
Sea 5 Bu Bet, 
Aside from sentiment, it is poor business to allow elk to starve 
A Clean 
Presentation 
of the 
Elk Situation 
By 
One Who 
Knows the 
West 
soi pis ae 
Applying Common Sense to the 
E cannot eat our cake and have 
it, neither can we kill off all 
our game and still have it. 
We can have game and there 
will always be a surplus that can be 
killed in fair sport if we handle the 
game question intelligently, but al- 
though some of our Eastern States 
have worked that out very carefully 
and successfully, we certainly have 
little to boast about in the way of game 
preservation in the West, especially in 
the regions surrounding that great 
natural game refuge, Yellowstone 
Park. 
Something definite and permanent 
has to be done about our herds of elk, 
or a succession of two or three winters 
like the present one will cut them down 
to such a degree, that we may never be 
able to bring them back to the numbers 
that we should have and can adequately 
take care of. Westerners, get on the 
job, face the situation as it really is 
and take the necessary steps to bring 
about a change. 
After some twenty years of hunting 
in different parts of the West and some 
experience in eastern hunting, and an 
acquaintance with a number of men who 
have hunted in every quarter of the 
globe I am firmly convinced by their 
wide experience, together with my more 
limited knowledge, that we cannot keep 
156 i 
Game Question 
BYSER DES LULER 
on as we have been doing and have 
any game left in a few years, and we 
can’t expect the east to work out our 
game problems for us. Unquestionably 
certain organizations interested in con- 
servation are doing a very fine thing by 
purchasing land, to help winter the elk 
in the Jackson’s Hole country of Wyo- 
ming. However, simply buying land 
alone is not the only thing necessary. 
We Westerners have to change our own 
attitude in the matter. 
Our game problems must be handled 
from a practical standpoint, not with 
indifference up to the point where a 
species is about to be exterminated, and 
then with a lot of foolish sentimental- 
ity. 
HERE are a great many men who 
have given up hunting with a rifle 
and use a camera instead. This form 
of sport is becoming more and more 
popular each year, but the love of the 
chase is strong in most of us and while 
the actual killing of game is just an 
incident of the hunt, still it is very nec- 
essary incident to make hunting possi- 
ble, and there is no reason why we 
should not continue to have wild game 
for untold future generations if we 
make proper provisions for it now. 
Europe was up against this same 
proposition in regard to the future of_ 
its wild game generations ago, yet to- 
day there are few virgin game fields 
that yield better sport and shooting than 
parts of Europe. 
HUNDRED years ago deer were 
almost exterminated in parts of 
our Eastern and New England states, 
yet today it would be hard to find a bet- 
ter deer hunting country in even the 
most out of the way corner of North 
America, than can be had in New York 
and Pennsylvania and the New England 
States. This game did not come back 
by accident, it was brought back by 
careful planning, hard work, enforcing 
the game laws, closed seasons, etc., and 
placing the proper value on game as to 
what it was worth for sport and not on 
its value for meat alone. 
Game administration is not such a 
complicated matter, as most game ani- 
mals will hold their own if given half 
a chance, but if they are not even given 
that half a chance, then of course they 
must go. ... There is no help for it. 
From a standpoint of game conser- 
vation and protection, we certainly 
have made a sad mess of things in the 
West. This is due to several causes, 
the main reason being that it is a com- 
paratively new country. There are too 
many men yet living who have slaught- 
ered game with a wanton hand and 
OE 
