FOREST AND STREAM 
363 
Wild Ducks on Farm of Geo. Klein of Kansas. 
Measures of Progress in Game Conservation 
By Henry Chase 
game laws were made and no one could kill an 
elk or other game animal without a license. One 
Indian was killed (in Jackson’s Hole) because he 
was hunting game the U. S. government had 
promised he could hunt and the State said he 
must not. Even when the Indians got, or tried 
to get, licenses, the whites would not let the In¬ 
dians hunt off their reservations and on the res¬ 
ervations there was no game for them. The 
whites would not let the Indians kill any meat. 
Yet every one of these white men was killing 
meat in and out of season for his own use. I. 
personally, do not blame them for that, since 
the only thing they had to market was beef, and 
that could transport itself. Still they had no 
right to keep others from getting what meat 
they required and only let those who could af¬ 
ford-the high license kill for pleasure or sport. 
Their law said they must use the whole elk and 
at the same time they know, or ought to, that 
a bull is not fit for food during the running 
season. 
Another thing; to reduce the number of elk 
they should be slaughtered and not hunted. They 
can be tolled into enclosures and butchered. If 
an attempt is made to shoot any number on the 
open range, many will be only wounded and es¬ 
cape, only to be lost. It is true that some of the 
old buffalo hunters who could get a stand on a 
bunch could kill them all, but that is shooting 
them and so there would be considerable losss 
of valuable meat. I think that by building high 
enclosures with wings, the elk could be cap¬ 
tured alive and sold alive. Then the purchaser 
could kill them or ose them domesticated, could 
keep only what bulls they wanted and kill as 
required and in season. But the law would have 
to permit the sale of the meat. There are thou¬ 
sands of acres that would make good elk farms 
and bring in more to the owner than the same 
land devoted to sheep. 
The great number of horses belonging to the 
transportation companies and pastured in the 
Park during the summer on Mt. Everts, The 
Swan Lake, Basin, and other parts of the Park, 
cut down the winter range as now used. 
The alfalfa field first sown by Major, now 
Colonel, Pitcher was intended only for antelope, 
deer and mountain sheep, but I Iiave seen cavalry 
horses and cows and horses belonging to trans¬ 
portation companies eating it, and the alfalfa 
crop has been too short to feed to the antelope 
at the proper time, and they have left the Park. 
I don’t know how this field is handled now; 
before I left there were a few antelope that 
camped all summer with this alfalfa. They spent 
the day in the foothills of Sepulchre Mountain 
and came down evenings to the field, old and 
young returning in the morning to the foothills. 
There is a fine field on the east side of Gardener 
River that would produce many tons of alfalfa 
but would require irrigating. This would be a 
bit expensive. 
I have already written about the starving elk 
getting into the pastures and fields and corrals 
along the Yellowstone between Gardener and 
Electric, but when one rancher (G. W. Reese) 
took a calf that had been tangled up in a barbed 
wire fence and badly hurt, fed and saved this 
animal, tamed it so that it ran with his cows, the 
game warden ordered him to turn it loose, told 
him it was against the law to have it in his 
possession. George let it run with his cows. One 
day toward spring it was missing; a Dago at 
Electric had killed it. T. E. H. 
T HREE prominent measures in particular of 
late discussion in the literature of game 
protection have attracted and rivetted the 
attention of the writer, viz.: First, Judge Whit¬ 
aker’s proposal in New York for a constitutional 
amendment taking away from the legislature the 
power to enact game laws and vesting the same 
in the state game commission; second, the argu¬ 
ments for and against a “buck law,” and third, 
the promulgation in several states of civil service 
rules for selecting applicants for the office of 
game wardens. 
As to the first: Judge Whitaker’s proposal ap¬ 
pears to be a most excellent one; provided, of 
course, the selection of members of the commis¬ 
sion is free from political influence, and they are 
capable and practical, and that the game commis¬ 
sion consists also of practical men who have 
both the knowledge and courage to promulgate 
proper rules of conservation and will see to it 
that such rules are strictly enforced without fear 
or favor and encourage the wardens to do their 
duty conscientiously. 
There can be no question at present but what 
the basic principles for all needful game legis¬ 
lation have been duly established by experience 
and science. These should never be departed 
from under any circumstances, and exceptions for 
special localities should be made only in rare 
cases. The difficulty nowadays is to prevent 
constant tinkering with the game laws. In al¬ 
most every state we can scarcely get proper laws 
enacted before changes are made. To receive 
the benefit of good laws it is necessary that they 
should be strictly enforced fOr a number of 
years. But usually before this can be done the 
statutes are - altered, amended or repealed, and 
the work of repassing them must be done all 
over again. The result is it now requires about 
all the energy of the game departments and 
sportsmen combined to keep good laws upon the 
statute book a sufficient length of time to be ef¬ 
fectual. What we need, then, is stable laws 
founded on proper principles. How can this be 
brought about? It appears that no better way 
has been suggested than that proposed by Judge 
Whitaker, and the conservationists throughout 
the country will watch the New York effort in 
this line with intense interest. 
As to the “buck law” arguments: The oppo¬ 
nents of this measure center their arguments 
round a single question of fact, which the 
other side will not concede one moment to be 
a fact. They readily admit, we understand, that 
the theory of permitting the taking of bucks 
only and sparing the does and fawns is the cor¬ 
rect one as a true measure of conservatism. The 
fact is, no sane man can dispute this. If you 
went to a man raising poultry, cattle or sheep 
and suggested the indiscriminate killing off of a 
certain number of his stock annually without 
regard to age or sex, he would doubtless come 
to the conclusion that you were a blockhead and 
knew nothing about his business. This is 
equally true with respect to deer. Ah, but our 
opponents say, it is different where animals are 
confined and can be carefully selected from the 
stock. Why so? Their contention simply 
amounts to this: In hunting deer, when you get 
an opportunity for a shot you cannot wait to see 
whether it is a buck or doe or you will lose your 
chance altogether. In fact, their slogan is: 
“Shoot first, and look afterwards.” This same 
theory has caused the death of many hunters who 
were mistaken for deer. It is the cry of the 
nervous, excitable tenderfoot >who gets buck 
fever as soon as he sees something moving in the 
brush, and his trigger finger trembles for in¬ 
stant action. Also it is the argument of the doe 
killers that equally as many does are killed in 
this way as bucks and the former are left to rot 
in the woods. So the point is here: Do we want 
to make our laws to suit the convenience of this 
set of men who are a perfect menace and terror 
to the lives of all decent hunters in the woods? 
Again, are good game laws the result of com¬ 
promise with this crowd? I apprehend not. 
They are the people we make laws to repress 
and subdue, and we shall never malce the slight¬ 
est progress in this movement by consulting 
their wishes and convenience. Rather let them 
attune their trigger fingers to wholesome laws. 
