THE GAME RESOURCES OF ALASKA. 
481 
Sea, notably St. Lawrence and Hall islands, but probably were left 
there by suddenly receding ice, so their occurrence in the summer 
season was accidental. 
WALRUS. 
Although the walrus is not always considered a game animal a 
paragraph may be devoted to it, since its imposing tusks are often 
sought by trophy hunters and since it has been protected by the 
Alaska game law. The Pacific walrus (Odobenus obesus ), except 
for its larger size, is in all general features and in habits practically 
identical with the Atlantic animal. It is now rare south of Bering 
Strait, although formerly large numbers came south each season with 
the pack ice. In comparatively recent times also, several good-sized 
colonies of walrus lived throughout the year about the shores of 
Bering Sea, especially in Bristol Bay, but only the merest remnant 
of these is left. Unless earnest efforts are made to preserve this rem¬ 
nant not a walrus will be left south of the Arctic Ocean. On the 
Alaskan Arctic coast walrus still remain in considerable numbers, 
but even here their fate is uncertain, for no animal which produces 
articles of commerce is safe, however remote its habitat. 
GAME BIRDS. 
Alaska’s game birds are mostly breeding waterfowl, the same well- 
known migratory species which spend all or part of the winter in the 
United States. Therefore, while the Territory is highly important as 
a refuge for large game, it is scarcely less so as a shelter for our sur¬ 
viving water birds. Ducks, geese, and wading birds, so recently 
abundant on our coasts and inland waters, are everywhere diminishing 
in numbers, and more than one species is threatened with extinction 
in the near future. Under such circumstances the innumerable ponds 
of the interior of Alaska and the lonely tundras of its northern coasts, 
in which many of these birds rear their young, become of the utmost 
importance. The birds arrive in the north early in the spring in 
April or May and after breeding leave for the south in August and 
September. Among them are great numbers of ducks, geese, swans, 
and vast hordes of small shorebircls, as plovers, snipes, curlews, and 
sandpipers. A large proportion of these stop in the United States in 
the fall or spend the winter there. Protective laws in the States there¬ 
fore avail but little unless the birds are fully protected also on their 
breeding grounds. In proportion to the population pot hunters are 
no less numerous in Alaska than elsewhere. In fact they are perhaps 
more numerous, on account of the relatively large number of people 
leading an outdoor life and accustomed to the use of firearms. A 
further bad feature is the fact that most of the shooting is done on the 
arrival of the birds in the spring-on their way to the breeding grounds. 
