108 FISH AND GAME COMMISSION, 



Mountain Sheep. An important and interesting example of effective 

 big-game conservation by law is shown by the material increase of 

 mountain sheep in the southern division. Eeinforced by the relative 

 remoteness of their habitat in the desert ranges of southeastern Cali- 

 fornia, human depredations against the wholly closed-season have been 

 confined to occasional Indians, prospectors, and a few case-hardened, 

 chronic violators whose pernicious activities have engaged the atten- 

 tion of our resident patrolmen in Inyo, Riverside and San Diego coun- 

 ties. Offenders of this type, after exhausting every subterfuge and 

 necessitating several trips of the Commission's attorney at the expense 

 of law-abiding sportsmen's funds, finally were fined $500 plus large 

 attorney's fees. There is satisfaction to big-game hunters, as well as 

 other conservationists, in this increase of mountain sheep under "wise 

 laws well enforced." 



Deer. Deer conditions can not be considered at all satisfactory in 

 the south, where intensive hunting has resulted in appalling increase 

 of the all-too-charitably excused ' ' hunting accidents, ' ' and a dispropor- 

 tionate upsetting of the natural sex-balance by killing-off of adult bucks. 

 This, in light of recent practical demonstrations destroying vermin in 

 Australia, tending to show that reduction of males is a material stimu- 

 lant to fertility, is not necessarily so serious in itself as most hunters 

 fancy ; but the annual drain under a two-buck limit has been excessive. 

 As an additional safeguard to human life, reduction of the limit to one 

 forked-horn buck or bigger, now appears essential. Hunters, knowing 

 they can lawfully kill but one, will be somewhat less rash in risking a 

 shot at anything that looks like a buck. Practical conservation aspects 

 of a limit in fact, which really can be enforced, suggest themselves. 

 Whether the "forked-horn law" should be further reinforced by ren- 

 dering it a felony to kill a man "by accident" — nine times out of ten, 

 purely criminal carelessness and wanton disregard for a law which 

 plainly says ' ' look for forked-horns ' ' — this is for the coming legislature 

 to decide. The certainty is, that with our enormously-increasing con- 

 centration upon the remainder of deer left in our narrowing areas of 

 deer country, further -restrictions by cutting in two the limit and cur- 

 tailing the total in open seasons, are necessary. 



Mountain Lions. Our efforts to awaken county cooperation toward 

 systematic reduction of lions, pests to stockraiser and sportsman 

 alike, natural enemies of calves, colts, pigs as well as deer, continue 

 bearing gratifying results as one county after another does what this 

 Commission for financial and other reasons can not do — adds enough 

 to make the state bounty attractive to professional lion hunters, en- 

 abling them to keep trained dogs and follow up the demonstration so 

 effectively made by our state lion hunter. Jay Bruce. If current 

 estimates are correct that every deer killed has put $100 into circula- 

 tion, common sense would indicate that a lion which may kill 50 deer a 

 year is cheap enough at that price. 



Waterfowl. The congested character of southern California's arti- 

 ficially created shallow artesian-overfiow duck shooting along the coastal 

 plain has brought its own peculiar problems in a patrol way, offering 

 work enough for half a dozen active deputies throughout the shoot- 

 ing season and a month before and after. Similarly, Big Bear Valley 



