BULLETIN NUMBER SIX 9 



ALASKA'S NEED FOR WILD GAME FOOD. 



Alaska is the only American possession in which a note- 

 worthy proportion of the population is at any time appre- 

 ciably dependent upon wild game as food. The great area 

 of Alaska, the long land distances to be traversed, the diffi- 

 culties of heavy transportation and in many districts the 

 appalling scarcity of food, present difficulties such as no 

 other land or people of ours encounter. It is in Alaska 

 that a pound of wild meat attains 300 per cent, of impor- 

 tance. It is Alaska and its people who will suffer most 

 when the game has been exterminated! Of all countries 

 under our flag, Alaska most of all stands in need of perfect 

 game laws, and perfect game law enforcement, in order 

 to postpone as long as possible the evil days of complete 

 extermination and meat hunger. 



Really, does it not seem as if Alaskans should welcome 

 friendly interest in their supply of game, and be the last 

 people on earth to accuse every eastern conservationist of 

 desiring to conserve the big game of Alaska "in order to 

 kill it himself '? And yet there are Alaskans who would 

 give up all claim for Federal aid in the protection of Alas- 

 kan game for the sole sake of securing the high privilege 

 of doing what they please to the game of Alaska. Is it not 

 strange ? 



When the last moose, the last sheep and the last caribou 

 falls to wasteful hunters, what will feed the hungry white 

 man mushing over the long trails of the interior? There 

 may be those in Alaska and Canada who scoff at the idea 

 that all the caribou may be killed, but we ask them to re- 

 member the millions of the American bison, the fur seal 

 millions, and the billions of the passenger pigeon. 



