28 



THE FORESTER. 



February, 



drags it to the trap. The warm spring 

 days waken the bear from his sleep and 

 begin the decomposition of the meat, mak- 

 ing the desired attracting odor. Often 

 two or three elk and deer are stacked up 

 around the trap at one time. It is consid- 

 ered a conservative estimate that for each 

 bear trapped about 1000 pounds of fresh 

 meat have to be provided, or say, one elk 

 and five deer. The two trappers referred to 

 would, therefore, have killed for their bear 

 traps 720 game-food animals. It is safe to 

 say that there are twenty trappers doing this 

 work of extermination in this reserve, so 

 that each winter there are several thousand 

 elk and deer killed for this purpose. 



That the moose are practically gone is 

 proven by the fact that an unmounted 

 moose head with good antlers is now worth 

 $roo. The head of a bull elk is worth 

 $25. It is easy to kill the game during 

 the deep snows of winter when they con- 

 gregate in the canyons to browse on the 

 brush. The trapper on snow shoes has 

 them at a great disadvantage. One in- 

 stance is known where a trapper with a 

 sightless gun found a band of three hun- 

 dred elk in a narrow canyon. He fired 

 twenty-eight shots into the herd, killed 

 seven and did not trouble about the wound- 

 ed ones. A rancher in the mountains, 

 south of the Salmon River points with pride 

 to a fence about his cabin made of elk horns. 

 In one canyon on Moose Creek some earlv 

 hunters in the spring of 1897 found one 

 hundred putrefying deer carcasses. The 

 moose is particularly easy to kill during 

 the winter, as he travels very little. 



The game destruction in this district 

 was presented to the Idaho authorities but 

 it seerns nothing was clone by them to pre- 

 vent it. The laws are satisfactory, but 

 there is either a lack of desire or ability to 

 enforce them and this negligence forms 

 another argument for the control of the 

 reserve by national authority. This is one 

 of oui- last hunting grounds. The true 

 sportsman will not kill wantonly nor ma- 

 terially decrease the game. The destruc- 

 tion is wrought by those who seek to make 

 a few dollars by killing in a wholesale 

 way against all laws of humanity and the 

 Stale-. The weH-worn and deserted trail 



of the buffalo across the plains is now being 

 continued by as sad a cortege of deer, elk 

 and moose over the last divide. If a speci- 

 fic remedy is not soon applied we will have 

 to send our children to the museum rather 

 than to the invigorating forest to see the 

 noble animals that are their just heritage. 



The baneful effects of forest destruction 

 have been written of by many able special- 

 ists. But one verdict has been rendered 

 by those countries that have destroyed 

 these friends of civilization. The denuda- 

 tion of the hills causes floods and summer 

 droughts; it fills up the navigable streams 

 with silt and destroys the water supply, 

 and hence the crops of the irrigator. 



The laws and regulations of the reserves 

 are not intended to impede mining, agri- 

 culture or any other development. It is 

 desired that forest reserves should continue 

 to furnish lumber, not only to ourselves 

 but to future generations, and under just 

 regulations to preserve the continuity of 

 the forests. Fire is the enemy to be re- 

 sisted with greatest energy. In the North- 

 west there has developed decided opposi- 

 tion to these reserves principally on the 

 part of those who wish to get public pas- 

 ture or timber. Many oppose the move- 

 ment because of lack of information con- 

 cerning its purposes. An editor in Idaho, 

 during the past summer, told the writer 

 that the reserves were created at the re- 

 quest of eastern gold interests to prevent 

 the development of western gold mines. 



The essential need is a Forestry Bureau, 

 under Civil Service rules, with life work 

 at good compensation. Transient service 

 has been weighed in the balance and found 

 wanting. Every European country has 

 adopted such a policy for forest preserva- 

 tion and extension. In British India, 

 France and Germany the forests are a 

 source of substantial revenue as well as 

 physical benefit. It is to be hoped that so 

 worthy a cause, which has been auspi- 

 ciously favored by the two preceding ad- 

 ministrations, as well as by the present, 

 will be promptly developed as it justly 

 deserves, and as the necessities of this 

 country earnestly require. 



JOSEPH BARLOW LIPPINCOTT, 



Los Angeles, Cal. 



