OF THE LARGE AMERICAN MAMMALS 219 



exist in countries that are covered with farms, villages and 

 people. Under such conditions the wild and the tame can- 

 not harmonize. It is a fact, however, that elk could exist 

 and thrive in every national forest and national park in our 

 country, and also on uncountable hundreds of thousands of 

 rough, wild, timbered hills and mountains such as exist in 

 probably twenty-five different states. There is no reason, 

 except man's short-sighted greed and foolishness, why there 

 are not to-day one hundred thousand elk living in the Al- 

 legheny Mountains, furnishing each year fifty thousand three- 

 year-old males as free food for the people. 



The trouble is — the greedy habitants could not be induced 

 to kill only the three-year-old males, in the fall, and let the 

 cows, calves and breeding bulls alone! By sensible manage- 

 ment the Rocky Mountains, the Sierra Nevadas and the 

 Coast Range would support enough wild elk to feed a million 

 people. But "civilized" man seems utterly incapable of main- 

 taining anywhere from decade to decade a large and really 

 valuable supply of wild game. Outside the Yellowstone 

 Park and northwestern Wyoming, the American elk exists 

 only in small bands — mere remnants and samples of the 

 millions we could and should have. 



If they could be protected, and the surplus presently 

 killed according to some rational, working system, then every 

 national forest in the United States should be stocked with elk! 

 In view of the awful cost of beef, it is high time that we should 

 consider the raising of game on the public domain on such a 

 basis that it would form a valuable food supply without 

 diminishing the value of the forests. 



