REPORT OF BOARD OF FISH AND GAME COMMISSIONERS. 17 



GAME CONDITIONS IN CALIFORNIA. 



By J. S. Hunter, 

 In charge Oame Conservation, Fish and Game Commission. 



As a people we have been slow to realize the importance of the wild 

 life of our country. Our love of hunting has caused the extermina- 

 tion of some our characteristic varieties of game. In our desire to 

 have a full game bag to our credit, we have been reaching out to the 

 more inaccessible places where game still approaches the conditions 

 that were formerly common throughout the entire country. This 

 desire to protect and cherish that with which we were so abundantly 

 favored has not kept pace with the ability to kill ; so that at the present 

 time, there is in many of the states practically no game. 



In our own State, while there is not an abundance of game, enough 

 will still remain if judgment is used in the killing that the generations 

 to come will find a state in which game still flourishes and in which 

 the man who enjoys the most fascinating of all sports, may go into 

 the field with his gun and dog and participate in the pleasure of his 

 forefathers. 



Our game animals are so valuable that the title to them has been 

 retained by the State. Of late years, the right to take this game has 

 been refused until a hunting license was secured. The law compelling 

 a license has been one of the most popular that has ever been enacted, 

 not only in California, but in every state in which it has been adopted. 

 Millions of dollars are invested in our State in guns and other hunting 

 paraphernalia. This sum has been variously estimated as reaching 

 into nine figures. It is perhaps safe to say that it is not less than 

 twenty-five million dollars. Add to this sum the amount that the score 

 of clubs throughout the State have invested in land and buildings and 

 it will probably total over one hundred million dollars. There are 

 sold in California alone every year twenty-eight million shotgun shells. 

 Every industry benefits from the fact that there is game in our State. 

 Railroads run special hunters' trains during the open seasons. The 

 opening of the season is made the feature of window displays through- 

 out the State. Hotels and resorts, even small towns, owe their very 

 existence to the fact that they are established in a game country. To 

 a great extent, the sturdiness of the American people can be attributed 

 to their love for hunting and outdoor amusements. A .state in which 

 game flourishes attracts people from all over the world. The value of 

 land is increased by there being game upon it. 



There are present in California so many different conditions of 

 climate and topography that it is almost impossible to create a blanket 

 fish and game law. When deer, for example, are in proper condition 

 to be killed in one section, they are out of condition in another. Two 



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