Game Protection and 



The elk that were formerly abundant in many sections of our state 

 have diminished in number until at the present time there are but a few 

 scattered bands in the more remote mountainous sec- 

 Re-establishing tions. An effort was made last winter to establish a 

 the Elk herd of these animals on the Forest Reserve in Wal- 



lowa County. 



During the year 1907, the United States Bureau of Forestry built 

 a five-foot wire fence around four sections of land known as the Billy 

 Meadows Pasture. This fenced area of 2560 acres was used for three 

 years in carrying on experiments in sheep grazing. In the fall of 1911, 

 this pasture was turned over to the Fish and Game Commission to be 

 used as a refuge for elk. 



A herd of 15 wild elk was donated by the Biological Survey of the 

 Department of Agriculture. The herd was captured at Jackson Hole, 

 Wyoming, where a large number of these animals collect every winter. 

 The wild elk were enticed into corrals. Inasmuch as these animals can 

 only be captured in the middle of the winter, when they are driven down 

 from the mountains by the deep snow, it is necessary to take them at this 

 time. The bulls were lassoed and thrown and their horns sawed off so 

 they could be hauled in crates. 



The elk were loaded 

 in sleds and the outfit 

 left the corrals at Jack- 

 son Hole on March 3d, 

 1912. The first diffi- 

 culty of this experiment 

 was a ninety-mile trip 

 through mountains over 

 the Teton Pass to St. 

 Anthony, Idaho. 



Unfortunately a heavy 

 snow storm was encoun- 

 tered on the pass and for 



"A Bird in the Hand" f our days men an j teams 



did little else except buck through the big snow drifts. The snow piled 

 deeper and deeper until in places it was over twenty feet. At one point, 

 a slide narrowly missed taking men, sleds and all into a deep canyon. 

 One sled was overturned and one of the elk killed and two others in- 

 jured. On the evening of the sixth day, the caravan of sleds pulled into 

 St. Anthony. Here the elk were unloaded into a stockyard and given a 



