THE OREGON SPORTSMAN 



bounties and in the employment of men for educational and scien- 

 tific work and for the enforcement of game laws. 



It is a fact that more has been spent in game protection and 

 propagation during the past year than in any previous year, and 

 it is also an undeniable fact that far greater results have been 

 accomplished. It is a fact that the sportsmen of the state who 

 are furnishing the entire amount for game protection and prop- 

 agation are not the ones who are finding fault. 



The Fish and Game Commission is endeavoring to make Ore- 

 gon a great outdoor state, attractive to our people who need 

 outdoor life and recreation, a drawing card for tourists who have 

 money to spend and money to invest. Money spent in game pro- 

 tection and propagation is a business proposition for the farmer 

 and every land-owner in the state. 



LOCKING THE BARN DOOR 



Years ago when the buffalo ranged the plains in countless 

 numbers, the hide hunter slaughtered and wantonly wasted the 

 meat. In an early day the herds of elk in our Oregon mountains 

 were treated in the same way. Game was too abundant then to 

 think of checking the slaughter. In the early seventies and 

 even in the eighties the passenger pigeon was so abundant in 

 the east that the birds fairly blackened the sky during their 

 migrations. Where they nested in great colonies through the 

 middle west, pothunters slaughtered without limit. Men knocked 

 the nestlings from the trees and fattened their hogs on them. 

 If we had used these birds economically, today they would fur- 

 nish food for our people. With the countless numbers of wild 

 pigeons of a generation ago, who could have conceived of their 

 total disappearance? Today there is not a single record of this 

 species in existence. 



The Columbia River Smelt. 



During the past month there was a large run of smelt in 

 the Sandy Kiver. The fish were so abundant it was no 

 trouble to catch them in nets or make-shift scoops of any kind. 



Pag-e three 



