March 4, 1911.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
337 
while out in a canoe at night with two young 
women and two guides, for the purpose of ex¬ 
amining live moose with a jacklight, passed four 
of them almost close enough to touch them be¬ 
fore they encountered a big bull in a narrow 
creek, who with his attention riveted on the 
light was unfortunately touched by the bow of 
the canoe, through a miscalculation of the man 
in the stern. The animal reared on his hind 
legs, and as he came to earth again his front 
feet came down into the canoe, one of them 
scraping the skin from Mr. Grimmer’s arm 
from the shoulder to the elbow, and carrying 
the canoe to the bottom of the creek with its 
living freight, the inmates being up to their 
middles in water before the animal could ex¬ 
tricate himself and get away, which he fortu¬ 
nately did without inflicting any further injury 
upon any of the party. 
Mr. Townsend gave some instructive illustra¬ 
tions of the success of fish planting in Pennsyl¬ 
vania streams, and reported upon the extensive 
reforesting operations of the Pennsylvania 
Railway and also of the Lehigh Coal & Naviga¬ 
tion Co., in order to conserve the water supply. 
Much interest was manifested in the report of 
fish and game conditions in British Columbia, 
furnished by Mr. Chaldecott, of Vancouver. He 
declared that wapiti and moose in the Kootenay 
reserve are rapidly increasing, while the in¬ 
crease of beaver has been so large that they 
are more than plentiful, and that a general open 
season will probably be declared. Hungarian 
partridges are doing well, and Mongolian 
pheasants, imported some time ago, are said 
to be improving on the older bird in the 
Province (Torquatus), the former being by far 
the more hardy variety. 
The next annual convention of the association 
is to be held in Boston, and the election of 
officers resulted as follows: President, G. H. 
Richards, Boston; Secretary-Treasurer, E. T. 
D. Chambers, Quebec; Vice-Presidents, Hon. 
Leroy T. Carleton, Augusta, Maine; F. S. 
Hodges, Boston; R. E. Plumb, Detroit; Hon. 
W. C. H. Grimmer, St. Stephens, N. B.; Hon. 
W. C. Witherbee, Port Henry, N. Y.; A. Kelly 
Evans, Toronto; Dr. J. T. Finnie, Montreal; 
General F. G. Butterfield, Derby Line, Ver¬ 
mont; Alan D. Wilson, Philadelphia; Dr. Geo. 
E. Porter, Bridgeport, Conn. Executive Com¬ 
mittee: Hon. J. W. Brackett, Philips, Maine; 
Dr. Heber Bishop, Boston; Hon. J. D. Hazen, 
St. John, N. B.; C. H. Wilson, Glens Falls, N. 
Y.; Oliver Adams, Toronto; C. E. E. Ussher, 
Montreal; F. L. Fish, Vergennes, Vermont; J. 
B. Townsend, Jr., Philadelphia; J. C. Chamber- 
lain, Bridgeport, Conn. 
E. T. D. Chambers. 
New York Legislature. 
Bills introduced: 
By Assemblyman Shepardson, relating to hunt¬ 
ing hares and rabbits with ferrets in Chenango 
county. 
By Senator Thomas, prohibiting the hunting of 
hares or rabbits with ferrets in Chenango county. 
By Senator Bayne, relating to the open season 
for hares and rabbits in Richmond county. 
All the game laws of the United States and 
Canada, revised to date and now in force, are 
given in the Game Laws in Brief. See adv. 
The Yellowstone Park Elk. 
This winter—as every winter for several years 
past—we hear the usual accounts of elk starv¬ 
ing in the mountain country between the south¬ 
ern end of the Yellowstone Park and the town 
of Jackson. The problem of what shall be done 
with them is unsolved, and perhaps insoluble. 
In the old times the elk that wintered in the 
highlands of the Yellowstone Park, and in the 
lofty mountains where rise the Yellowstone and 
Wind Rivers, made their way south at the ap¬ 
proach of winter, going down to the Red Desert 
in Wyoming, a great dry, warm tract then un¬ 
occupied, where the elk wintered on good feed, 
returning in spring to their mountain homes. 
Even after cattle and horses were abundant in 
the country, the elk still went to their old feed¬ 
ing grounds, but as settlements came in on the 
streams lying between the Red Desert and the 
mountains, and the country was fenced off, it 
became impossible for the elk to get south. 
Since then they have suffered every winter from 
hunger and often have starved to death by hun¬ 
dreds, if not thousands. Moreover, of late 
years the country of the Red Desert has been 
so overstocked with sheep that there is no longer 
any feed there. 
