250 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



parts of Utah and Idaho, but its numbers can not be very 

 great, as a result in part of determined efforts of stockmen and 

 professional hunters. 



Bailey (1918) writes that they were still common in Glacier 

 Park, northwestern Montana, 20 years ago but were confined 

 for the most part to the western slopes, where dense forest 

 cover and abundance of deer offered excellent living conditions. 

 "Apparently they are still almost as numerous as they were in 

 1895," when he first went through the region. "In this 

 region," he adds, "their food consists mainly of the white-tail 

 deer, which abound on the west slope of the park. " Although 

 Bailey advocates their destruction, as contributing little to the 

 tourist interest of the park, since they are seldom seen, never- 

 theless their value as a check on the over-increase of deer might 

 well justify the maintenance of a proper number. 



In southern British Columbia the cougar is uncommon but 

 extends into the Peace River district. Cowan in a recent report 

 (1939) writes of a female killed in March 1937 by Ted Strand 

 of Little Prairie, and quotes Seton ("Lives of Game Animals") 

 as to a specimen shot in November, 1921, near the junction of 

 Cypress Creek and Halfway River. This latter "seems to be 

 the northernmost record for North America." 



On Vancouver Island the panther still occurs in some num- 

 bers in wilder areas and has lately been distinguished as a sepa- 

 rate race, characterized by its darker, more rufescent upper parts 

 and the more elevated frontal region of the skull, in comparison 

 with the Rocky Mountain and Oregon races. Swarth, in his 

 paper of 1912, wrote that for an animal of this type it was 

 abundant "throughout the wilder parts of Vancouver Island, 

 and frequently seen near many of the smaller towns also." 

 They are shy and secretive but are often hunted successfully 

 with dogs. One farmer in the Beaver Creek Valley, near 

 Alberni, had killed as many as 13 during the previous winter. 

 In a letter dated July 8, 1939, Maj. Allan Brooks writes me 

 that "over the whole northern third of this island beavers have 

 been decimated by cougars of late years, and they will take 

 many years to recover if they ever do. " Cougars have also 

 been an active agent in the destruction of deer, concentrating 

 on the more healthy upland population, on account of the 

 dying off of deer in the lowlands from infection by liver flukes. 

 At the present time, therefore, the Vancouver cougar seems in 



