CHAPTER II 



AMERICAN RANGE OF THE MOOSE 



The changes which have taken place in the 

 range of the moose since the first Europeans came 

 to this continent are not great. Moose are not 

 being exterminated, as some assert. In some 

 sections of their territory they are unquestionably 

 losing ground, but "they have acquired within 

 our present history of them almost or quite as 

 much territory as they have lost."' 



The southernmost points in the present American 

 range of the moose are southern Nova Scotia and 

 southern Idaho and Wyoming. Between these 

 extremes the boundary of the range has wavered 

 as the activity of hunters and the foresight of 

 lawmakers have modified conditions from time 

 to time. Moose have been more numerous in 

 New Brunswick and Maine in the past twenty 

 or twenty-five years than at any time in the previ- 



I Andrew J. Stone, in The Deer Family (New York, 1902), p. 302. 

 Mr. Stone is exceptionally well qualified to speak of the moose of Alaska 

 and the Canadian Northwest. 



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