290 CALIFORNIA FISH AND GAME 



After having a fine breakfast we left for the corrals, arriving there 

 at 7.30, where the elk were penned up. We started loading imme- 

 diately and at 12.30 p.m. 22 head had been loaded and were ready to 

 start for Owens Valley. 



The Fish and Game Commission truck, supplied by Warden 

 Walters, w^as loaded with five cows and one large bull. The next truck, 

 which was supplied by the Rainbow Club of Bishop, was loaded with 

 ten cows and six calves. Two of these calves were bulls and the other 

 four were heifers. 



Walters' and Walker's truck arrived at its destination at about 

 10 o'clock that night and the other truck arrived at 1.30 o'clock the next 

 morning and was unloaded at 2.45 with the weather good and cold. 

 Warden Arnold and John Loustalot accompanied the trucks in a 

 pickup to supervise their transportation and I followed in my car until 

 we were well up on the Tehachapi grade, where I left them to come 

 ahead to make arrangements to get some help to unload at the 

 destination. 



We did not unload these animals into a corral as we did the ones 

 from Yosemite, which was a mistake, in my estimation. I believe they 

 would have been much better off if they had been put in a corral and 

 fed for at least ten days. However, they did not wander very far before 

 becoming thoroughly acclimated. 



Walters and Walker left Monday, February 12, for the second 

 load and they returned the following day with four cows and two big 

 bulls, making a total of 28 head in this shipment from the Kern County 

 refuge, which, combined wdth the Yosemite herd, gives us a total of 54 

 head now in Owens Valley. 



During the latter part of March one of the big bulls made the 

 longest known journey for the newly transported herd by coming about 

 tw^enty-five miles south to Lone Pine to feed in an alfalfa field. A 

 remark was made around town that old Geronimo had gotten lonesome 

 to see me and was wondering why I had not been up to give him 

 some apples. After I heard that he was here I started him back and 

 he has never been seen down here since. 



During the month of March we were able to count as many as 52 

 head of the 54 that are in the Valley. I wish I could report at this 

 time the number of calves that we have this year but I can not as I 

 have not seen a single calf.* However, on May 20 I was able to find 

 23 head of female stock in one bunch and while I located some bulls 

 with their antlers about two-thirds grown, they were separated by about 

 a mile from the cows. We feel very proud of the fact that the 54 head 

 were transplanted without a single fatality. 



With a strip of land along the Owens River averaging five miles 

 wide and 70 miles long it is apparent that we have room for a large 

 herd of elk. 



In addition to this elk herd I am very much interested in bringing 

 into Owens Valley some buffalo and antelope, as I am sure that it would 

 be an ideal place for them. — G. W. Dow, Lone Pine, California, Ma/y 

 23, 1934. 



* Editor's Note. — Mr. Dow reports that on June 25, subsequent to the writing 

 of this article, he has seen as many as nine new calves playing in the fields with 

 their mothers. 



