X 



HUNTING AND FISHING IN MONTANA 



DeHart and Morgan at Stuart Mill Built by Granville Stuart in 1866 



What Gopher Poison Has Done 



By J. L. DeHart, State Game Warden 



For some months past the good people of Montana have become 

 more or less interested in the results that have been obtained in the 

 indiscriminate practice of gopher poisoning by the distribution of grain 

 soaked in strychnine, and then distributed by the process of placing 

 boys of 10 to 14 years of age upon the gentle old pony, usually found 

 about the farm home, and with a couple of nose bags hung upon either 

 side of the pony, the boy receives instructions to ride about the farm 

 and promiscuously throw the poisoned grain for the rodent family's 

 use only, using the wireless, no doubt, to notify the feathered family 

 to keep hands off. 



If I am correctly informed this criminal practice was first intro- 

 duced in the valley of the Little Horn in Carbon County, Montana. The 

 agent who was engaged in the work of destroying the rodent family 

 by this method visited me, after spending much time in his supposed 

 lawful and laudable undertaking, and I discussed with him the results 

 obtained. While we failed to agree fully as to the best results that 

 may have been secured, the agcMit did acknowledge to me that he had 

 undoubtedly destroyed many horned owls and magpies, since which 

 time I have had the pleasure of visiting the above named section of 

 Montana, and I find that what was formerly recognized as the greatest 

 upland game bird section in Eastern Montana, has since the introduc- 

 tion of the gopher poisoning crusade, became a blank, as the grouse 

 family has disappeared from the face of the earth. 



1 have also visited recently Sheridan County, and I am advised 

 upon good authority that during the season of 1918, when the honest, 

 homey-handed son of toil was busily engaged in breaking the virgin 

 soil, preparatory to planting his crop, the younger members of the 

 family were engaged in following the plowman, sowing the poisoned 

 grain for the consumption of the "rodent family only." but upon the 



