Big Game Season 



By D. H. Werforn, Anaconda, Montana 



The present season on big game — elk and deer — from October 1st to December 

 15th is too long, and extends to too late a date. This has been the law for two 

 years last past, and if continued is a serious menace to both varieties of big 

 game, and will result in the extermination of elk within a few years, and the 

 countless number of deer in various sections of the State, will rapidly disappear, 

 but on account of the greater numbers will continue to exist for a longer period 

 than the elk. 



This extension of season was enacted by the Legislative Session of 1915, and 

 at the urgent behest of a member from one of the counties adjacent to the Yellow- 

 stone National Park, where elk hunting is not indulged in as a sport only, but 

 as a source of supply of winter meat for local ranchers, and frequently as a 



Nine Days Outing on Beavercreek 



source of supply of meat for all the year, as the elk killed by the hired hands 

 and sons of the families of farmers, are placed in a pickling solution, and used 

 as corned meat during the harvesting and threshing season of the following year,, 

 after they are killed. 



The mild seasons that preceded 1915 for two or three years were unusual, 

 as a severe storm generally occurs during the month of November, which causes 

 the herds of elk to leave the National Park in large numbers. Many of these 

 naturally fall under the bullets of the hordes of hunters, who are assembled from 

 far and near, awaiting the annual exodus. When the storm occurs in the early 

 part of November, as it did this year, the word is spread throughout the State, 

 and even far beyond our borders, with the result that many hunters, hearing the 

 conditions around Gardiner or on the Upper Gallatin River, will rush to the 

 hunting grounds, and three or four times the usual numbers of elk will be killed,. 

 (51) 



