44 



MONTANA STATE FISH AND GAME COMMISSION 



As the herd increased the forest service set aside correspondingly larger areas 

 vitally needed for winter range and which the studies previously made indicated 

 as adaptable for winter use. 



All commercial grazing of stock was prohibited upon those tracts and at this 

 time more than 240,000 acres of the forest is now reserved for the exclusive use 

 of game. In that area is some of the choicest range to be found in that locality. 



More than 90 per cent of all the winter range within the forest is now reserved 

 for use by the elk and the remaining areas are so scattered and isolated that it 

 is impracticable to protect them without either letting large areas not usable lie 

 idle or construct range fences of which the cost and upkeep would be prohibitive 

 and out of proportion to the small benefit that the elk would derive from them. 



It was also found that a part of the elk migrated west across the Continental 

 Divide into the South Fork of Flathead drainage located on the Flathead national 

 forest. This drainage supports a considerable area of range adaptable to winter 

 use but the hunting in that territory caused a large number of the elk to return 

 to the Sun River game preserve, from which they drifted down stream to the 

 winter range in Sun river. The legislature, therefore, created the Spotted Bear 

 game preserve on the South Fork, comprising 218 000 acres in 1919, believing 

 that the protection thus afforded would encourage a greater number to winter 

 there rather than return to the Sun river and increase the congestion there. 



The results have been gratifying and will probably be more so as the game 

 gets more used to changed conditions in that region. 



The Sun River herd should be held to not to exceed 3,000 head, which is the 

 number for which there is sufficient winter feed. This policy would provide an 

 annual crop of around 600 head that should be killed during the hunting season. 

 The herd is approximately 900 head over the desired number now. There is un- 

 doubtedly danger of heavy losses if an unusually severe winter occurs. The annual 

 kill has never reached the 200 mark except during the last two hunting seasons, 

 when ()o7 and 209 head respectively were taken out by hunters. 



This is the problem now facing sportsmen and legislators of Montana. Its 

 wise solution will assure perpetual hunting of the state's most noble game animal 

 and provide for the harvesting of an annual crop at the maximum number that 

 the area will supply without danger of the herd being exterminated through 

 starvation. 



MniitiiDii (nil<l<)j)i thiit once roamed the prairies in cnitntUss numbers are now protected 



b}i thr state fisli and pamr commis-ninn 



