CONSERVATION OF GAME IN THE NATIONAL FORESTS AND PARKS 145 



in Alaska, has recently been passed by Congress. This 

 establishes one of the finest and most needed game pre- 

 serves on the continent and provides protection for a large 

 number of mountain sheep, moose, and caribou in one of 

 the greatest game districts of the world. The government 

 railroad which is 

 being built from 

 the coast to the in- 

 terior of Alaska 

 passes near, and un- 

 less the park had 

 been created by the 

 present Congress 

 there was extreme 

 danger that hunters 

 for the railroad 

 camps would exter- 

 minate the game in 

 this section. 



Considering the 

 interest in this mag- 

 nificent mountain, 

 the greatest in 

 North America, the 

 extermination o f 

 the superb game 

 animals about its 

 basal slopes and 

 immediately out- 

 lying mountains 

 would not only be a 

 calamity but would 

 discredit us to those 

 who come after. It 

 is most gratifying 

 to learn that 

 local sentiment in 

 Alaska is strongly 

 favorable to the 

 creation of this 

 splendid National 

 Park and game ref- 

 uge, even many of 

 the market hunters 

 having expressed their approval. With the increase of 

 population in Alaska, game conditions there are in 

 specially critical condition since the severe climate renders 

 it nearly or quite impossible to restock its game fields 

 once the game is exterminated. 



The National Monuments contain many game animals 

 under state jurisdiction. The two most notable of these 

 are the Olympic Monument in Washington, which in- 

 cludes the Olympic Mountains and a few thousand of the 

 Olympic elk, the main survivors of this elk which is 

 peculiar to the humid forests of the Northwest coast 

 region and was once widely distributed therein, and the 

 Grand Canyon Monument, taking in a part of the Grand 

 Canyon of the Colorado and including most of the sur- 

 viving mountain sheep of that region. 



From Biological Survey. 



THE GREAT ALASKAN MOOSE 



Game is not only an asset of great value from its 

 return in food and skins, but its recreational value in 

 attracting people to the wilderness has long been recog- 

 nized. The value of game from the latter viewpoint will 

 become increasingly great as the country becomes more 



densely populated. 

 A host of men and 

 women each year 

 go to the woods 

 for varying periods 

 for th'e purpose 

 of renewing their 

 mental and phy- 

 sical vigor, and to 

 a great number of 

 these the wild life 

 is the magnet 

 which draws them. 

 It is impossible to 

 estimate the tre- 

 mendous return 

 which is derived in 

 this way from the 

 presence of wild 

 life in our forests. 

 In this connec- 

 tion it is interesting 

 to note the changes 

 which have oc- 

 curred in man's at- 

 titude and relation 

 to wild animals. 

 In primitive times 

 his interest was that 

 of a hunter towards 

 his prey. As he 

 developed, his 

 whole existence for 

 untold ages was in- 

 terwoven with and 

 largely dependent 

 upon that of the 

 wild life about him. 

 To study the ways 

 of the beasts and qualify himself for their capture was 

 his chief safeguard against starvation. A vague feeling of 

 fellowship led primitive man to endow wild animals 

 with mysterious powers and out of his relation 

 with them grew up his mythology, traces of which 

 still survive in our folk tales. But the day of the hunter 

 has in large degree passed and we are now developing a 

 deeper and kindlier sympathy with these habitants of the 

 wilds and welcome their presence as the living expression 

 of the spirit of the wilderness. This sympathetic pleasure 

 in the presence of wild animals in the forest is shared 

 alike by men, women and children, by those who hunt 

 with the gun or camera and equally by a multitude 

 of others, who find some of the most exquisite joys 

 of life in the forest and in the study of its shy habitants. 



These fine animals with the noblest antlers of any of the living deer kind in the world formerly existed 

 in astonishing abundance in Alaska, but now are steadily decreasing in number, and with the opening 

 of railroads will, unless protected, be practically exterminated. 



