362 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Being Reports From Our Local Correspondents 
Overstocked Winter Ranges of Elk 
In tile years before the country was settled 
up, the Yellowstone Park was little used by the 
game as a winter range. When the valleys were 
settled the game still found feed and shelter to 
share with the stock. Then the country became 
fenced, stock ranges grew smaller, feed less, and 
the game was crowded badly into the higher 
mountains. Then came the Timber Reserves. 
These for a while made a winter range for game 
—though limited as to feed—then came the 
leasing of them to stockmen for their cattle 
and sheep. That was about the finish of the 
old winter range. Game was compelled to stay 
in the higher valleys in the Park where there 
was considerable feed, but under deep snow, but 
usually the game managed to live until spring, 
when they had the hardest time. One winter 
about 3,000 elk were seen in Hayden Valley and 
the Pelican Creek country. There elk got along 
very well until spring, when the snow was 
melted down to a slush and then froze to a solid 
ice, covering all the feed. Elk were seen dead 
in bunches of 20 to 100 so close together that 
you could almost step from one to the other. 
This was seen by Capt. Geo. S. Anderson and 
Captain Scott, and was published in Forest and 
Stream at the time. These officers saw not less 
than two thousand (2,000) elk in the two valleys. 
Next winter there were not over 50 elk in each 
valley. (This was in 1891 or 1892, I think.) 
Every winter some, elk starve, sometimes more, 
sometimes less. Now and then they have a mild 
winter and spring, so that all except the natural 
loss came through in fine condition. The spring 
calves increase the herd, and should the next 
winter be hard, thousands die. 
Many people interested in the preservation of 
game appeared to regret the slaughter of elk 
by hunters and tourists, an& more and more 
stringent game laws were made to prevent the 
killing of game. Nevertheless, in years there 
have not been killed enough to keep down the 
annual increase and prevent the overstocking of 
the range, or to meet the constantly decreasing 
food supply. Jackson’s Hole, the Yellowstone 
Valley and all ranches near the Park were 
troubled with the starving elk, which broke down 
pasture fences, ate up the feed, climbed the hay- 
corrall fences, dislodged the hay, and in some 
cases were killed by barbed wire fences, and 
many shot by ranchers to keep them away from 
their haystacks. Still there was legislation and 
more of it to protect the game and permit any¬ 
one getting any in the fall, when it was fat, 
unless you paid for licenses and other expenses 
enough to make the meat cost more than prime 
beef. All this extra protection was given to let 
the elk starve. 
Wyoming made a so-called winter range for 
game south of the Park, called it a game refuge. 
No game animal would ever winter there unless 
driven back by ranchers from the lawn country. 
Except during the most favorable winters there 
is not enough winter range there for 100 elk, 
and now cattle, during the summer, eat off most 
of this range. Montana made a winter range 
along the north boundary of the Yellowstone 
Park, and the section, consisting chiefly of very 
high mountains, with heavy snowfall and no 
natural winter range for game. 
Where hunters were allowed to kill game, al¬ 
though much was wasted, enough were killed 
to keep down the number and allow for the con¬ 
stantly decreasing winter feeding grounds. For 
several years I advocated that the government of 
the several States about the Park permit people 
to have elk under fence and market their flesh 
as food, to catch live wild elk and other game 
and also beaver and other fur-bearing animals, 
and I also recommended and urged that as many 
elk as possible be captured alive and shipped to 
other States to re-stock the old ranges, parks, 
and game preserves. Fortunately, this latter has 
been done to a limited extent since I moved from 
Montana, but I can’t see that domestication has 
been allowed by the legislature or encouraged by 
popular sentiment of the States. 
Now it appears the increase is so great that 
there is talk of slaughtering enough every year 
to keep the number down to the limit of the win¬ 
ter range. This can be done and is a very sane 
way to dispose of this increase and surplus, but 
the meat should be carefully saved and sold. It 
could be shipped in ice to the East and sold at 
auction, but a better way to my notion is to do 
away with those so-called game refugees and 
permit the killing of game as it comes from the 
Park only, extending the open season until at 
least the first of January, allow the capturing of 
animals outside the Park for domestication, and 
the marketing of the increase by the ranchers. 
Antelope, mountain sheep and mule deer should 
be protected as much as possible, and by pro¬ 
tection I mean the killing- off of the coyotes, 
wolves and mountain lion in the Park. If some¬ 
thing is not done there will be a loss of game 
some spring that will about wipe out the whole 
lot. It is not necessary to have a hard winter 
and spring. Let the game become too numer¬ 
ous and crowded, and you will have some dis¬ 
ease that will carry them off. There was a time 
some twenty or twenty-five years ago when por¬ 
cupine were very thick and plenty all through the 
mountains and Park. In one ride toward even¬ 
ing south of the Park I counted 42 porcupine 
along the trail. They were everywhere, and 
their sign, too. Next year not a porcupine could 
be seen and it was years before I saw any sign 
in the Park or the mountains around it. Noth¬ 
ing but a disease could have wiped them out. 
No hard winter can discourage a porcupine; he 
can climb a tree and live off the bark of one for 
the whole winter. 
Now I see there is the same trouble in the 
Olympic Mountains, State of Washington. I 
saw an article in the Post Intelligencer, in which 
it was claimed that the Olympic range.is getting 
overstocked by the increase of the elk there un¬ 
der the protection by State and United States 
laws, because the winter range there is quite 
limited. Of this I know very little by personal 
observation. What I have seen of the Olympic 
Mountains makes me think it’s not a good elk 
country or winter range, still there is so little 
snow there, except in the high mountains, that 
the elk can get some feed on houses in the jun¬ 
gles. There is very little grass for winter feed; 
the grass appears to me to grow only in the 
higher country above timber line, and so deep 
under snow in winter, and, besides, not accessi¬ 
ble owing to the roughness of the mountains. 
I also understand that most of the elk are on the 
westward ocean side of the range. I learn, too, 
that some elk were sent to the Olympic Moun¬ 
tains from the Yellowstone Park. Fortunately 
for the elk and game of that kind in the Olympic 
Mountains there are no cattle to range over their 
feeding ground. 
iNow we may ask, what are the National 
Parks for? What were they established for? 
Were they made to be a breeding place for game 
of all kinds, to be held there to starve to death 
or killed by the coyotes, wolves and all the other 
animals that feed on them, excepting man? 
Years ago the government made a treaty with 
Shoshone Indians agreeing with them that they 
should have the right to hunt off their reserva¬ 
tions. A little later the country was settled to 
some extent and then became a State. Then 
