464 
FOREST AND STREAM 
OCTOBER , 1917 
WILD LIFE IN OUR NATIONAL PARKS 
^ncri^lrM? T c^ IJ?£ KI NG RANGES HAVE ALREADY BEEN MADE ON A 
SUFFICIENT SCALE TO SHOW HOW SIMPLY AND EASILY THIS MAY BE DONE 
By DR. NELSON 
I N order to carry out the conservation 
program for game on national forests 
outlined by the Biological Survey it will 
be necessary to secure Congressional action 
to set aside game refuges on the forests. 
It is believed that as soon as the plans 
suggested are well understood, the states 
will join in cooperation to secure the 
benefits which would flow to them from 
such an arrangement. They would there¬ 
by secure the protection and increase of 
their game resources with no added cost 
to themselves and with no added burden of 
wardenship. By this arrangement the 
rights of the states to legislate for the 
hunting of its game, making seasons, li¬ 
censes and other essential features would 
still remain with them; the only check 
would be to 
prevent the 
waste of their 
game resources. 
With the se¬ 
ries of game re¬ 
fuges ana con¬ 
trol of the game 
on the forests it 
will be a com¬ 
paratively sim¬ 
ple matter to re¬ 
stock or breed 
up game on 
nearly all of the 
national forests 
to a reasonable 
abundance. 
Deer, elk, and 
possibly moun¬ 
tain sheep, may 
be restored to 
the point where 
excellent hunt¬ 
ing may again 
be obtained, al- 
though, of 
course, never on 
so large a scale 
as was possible in the early days. Experi¬ 
ments in restocking ranges have already 
been made on a sufficient scale to show 
how simply and easily this may be done 
under proper conditions. 
A herd of about seventy elk introduced 
a few years ago from the Yellowstone Park 
to the Sitgreaves Forest in Arizona has 
thrived amazingly and in a few years will 
undoubtedly restock a large area in that 
region. In Colorado elk have been success¬ 
fully reintroduced, and, under stringent 
protection due to local sentiment, mountain 
sheep which once were on the verge of ex¬ 
termination have bred up in considerable • 
numbers. 
A few years ago Alaska contained some 
of the finest hunting grounds in the world. 
The giant moose with the noblest antlers 
of any of the living deer kind existed in 
astonishing abundance. The snowy white 
mountain sheep, noted for its gracefully 
formed horns, was extremely numerous in 
many places, and caribou of several races 
roamed the tundras and scanty interior 
forests in countless numbers. During the 
last fifteen years all have tremendously 
decreased, mainly through over-shooting to 
supply the miners’ camps and for dog food. 
Now the Federal government is building 
a railroad from the south coast into the 
interior to develop the resources of that 
territory, but the thousands of men em¬ 
ployed in its construction have created a 
demand for meat which is threatening the 
annihilation of the superb game animals 
of a belt more than 150 miles broad right 
through the finest remaining game coun¬ 
try ; thus at the outset the railroads may 
become responsible for the destruction of 
one of Alaska’s most valuable resources. 
In an effort to stay this ill-judged slaugh¬ 
ter the Secretary of Agriculture, under 
authority vested in him, has issued a regu¬ 
lation prohibiting the sale of game killed 
on the Kenai Peninsula and adjacent re¬ 
gion, but the proximity of the new road 
to this splendid game field and the number 
of possible hunters make the outlook there 
dark for the moose and mountain sheep. 
N ATIONAL forests in Alaska cover not 
only the Kenai Peninsula, but also the 
heavily wooded islands along the south 
coast, where the Sitka deer lives in great 
abundance and has been killed in large num¬ 
bers for commercial purposes. In all this 
region occur representatives of the huge 
brown and northern grizzly bears, the larg¬ 
est living carnivores of the world. 
In addition to the game the national 
forests also shelter another natural asset 
in the fur-bearing animals such as the 
beaver, mink, marten, fisher, wolverine and 
fox, which under proper protection will 
continue indefinitely to yield a yearly reve¬ 
nue, but which will be completely de¬ 
stroyed if neglected. Beaver are already 
gone from most of their former haunts, 
but can be readily restored on many for¬ 
ests. The other species named are becom¬ 
ing steadily less numerous. It would ap¬ 
pear reasonable that the same authority 
covering the game animals should cover 
the fur-bearers. 
For several years efforts have been 
made to secure authorization from Con¬ 
gress to establish a chain of game refuges 
on the national forests as mentioned above. 
A bill now before Congress provides for 
the creation of a system of Federal game 
refuges on the national forests in all parts 
of the West. 
U n f ortunately 
this bill has 
been amended 
so as to destroy 
its effectiveness, 
and apparently 
it will require 
further time 
and effort in 
order to secure 
this most desir¬ 
able and neces¬ 
sary legislation, 
if our game is 
to be properly 
safeguarded. 
But for the 
creation of the 
Yellows tone 
National Park 
and the guardi¬ 
anship assumed 
by the Federal 
government 
over its wild 
life, there is no 
reason to doubt 
that the two 
great elk herds now centering there, and 
containing some 40,000 of these splendid 
animals, would to a great extent have 
shared the fate of their kind elsewhere. 
This is true despite the fact that about 
one-half of these animals only touch the 
southern part of the park in summer, and 
winter outside it. Their fate would prob¬ 
ably have been no happier than that of 
the Colorado herds without the protection 
and moral influence exerted by the preser¬ 
vation of the animals in the park and the 
constant increment to their number from 
that source. In addition the usefulness of 
this park to the game supply of the country 
is well shown in the fact that during the 
last five years over 1,700 elk have been 
shipped from there and from Jackson Hole 
for restocking the ranges in twenty states, 
which were formerly the home of elk but 
where they had been nearly or quite ex¬ 
terminated. 
In addition to its notable service in sav- 