It is obvious that if the elk are protected they 
will increase. It is also evident that they can¬ 
not winter in the high mountains. Neither the 
United States Government nor the State of Wyo¬ 
ming is likely to spend considerable sums of 
money every year in putting up hay for the pur¬ 
pose of feeding the elk on the southern side of 
the Yellowstone Park, and if they did so it 
would only be putting off the evil day. The 
matter is summarized in the report of the game 
preservation committee of the Boone and 
Crockett Club, issued last December, which cays: 
“As things stand to-day it seems as if the 
southern herd of Yellowstone Park elk must 
ultimately be exterminated by starvation. After 
it has been reduced to a few hundred, those left 
may be able to winter on the bald hills about 
Jackson’s Hole. 
“Years ago Major Pitcher irrigated and sowed 
an alfalfa field in the Yellowstone Park on 
which he grew hay for the antelope, deer and 
mountain sheep which winter in the low ground 
at the north of the park. In recent years the 
elk have attacked the alfalfa stacks and have 
consumed much of the hay which was intended 
for the smaller species. Major Pitcher has 
urged that the great flats along the Yellowstone 
River within the park be irrigated; for, at the 
expense of a few thousand dollars for labor 
and seed, they would grow heavy crops of alfalfa 
which would carry many elk through the winter. 
The Interior Department has never been willing 
to authorize such expenditure. But even if the 
elk were fed there and were thus for a time 
saved from starvation in severe winters, the 
continued increase would make the herd too 
large, and the question as to what shall be done 
with them would still remain unanswered.” 
That these elk on the south side of the Yel¬ 
lowstone Park must perish seems inevitable. 
They cannot live without a winter range. One 
thing that should obviously be done is to stock 
the Bison Preserve in Montana, the Wichita 
Game Preserve, the Glacier National Park and 
any other reservations adapted to elk with these 
animals. Game refuges ought to be set aside 
in certain of the forest reservations, and elk in¬ 
troduced in refuges which have both summer 
and winter ranges. This, while tending to pre¬ 
serve the elk, throws no light on the question of 
preserving the elk in the south part of the Na¬ 
tional Park, and no suggestion has been made 
that gives any prospect of a way out of this 
difficulty. 
Early February has been very hard on the pro¬ 
tected elk in the Yellowstone Park, on the north 
side. It is reported that more have left the 
park than ever before in the memory of resi¬ 
dents in the Yellowstone Valley. It is said that 
there must be 8,000 between Crevasse Creek and 
Six Miles. Every day in the Yellowstone Park, 
near Gardiner, Montana, hay is being fed to 
about 600 elk and a few antelope. The snow is 
so heavy that it seems that the antelope will 
not stay in the park. Soldiers have driven them 
back several times, but they soon leave the park 
again. 
Anderson, one of the park scouts, has already 
killed about one hundred coyotes this year and 
is still at it. The Livingston Enterprise under 
date of Feb. 11 publishes a dispatch from Boze¬ 
man as follows: 
“Reports from miners and woodsmen from the 
West Gallatin basin, adjacent to the Yellow¬ 
stone Park, during the past few days, indicate 
a deplorable condition of the elk and other big 
game in that region. The snow is unusually deep 
and a twenty-four hours’ rain about a week ago, 
followed by a cold spell, has made it almost im¬ 
possible for the animals to reach forage beneath 
a coating of ice. One of the basin farmers re¬ 
ports that eight elk died within sight of his 
cabin last week. It is with difficulty that they 
can keep the elk out of their limited supplies 
of hay. 
“A party composed of Forest Supervisor D. T. 
Conkling, Deputy Game Warden Henry Fergu¬ 
son and Gus J. Steffens, ail of this city, will 
leave in the morning to make a thorough in¬ 
vestigation. It may be necessary to secure hay 
for the game which will have to be transported 
for many miles.” 
Washington, D. C., Feb. 27.— Editor Forest 
and Stream: Senator Warren, of Wyoming, has 
tacked an amendment to the agricultural appro¬ 
priation bill providing the sum of twenty thou¬ 
sand dollars for feeding, protecting and re¬ 
moval to safety of the elk in the Jackson Hole 
and Teton localities in the State of Wyoming. 
The appropriation was made in response to a 
memorial of the Legislature of Wyoming and 
to the earnest solicitation of Governor Carey, of 
that State. The New York City Zoological Park 
also added its appeal for the proper care and 
protection of the elk. The appropriation, which 
comes none too soon, might have been secured 
earlier if the same influences had been brought 
to bear and the same aid enlisted. Governor 
Carey estimates that probably 35,000 elk, the 
largest herd in the United States, are drifting 
around in Wyoming, coming with the first snows 
and drifting to the settled valleys, destroying hay 
stacks and fences in quest of food. Each winter 
many thousands have succumbed to starvation, 
though the State of Wyoming is spending an¬ 
nually $20,000 for their protection, which, com¬ 
bined with the appropriation of Congress, will 
now afford adequate care and protection, thus 
rescuing from extermination our largest band 
