14 -t 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Feb. 3, 1912 
Boone and Crockett Club Meeting. 
The annual meeting of the Boone and Crockett 
Club was held at the rooms of the club, 50 East 
Forty-first street, on the evening of Thursday, 
Jan. 25. 
The following officers were elected for the 
ensuing year: President, Major W. Austin 
Wadsworth; Vice-Presidents, Arno'd Hague, 
Walter B. Devereux, Archibald Rogers, William 
D. Pickett, Theodore Roosevelt; Secretary, Mad¬ 
ison Grant; Treasurer, C. Grant La Farge. Two 
members of the executive committee, to serve 
until 1915, Charles Sheldon and Dr. William K. 
Draper. 
Among the various reports presented that of 
the game preservation committee is of the widest 
general interest. It deals with the committee’s 
work for the year, gives a list of pending legis¬ 
lative measures of special interest to the club 
and an account of the game situation for 1911. 
The club believes that its most important work 
is to formulate a comprehensive plan of national 
game refuges and have such refuges established. 
To this end it is working with the departments 
of the Government especially interested in these 
matters, and especially with the Biological Sur¬ 
vey. From H. W. Henshaw, chief of that Sur¬ 
vey, was received a report on this subject which 
is printed as an appendix to the committee’s re¬ 
port, and is of extreme interest. The comm't- 
tee believes that funds should be raised through 
the Boone and Crockett Club to pay the cost of 
stocking certain game refuges, and that if this 
is done. Congress will establish refuges and 
will care for the animals placed on them. It is 
believed that the time is favorable for the in¬ 
auguration of a vigorous campaign for a compre¬ 
hensive system of national game refuges, and 
that the club may properly appeal for funds, not 
only to its own members, but to any public- 
spirited citizens interested in this matter. With¬ 
out funds little can be done. 
During the past year efforts were made by 
the committee to help through Congress various 
appropriations in behalf of game protective work. 
Dr. Townsend, the secretary of the committee, 
hirhself an expert on the fur seal question, took 
strong public ground against the House resolu¬ 
tion which provides for fifteen years close time 
on ma'e fur seals. From the pen of Mr. Shel¬ 
don, a member of the committee, came this year 
the extraordinarily interesting and valuable 
volume on the wild sheep of the Yukon wilder¬ 
ness and other species of large game there. The 
two herds of antelope established last year by 
the club in the Montana Bison Range and the 
Wichita Game Preserve are doing well. The 
funds required for the capture and transporta¬ 
tion of these animals were contributed by mem¬ 
bers of the club-—J. P. Morgan, Jr., Percy R. 
Pyne, E. Hubert Litchfield, Jr., Bayard Dominick, 
Jr., and Henry Clay Pierce. 
The report of the game situation gives the in¬ 
teresting news that of the fenced herd of bison in 
the Yellowstfene Park, numbering a few weeks 
ago 141, twenty-two young animals have recently 
died from an epidemic which attacked the herd. 
This is a strong argument in favor of the estab¬ 
lishment of new herds of various species of wild 
game in widely separated localities. Of the out¬ 
law bison belonging to Michel Pablo, which he 
could not deliver to the Canadian Government, 
the greater number have been killed, but about 
twenty are still at large in Western Montana. 
Moose are holding their own, and there seem 
to be a good number in the Glacier National 
Park. Those introduced several years ago in 
Newfoundland are reported to be increasing. 
Perhaps the only caribou now found in the 
United States are a few in Northern Idaho, 
Washington and Montana, just along the boun¬ 
dary line. Several years ago there were' per¬ 
haps 200 of these. They have now been re¬ 
duced to about thirty. It is reported that rarely 
one of them crosses the North Fork of the Flat- 
head River and strays into the Glacier National 
Park. 
The problem of the elk south of the Yellow¬ 
stone Park has been studied by Mr. Preble, of 
the Biological Survey, who has recommended a 
refuge there, but the settlers in that country 
seem as yet unable to agree as to what shall be 
done. 
While the antelope, though protected all over 
the United States, are decreasing in number, in¬ 
vestigations made during the past year show that, 
in Arizona there are many more antelope than 
was formerly supposed. There are a few locali¬ 
ties in the peninsula of Lower California that 
still have antelope. 
The eight antelope in the Montana Bison 
Range seem to thriving. The same number in 
the Wichita Game Preserve are doing well, and 
last summer a single one was born there. The 
Provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan have an 
open season on antelope, and the constantly in¬ 
creasing emigration threatens their speedy ex¬ 
tinction there. 
