week for each adult puma and gray wolf is not 

 extravagant. 



In California there is made the same killing esti- 

 mate for the puma, fifty victims per year. If this 

 is anywhere near correct, then the one hundred 

 pumas estimated among the wild animals present 

 in the Yellowstone Park must devour nearly 5,000 

 head of game each year. 



The extermination of wild-animal pests in na- 

 tional, state and private forests is a large subject. 

 It is beset with difficulties and perplexities. Owing 

 to the frailty of human nature when it carries a gun, 

 the Forest Service of the nation and the state is 

 deprived of a valuable line of outside assistance to 

 which by all rights it is entitled. Outside assistance 

 in shooting pest animals often is more deadly than 

 the pests themselves. The one thing that a man 

 with a gun finds it hardest to resist is temptation; 

 temptation to shoot everything that might, could, 

 would or should be a "pest" mammal or bird. 

 Whenever an unscientific gunner takes the field to 

 shoot "pest" hawks, it is time for all hawks to take 

 to the tall timber. The assembly of erroneous heads 

 that were sent in to Harrisburg for bounties during 

 the prevalence of the "fool hawk law" is an ancient 

 but still living joke in the Pennsylvania State Game 

 Commission. 



Remembering this, the Commission is now sorely 

 perplexed by the prospect that offers of fresh 



