12 GAME REFUGES. 



to be and what they are to include, and all that sort of thing. We 

 take a great deal of pride in our great elk herd and in our moose 

 herd, which has grown in numbers so that it is already overflowing 

 the only country in the State where moose thrive — that is, in the 

 high mountain swampy region. 



Mr. McLaughlin. Has the State had any difficulty in describing 

 the areas to be included within the game preserves, so that hunters 

 may know exactly where the lines of the preserves are and not be 

 subject to this difficulty that you speak of, namely, chasing the 

 game from free land onto the preserves without knowing it, and so on ? 



Mr. Mondell. Our State, in the main, has created sanctuaries or 

 preserves of considerable size. The boundaries of those sanctuaries 

 or preserves are changed from time to time as conditions change, 

 and by making them of considerable size river, mountain, and water- 

 shed boundaries can be utilized — natural boundaries, which people 

 recognize. Furthermore, the hunter is always under the same juris- 

 diction; he may pass to a region where the provisions of law may 

 be different, but he is under the same jurisdiction in or out of the 

 preserve. If he violates the law, he is arrested by the same officers 

 and tried by the same court. The jurisdiction does not change. 

 The status of the territory may change, but the jurisdiction remains 

 the same. 



THIS* BILL NOT NECESSARY TO COOPERATION. 



It is not necessary to have Federal game preserves or infringe- 

 ments by Federal upon State authority in order to secure cooperation 

 between State and Federal authorities on forest reserves in the pro- 

 tection of game. A forest ranger with authority to act as a State 

 deputy game warden, which authority most of them have, can enforce 

 the State law as effectively as he could the Federal statute and with 

 much more certainty and less confusion and friction, because of the 

 fact that the jurisdiction was the same — that of the State over the 

 entire forest area. The State game preserves, to which I have re- 

 ferred, in Wyoming are wholly upon and within forest reserves and 

 the State game officers and the forest reserve officers, acting as State 

 game officers, work in harmony in the care and preservation of game. 



In my State every forest ranger, I think, is a game warden. The 

 State pays them a nominal sum— $1 a year I think it is — and they 

 aid very materially in the enforcement of the State laws. As a 

 matter of fact, we have gotten along very well, I am told, with the 

 forest officials and have welcomed their assistance in that respect. 

 They protect the game without any particular loss of time that 

 might be required in their other work, because they are constantly 

 on the reserves and constantly over the territory where the State 

 game laws operate. 



Not only have the States full authority to put in operation, under 

 State control, a system of game refuges ; not only have some of the 

 States already adopted this policy, but- State legislatures being 

 familiar with every feature and factor of the situation, are capable 

 of legislating more wisely on the subject than the President, depend- 

 ing on the advice of some one, could do. In any event, no policy of 

 fixed and permanent areas within which hunting should be entirely 



