THE VOICE OF THE DESERT 



198 



— "shock" the ecologists call it — analogous to that which 

 afflicts human beings crowded into congested areas. 



No more striking evidence of this fact can be found 

 than what happened when it was decided to "protect" 

 the deer on the Kaibab Plateau in the Grand Canyon re- 

 gion. At the beginning of this century there was a popu- 

 lation of about 4000 occupying some 127,000 acres. Over 

 a period of years the mountain lions, wolves and coyotes 

 which lived at its expense were pretty well exterminated. 

 By 1924 the 4000 had become 100,000 and then calamity 

 struck. In one year, 1924, 60,000 victims of starvation and 

 disease disappeared and then, year by year, though at a 

 decreasing rate, the population dvdndled. 



Wild creatures need their enemies as well as their 

 friends. The red tooth and red claw are not the whole 

 story but they are part of it, and the park superintendent 

 with his gun "scientifically" redressing the balance is a 

 poor but necessary substitute for the balance which the 

 ages have established. We may find nature's plan cruel 

 but we cannot get away from it entirely. The lion and the 

 lamb will not — they simply cannot — he down together, but 

 they are essential to one another nonetheless. And the les- 

 son to be learned is applicable far outside the field of 

 conservation. It is that though the laws of nature may be 

 mitigated, though their mitigation constitutes civilization, 

 they cannot be abolished altogether. 



So far as the problem is only that of the Kaibab deer, 

 one common solution is the "open season" when man 

 himself is encouraged to turn predator and hunters are 

 permitted, as some conservationists put it, to "harvest the 

 crop." To some this seems a repellent procedure and even 



