PROTECTION OF USEFUL MAMMALS 15! 



the soundness of a permanent close season on does. Many students 

 of the subject are coming to the belief that the unbalancing of the 

 sexes, arising from an annual open season on bucks and complete close 

 season on does, is producing undesirable results, 1 and the tendency 

 now is drifting toward some sort of an open season for does. Also it 

 is now well known that it is quite possible to give a species too much 

 protection. Consequently game commissioners are in some states being 

 given greater discretionary power. This is a good thing where such 

 commissioners are careful to get the facts and principles involved 

 straight before acting, not acting hastily or unadvisedly. Deer have be- 

 come too plentiful for their food supply in some localities, the most 

 acute situation in this respect being in Kaibab Forest, Arizona. 2 Larger 

 animals in some of the game reserves have become so abundant that 

 the surplus animals are being offered for sale. 3 



The possibility of re-stocking a region with game by proper pro- 

 tection is exhibited by Vermont, where deer were practically exter- 

 minated in 1870. In 1875 thirty were introduced and protected until 

 1897; thereafter, with a short open season, they continued to increase. 

 In 1901, 211 were killed, 561 in 1902, 791 in 1905, 1600 in 1907, 5261 

 in 1909, computed to have furnished for the latter year 716,358 pounds 

 of meat worth $85,962; damages paid to farmers in 1908-1909 for 

 injury to crops, only $4,865.90; value of meat, hides and horns ob- 

 tained for those two years, $io7,79O. 4 



One of the most important steps in the protection of mammals is a 

 campaign of education getting full and reliable information to the 

 general public. The vast store of knowledge of the habits and economic 

 status of various species laboriously accumulated by naturalists, work- 

 ing independently or under state or federal departments or bureaus, 

 will accomplish little unless the more important facts and conclusions 

 become generally known outside the small technical groups that gather 

 the information. To this end there are now established a considerable 

 number of periodicals devoted wholly or partly to the protection of 

 wild life. Some of these are published privately, but they are mostly the 



lr The Pennsylvania deer problem, Pennsylvania Game Comm. Bull. No. 12; Cali- 

 fornia Fish and Game, xv, 138-139, 1929. Schierbeck, Is it right to protect the fe- 

 male of the species at the cost of the male?, Canadian Field. Nat., XLIII, 6-9, 1929. 



2 Grinnell, The starving deer of the Kaibab Forest, Outlook, cxxxvi, 186-187, 1924. 



3 California Fish and Game, xv, 155-156, 1929. American Forests and Forest Life, 

 xxxiv, 123, 1928. Goldman, Game surpluses perplex wild-life guardians, Yearbook 

 U. S. Dept. Agric. for 1926, pp. 397-399- 



4 Hewitt, The conservation of the wild life of Canada, p. 9, 1921. Hornaday, Wild 

 life conservation, p. 106. 



