220 
JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY 
the 40th parallel, namely, 450 miles south of its present parallel. The 
reindeer gradually retiuned to northern Maine and to northern Scan- 
dinavia. 
ELIMINATION BY MAN BEGAN 400,000 YEARS AGO 
We may first review the story of civilization and extinction. In the 
struggle for food man sought flesh and marrow with primitive weapons 
of stone and wood. Man at this time was probably less destructive 
than most of the large predatory mammals. He killed with clubs, 
dug pits, rolled down rocks, etc. 
The demand for clothing is very ancient, also beginning 400,000 years 
ago, furs and leather being utilized for clothing and footwear. The 
demand for bone and ivory utensils is also very ancient, the first bone 
tools being 40,000 years old, while the use of bone and ivory in art 
began between 25,000 to 30,000 years ago. 
Cave men first employed light from burning animal oil and fat, and 
thej^ also used fats in preparing pigments for personal decoration and 
in art. The demand for light culminated in the elimination of the 
sperm whale and other Cetacea and marine Carnivora. Five thousand 
five hundred whales have been taken in a single season from one whal- 
ing station in the Antarctic, and more than twelve thousand whales 
in a single season from the American Antarctic. 
Agriculture is at least 20,000 years old. It is not known how early 
the value of animal compounds as fertilizers was discovered, but the 
couj) de grace to marine life has been given by the fertilizer industry. 
In oceanic life the fate of the Cetacea and of marine mammals was sealed 
when the trade in spermaceti and in blubber oil was succeeded by 
the creation of fertilizer factories, which are rapidly eliminating the 
Cetacea. The other fur and hide-bearing marine Carnivora should enjoy 
the protection which is now being given the fur-bearing seals. The 
strongest appeal for the preservation of the walrus and the northern 
seals is the conservation of the natural food supply of the Eskimo. 
Agriculture on land, the legitimate clearing of land and protecting 
of farms and gardens has been the next cause of elimination. The 
ranging of cattle and sheep over great areas, destroying winter food 
for game — sheep ruin whole watersheds because they devour all low 
vegetation and the bared hillsides have nothing to hold back melting 
snows for a normal gradual dissipation over the summer period — the 
killing of game by herd tenders, bounty systems against carnivora, 
and indiscriminate poisoning campaigns are all factors in the elimina- 
