DEPLETION OF WILD LIFE 319 



native animals suffer in competition with domestic 

 sheep and cattle. The productivity of public ranges 

 impoverished by the uncontrolled competition of a 

 century of live stock must be restored before wild 

 life reasonably can be expected to. hold its own. 

 Those western states which, without warrant, have 

 declared large areas of public range game preserves 

 have no means to enforce their will even though it 

 were worth enforcing. Most of the winter feed 

 lands for wild life in the Public Domain is without 

 control, and no protection can be developed until 

 some form of regulation has been devised. Even 

 with regulation there can be no restoration of forage 

 plants without careful research of the widely diver- 

 sified range so different in character from the well- 

 studied grazing lands of the National Forest. There 

 is work for the government here. 



A popular part of any experimental programme 

 of wild life restoration will be transplantation from 

 existing reservations to colonize areas presumably 

 once populated but long since denuded of game ani- 

 mals. Buffalo have taken kindly to efforts begun 

 years ago by the American Bison Society when the 

 species was thought in danger of extinction, and sev- 

 eral large herds exist in Canada and the United 

 States, besides numerous small plants in game pre- 

 serves, zoos, and elsewhere. The only really wild 

 herd, however, in the United States is the smaller 

 of the two herds in Yellowstone National Park. A 

 very large wild herd has been secured by the Cana- 



