small part of the numbers that were obtained ten, fifteen 

 years ago and only an insignificant part of the quantity that 

 a state like this should supply. And what a pity to learn 

 every year, of summer-killed bears, the skins of which, if 

 taken at all in the fur markets, fetch but a small fraction <>! 

 the fifteen to twenty-five dollars that would be paid for them 

 if prime. This is not all. Nearly every year also, in summer 

 or early fall, one hears or reads of the chance discovery of a 

 she-bear and her cubs, and the deliberate slaughter of the 

 entire family! This is a shameful state of affairs and should 

 be immediately stopped. Harmless alike to man and beast, 

 in our state, the black bear should have a closed season for a 

 period of years, and when reopened the killing season should 

 be regulated by law. 



The prairie-wolf or coyote and its larger cousin the timber- 

 wolf have gained for themselves such a reputation for evil- 

 doing that one might be expected to place them in a class by 

 themselves for wholesale condemnation and abuse. But here 

 also the far reaching investigations of the Biological survey, 

 in many states, have shown that as destroyers of vermin and 

 as scavengers, on the prairie, in the fields and in the forest, 

 these animals play by no means an insignificant part. And 

 on the whole, during the greater part of the year, it may be 

 be truly said, this is their chief occupation. What their 

 standing in any part of the country may be, depends upon 

 conditions. Ordinarily, like other animals, they seek the 

 food most readily obtainable, and that food is the vermin 

 before mentioned. But if in any locality their numbers be- 

 come greatly increased, or* if pressed by hunger, they become 

 highly destructive to much wild life that is of value to man, 

 and to domestic stock, if not life. 



So far as my own knowledge goes, from experience in the 

 northwestern part of the state, the coyote has not in years 

 been sufficiently numerous in any locality to work serious 

 damage in any way. As fur, in view of their size, neither 

 the coyote nor the timber-wolf takes important rank, prices 

 for the former being from one to two and one half dollars and 

 for the latter two to five dollars, for prime skins; yet the 

 bounty which the state pays makes their hunting and trapping 



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