White goats and wild sheep are doing well 
and are probably not decreasing. 
Bears are growing scarcer except where pro¬ 
tected, but in the National parks they are bold 
and often troublesome. 
The fur seal herd in the Pribilof Islands still 
requires attention, and the committee takes 
strong ground against the passage of House 
resolution 277 forbidding the killing of male 
seals for a period of fifteen years. It is not 
likely that Congress will pass this resolution. 
Dr. Townsend's expedition to the Guadalupe 
Islands and the discovery of a herd of elephant 
seals, long believed to be extinct, is a matter of 
extraordinary interest. Efforts are being made 
to protect them through the Customs House of 
the Pacific Coast. 
Beavers are increasing and should be intro¬ 
duced in all Federal reservations. On the other 
hand, when they become too numerous in any 
region, they shou'd be promptly reduced in num¬ 
ber, not by making an open season on them, but 
by having Government officials trap them until 
their numbers are properly reduced. 
The appendix to the report consists of a 
memorandum on the establishment of refuges 
for North American game furnished to the com¬ 
mittee by H. W. Henshaw, of the Biological 
Survey. This memorandum suggests that the 
elk should be the first species used in restock'ng 
game refuges, using the abundant supply in and 
near the Yellowstone Park. Many of the National 
forests in the mountains of the West are avail¬ 
able as game refuges, and most of them were 
formerly occupied by the elk. In the work of 
stocking these reservations, it would be neces¬ 
sary to make enc’osures of considerable size to 
keep the elk together, otherwise the animals 
turned out might become widely scattered and 
lost, and the experiment fail. The cost of such 
fencing in the mountains of the West in a rough 
country is about $1,000 a mile. The Forest 
Service is heartily in sympathy with the attempt 
to restock these areas and will be glad to work 
with the Biological Survey and the Boone and 
Crockett Club to this end. The Order of Elks, 
a widely spread, strong and extremely popular 
organization in the West, would be likely to 
take an interest in this matter, and to work hand 
in hand with the club and the Government de¬ 
partments. Mr. Henshaw’s memorandum closes 
with notes on certain National forests and their 
availability as game preserves. The first one 
mentioned is the Pecos National Forest, where 
a movement has already been started to set aside 
a National game refuge of fourteen townships 
covering the extreme headwater drainage of the 
Pecos River. This is a country from which the 
elk have been exterminated. Deer, bears and 
wild turkeys are still found there. The Sit- 
greaves and Coconino National Forests in Ari¬ 
zona are other places where refuges might be 
established. Mule deer, turkeys, beavers, ante¬ 
lope, bears, lions and some wolves are still found 
there. There is both summer and winter range. 
The Black Mesa of Arizona, a high plateau 
available as a game refuge, was described by 
E. W. Nelson in the book of the Boone and 
Crockett Club, “American Big Game in its 
Haunts,” in 1904. The top of the mesa is good 
summer range, but in winter the snow lies deep 
there. On the other hand the southerly and east¬ 
erly slopes of the Blue River side will give win¬ 
ter range. 
Another admirable locality for a game refuge 
is the Sacramento Mountains in New Mexico. 
This is a beautiful island of mountains, a natu¬ 
ral game?, country from which, however, the elk 
have beem^exterminated. However, bears, deer 
and wild turkeys still exist, and certain slopes 
of the mountains would be available for the 
desert mountain sheep. There are some ante¬ 
lope on the open plains near these mountains. 
On the whole the report of the game preser¬ 
vation committee for 1911 is a very interesting 
document which should be in the hands of all 
persons Interested in this subject. 
At the close of the business meeting of the 
club an adjournment was had to the lecture room 
of the Chemists Club at the same address where 
Captain Robert A. Bartlett, of Commander 
Peary’s North Pole expedition, gave a very 
spirited illustrated talk to the members of the 
club and their guests. It was listened to with 
great interest. 
Massachusetts No-Saie Bills. 
Groton, Mass., Jan. 25 . —Editor Forest and 
Stream: I inclose herewith a copy of a bill re¬ 
cently introduced into the Massachusetts Legis¬ 
lature, with the purpose of accomplishing here 
what has already been accomplished in New York 
by the Bayne law. 
Massachusetts sportsmen and all other protec¬ 
tors of wild life should know why more than 
one bill avowedly for the purpose of stopping 
the sale of native wild game in this State are 
now before the Legislature. The bill referred 
to would never have been introduced had 
the committee appointed at the recent confer¬ 
ence of sportsmen’s clubs and other interested 
parties done its duty in accordance with the in- 
