446 



-RECREATION. 



as gentle as dairy cows in a meadow. It 

 is true that the gold hunters were con- 

 fronted by a meat famine. All food that 

 was consumed by thousands of men from 

 February till June was either carried over 

 ioo miles on snowshoes, or unlawfully 

 supplied from the game of the forest. The 

 mountaineers, who had been accustomed to 

 the selection of game animals, chose their 

 victims carefully; but the tenderfee^ shot 

 recklessly and indiscriminately. It was not 

 uncommon to find dead does that had been 

 shot and left where they fell, after the dis- 

 covery that they were nearing the close of 

 the period of gestation ; or sometimes 

 fawns might be found dying beside the 

 carcass of a mother from which the hams 

 had been cut and carried away. The men 

 who committed these murders were inva- 

 riably from the cities and the Eastern 

 States, and had not been accustomed lo 

 the conservative practice of butchering wild 

 meat as they would kill domestic animals 

 on the farm. 



At the town of Roosevelt, in the Thun- 

 der mountain district, the sacrifice of game 

 became so shameful that the old mountain- 

 eers and the merciful sportsmen revolted 

 against the practice. There was no game 

 warden or even constable to whom an ap- 

 peal for the enforcement of law could be 

 made. Public sentiment was weak in the 

 face of the necessity of the occasion. The 

 old prospectors who had seen these herds 

 multiply and grow gentle from merciful 

 treatment suffered from the constant evi- 

 dence of ruthless slaughter. Thorough in- 

 vestigation revealed the fact that the indis- 

 criminate killing, especially the wounding 

 of does while they were worthless for the 

 larder, was largely due to the uncontrol- 

 able impulse of the tenderfoot to kill every- 

 thing in sight, and to the excitement which 

 made in impossible for him to discriminate 

 between a buck and a doe or a fat and a 

 poor animal. It was, therefore, determined 

 by the prospectors and experienced sports- 

 men to supply their neighbors with the best 

 quality of venison free of charge if they 

 would use their influence to prevent the 

 killing of does in the late period of gesta- 

 tion and early periods of motherhood. It 

 might be said that a contraband abattoir 

 was conducted for 2 months, and in a 

 spirit of mercy. 



It was found easy to promote sentiment 

 against the indiscriminate tenderfoot mur- 

 der of mother-does and the starvation of 

 fawns, but it was found impossible to con- 

 trol the man who was subject to back 

 ague when he was brought in contact with 

 the wild herds of the mountains. I saw 

 more than ioo does that had been shot to 

 death and either left where they fell by the 

 conscience-stricken hunter after he had dis- 

 covered the enormity of his crime, or that 



had been mortally wounded by a tenderfoot 

 who had buck ague too badly to make an 

 accurate shot. 



These deer were of the blacktail spe- 

 cies, and they were as gentle as domestic 

 sheep. I have counted 300 in one day dur- 

 ing a journey along a trail of only 15 miles. 

 The ordinary Eastern man never passed 

 one of these animals without trying to kill 

 it. One day generally exhausted the sup- 

 ply of rifle cartridges, after the deer coun- 

 try was reached. The price of 30-30 shells 

 ruled at 25 cents each for 3 months in the 

 Thunder mountain district last summer. 

 Only the bad marksmanship of the tender- 

 foot and the scarcity of ammunition pre- 

 vented the annihilation of the deer of that 

 vicinity in one year. Wild goats and moun- 

 tain sheep were more shy and therefore 

 more secure from the merciless tenderfoot. 

 Hundreds of moose and elk were killed, 

 notwithstanding the strict protective stat- 

 utes of the State. 



Could there not be an effective campaign 

 organized for the purpose of enlisting the 

 forest reserve commission in the interest of 

 game protection on the forest reserves? 

 On the reserves in this section of the West 

 the game is worth more than the timber. 

 The lumber monopolies seem to have de- 

 fined the boundaries of these reserves in a 

 manner that left the timber outside of the 

 limits. 



Newton Hibbs, Salmon, Idaho. 



SPORTSMAN APPEALS TO TEXAS. 



I have just read in a weekly paper this 

 statement : 



"Texas, if she is not ready to stop the 

 sale of game, is at least going to try to 

 qualify its sale and to limit the legal bag." 



I am most thankful to hear it. I have 

 been a sportsman all my life. Twenty-five 

 years ago, as a boy, I came from England 

 to Texas. I have always delighted in vis- 

 its to the Lone Star State. From that time 

 to this I have frequently returned there on 

 hunting trips, but it was not until last au- 

 tumn, November, 1902, that I received the 

 greatest shock of my life in a sporting way. 

 I had been staying in Austin. I went to 

 Rockport, on the coast, for ducks. I had 

 been directed to a place 8 miles from the 

 town. I had intended to remain there 5 

 days at least, but the things I saw and 

 heard so shocked and disgusted me that on 

 the second morning after my arrival I left, 

 heavy hearted and filled with ire toward 

 the pot hunters. I had fallen in with, such 

 a family. It was supposed to be a place 

 where sportsmen might find comfortable 

 lodgings and have duck shooting from 

 blinds for a total expense of $2.50 a day; 

 but on reaching my quarters I found the 

 arrangement required was this : Kill all 



