CHAPTER IX 



DEPLETION AND RESCUE OF OUR AMAZING 

 HERITAGE OF WILD LIFE 



IN no other respect is the wastefulness of this na- 

 tion so apparent as in the passing of our original 

 wealth of wild life. Before the coming of the white 

 man, the country which is the United States pos- 

 sessed an amazing population of furred and feath- 

 ered creatures, as great, perhaps, as the uncivilized 

 part of Africa. 



Think of millions of bison roaming our western 

 plains at one time. Observers of long ago casually 

 mention migrations of solidly massed buffalo col- 

 umns requiring four or five days to pass a given 

 point. Reports believed to be fairly reliable estimate 

 a million in one herd near the young city of Denver. 

 Bison are identified as animals which old reports lo- 

 cate in New England, the District of Columbia and 

 Virginia. Imagine as many antelope, also, in far 

 western deserts, where thirty thousand only may 

 now be found. George Bird Grinnell believes that 

 originally there may have been more antelope in the 

 country than there were bison. Imagine, also, at 

 least a million elk, possibly several times that, where 

 now the nation possesses less than fifty thousand, 

 and incalculable numbers of deer in forests east and 



west, to say nothing of moose, mountain sheep, 



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