66 



WILD ANIMALS OF GLACIER NATIONAL PARK. 



fish-breeding ponds, and affording one of the interesting features of 

 animal life in the park. 



While it is possible even now for the tourist to find beavers that 

 can be observed at work, their study would be far more interesting 

 with ten times greater numbers of the animals, and the country would 

 be generally benefited by the surplus that would stock surrounding 

 areas. 



The Ijeautiful dense furry coats of the beavers, which adapt tliem 

 to their peculiar mode of life, have put a price on their backs that 

 has almost jDroved their destruction. In spite of well-framed laws 

 imposing severe penalties for trapijing or killing the animals, the 

 temptation for trappers to snealt in and get as many skins as possible 

 is often too great to be resisted. In spite of e\ery precaution many 



Fig. 10. — Cottonwood tree, 46 inches across stump, cut down by beavers near mouth 

 of Camas Creek. Photographed April 14, 1918, several years after it bad fallen. 



beavers are trapped each year and their numbers are kept doAvn to a 

 very slight increase, if not to a dead level of meager existence. 



Family ERETHIZONTIDiE: Porcupines. 



Yellow - HAIRED Porcupine: Eretliizon epi.vanfhy/iii cpixanfhmn 

 Brandt. — Porcupines are suiliciently common in the park to be 

 often seen by the Ansiting tourists. At Granite Park one usually 

 came around the chal(>t every day and did not seem to mind beinff 

 shut up occasionally in the woodshed where he could be released 

 after the tourists had arrived over the pass at noon and be watched 

 by a large number of people as he shuffled down the trail and over 

 the big snow bank to the rocks beyond. Several years ago while this 



