Dec. i 8, 1909.] 
FOREST AND STREAM 
970 
Arizona Game Animals. 
Tucson, Ariz., Nov. 27 .— Editor Forest aiid 
Stream: By request I write yoti on the game 
animals of Arizona, but with a different purpose 
than the requestor intended. His purpose was 
to draw hunters in this direction; mine is to 
keep them away. 
A few years ago Arizona had no game laws 
and the doors were wide open to every indi¬ 
vidual that could handle a gun. There was, 
however, more game then than now, a hundred 
to one. The danger from the Apache Indians 
kept many an itching trigger finger at home. 
This safeguard out of the way, pot-hunters 
swarmed into the hills and game became ex¬ 
ceedingly scarce. The law then intervened, 
killed off the market hunter and protected game 
from indiscriminate 
slaughter, but at the 
same time it permitted 
prospectors and hill 
men to kill for camp 
meat. The law of to¬ 
day forbids the killing 
of does at any season 
of the year and allows 
three male deer to a 
season’s killing, but this 
law is too often wan¬ 
tonly and brutally disre¬ 
garded and the perpe¬ 
trators are allowed to go 
unwhipped of justice. 
The black tail deer 
(Odocoileus hemionus 
eremicus ) was at one 
time common to the 
brushy valleys; to-day 
they have been practi¬ 
cally eliminated from 
the country. If I were 
to be offered a thou¬ 
sand dollars to kill one 
in Arizona I should not 
know which way to turn or go for it. Their 
annihilation was due to 'the overstocking of the 
country with cattle and its general filling up 
with people. 
The little whitetail deer (Odocoileus couesi) 
fared better, and can yet be found in every 
timbered range in the territory, and if given the 
opportunity contemplated by the law of the 
country, they will not only continue to survive, 
but will increase and multiply. 
There was a time when the American ante¬ 
lope (Antilocapra americana) was common to 
the plains of Southern Arizona, but a couple of 
dry seasons and an overstock of cattle cleaned 
them out almost beyond redemption. By legis¬ 
lative enactment they were protected for ten 
years. Thus braced up the few remaining strag¬ 
glers held their own and these small bands are 
known to be within a radius of fifty miles of 
Tucson. The law of limitation is almost up on 
them, but there will be no trouble in its exten¬ 
sion when the Legislature again meets rather 
more than a year from now. 
The present game law of Arizona is full of 
idiosyncracies. It has been tinkered and patched 
by people who have not the remotest idea of 
what a game law should be. It has, however, 
one sterling virtue in that it prohibits the mar¬ 
keting of game of any kind. This law was a 
positive necessity. It was needed to kill off the 
inatket htlntef and it is supposed to have done 
it effectually. Up to the time of its passage it 
was not Uncommon to see bucks, does and 
fawns hanging side by side in the market. 
Particularly was this trfie of mountain sheep 
(Ozns canadensis). It was further made a penal 
offense to kill them. Of course the bars have 
never been up against the prospector, and prob¬ 
ably never will be, as there is a sort of senti¬ 
mental feeling that gives him somewhat the air 
of a privileged character, but even he is limited 
to an occasional male animal. That he abides 
by the limitations must not be supposed, for the 
reason that the very isolation of his daily life 
places him beyond the ken and reach of the law. 
Of the hundreds of animals that have been 
killed out of the season, I know of but one in¬ 
stance in which an arrest was made. The man 
was a Mexican, ignorant of the law, who brought 
the carcass to town and offered it for sale. He 
was fined $25. Indians have also been arrested 
once or twice for the same offense, but the ani¬ 
mals were confiscated and the Indians warned 
to sin no more. An admonition of this kind 
travels fast among these people south and west 
of Tucson, and the offense is seldom or never 
repeated. It was -otherwise with the Govern¬ 
ment-fed reservation Indians. Every fall of the 
year they are accustomed to hunt in large bodies, 
and being provided with the best and most ef¬ 
fective firearms that money can buy, they clean 
a country pretty thoroughly of game as they 
go along. On its adoption the law at once 
brought them into conflict with the civil authori¬ 
ties and attempted wholesale arrests of these 
mauraders called for intervention by the Gov¬ 
ernment. The law, however, maintained its su¬ 
premacy and compelled the Indians to confine 
themselves to the reservations. 
This law, however, much as it may be abused, 
has been of unlimited benefit. Mountain sheep, 
once so scarce, can now be found in almost every 
mountain range of any size between Northern 
Arizona and the gulf coast of Mexico. 
Peccaries unfortunately are not considered 
game in the eyes of the law and are killed with¬ 
out let or hindrance of the law. Once they were 
common enough, but now only occasional bands 
can be met with. Sometimes they are danger¬ 
ous little brutes to tamper with, and under provo¬ 
cation will charge a locomotive, but ordinarily 
they are as inoffensive and more easily killed 
than rabbits. A wounded peccary seldom calls 
for assistance in vain. This one peculiarity alone 
will in the end lead to their extermination. Two 
years ago a so-called sportsman, hunting in the 
Tortillitas, from a point of vantage, killed 
twenty-three. He did not use them, but allowed 
them to remain and rot. Last year I heard of 
another man killing seven, but as he used them 
for food he was perhaps excusable. To those 
unfamiliar with them, it may be stated that they 
are never fat. They chase the hills too much 
to be ever found in that condition. The flesh is 
white and sweet in the 
young pigs, but in the 
older anima's it is in¬ 
clined to be tainted if 
used when fresh, unless 
the musk glands be cut 
away as soon as the 
animals are killed. Es¬ 
pecially is this true of 
the old males. These 
glands are situated on 
top of the hips near the 
base of the tail, and the 
odor emitted from them 
is nothing even for a 
pig to be proud of. If 
used for food, the ani¬ 
mals are always skin¬ 
ned. In color they are 
a dirty gray, but like 
the big timber wolves 
of the country, a jet 
black one is occasion¬ 
ally found among them. 
When angry they can 
make their tusks snap 
together almost like a 
pair of castanets, and are as dangerous for a 
dog to tackle as a wild boar. Hunting them used 
to be fine sport, but there is no sport in being 
a game hog. 
The cottontail rabbit (Lepus arisona ) is about 
the only one of its kind hunted hereabouts for 
food. They are small, handsome little fellows, 
good breeders and good game. 
The Texas jack ( Lepus texanus) is common 
to the entire country, but the Mexican hare 
(Lepus alleni) has its northern habitat largely 
restricted to central southern Arizona. Occas¬ 
ionally a straggler is met with as far north as 
the Salt River valley, but that is all. They are 
large, clean-limbed animals, weighing when 
grown from ten to fifteen pounds, and so far 
as my observations go, are less subject to the 
tapeworm affliction than the common jack. The 
law places no restriction on the killing of rab¬ 
bits or hares of any kind. This opens the door 
of destruction to every banger that can carry a 
gun, and the only place they are safe is on the 
limitless desert remote from city and town. 
Herbert Brown. 
All the game laws of the United States and 
Canada, revised to date and now in force, are 
given in the Game Lazos in Brief. See adv. 
I 
