Our Vanishing Wild Life Part 29

The gray wolf is practically the only large animal that is able to hide successfully and survive in the treeless regions of the North; but his room is always preferable to his company, because he, too, is a destroyer of big game.

I am tempted to try to map out roughly what are to-day the unopened and undestroyed wild haunts of big game in North America. In doing this, however, I warn the reader not to be deceived into thinking that because game still exists in those regions, those areas therefore const.i.tute a permanent preserve and safe breeding-ground for large mammals. That is very, very far from being the case. The further "opening up" of the wilderness areas, as I shall call them for convenience, can and surely will quickly wipe out their big game; for throughout nine-tenths of those areas it holds to life by very slender threads.

To-day the unopened and undestroyed wilderness areas of North America, wherein large mammals still live in a normal wild state, are in general as follows:

THE ARCTIC BARREN GROUNDS, or Arctic Prairies, north of the limit of trees, embracing the Barren Grounds of northern Canada, the great arctic archipelago, Ellesmere, Melville and Grant Lands and Greenland. This region is the home of the musk-ox and three species of arctic caribou.

THE ALASKA-YUKON REGION, inhabited by the moose, white mountain sheep, mountain goat, four species of caribou, and half a dozen species of Alaska brown, grizzly and black bears.

NORTHERN ONTARIO, QUEBEC, LABRADOR AND NEWFOUNDLAND, inhabited by moose, woodland caribou, white-tailed deer and black bear.

BRITISH COLUMBIA, inhabited by a magnificent big-game fauna embracing the moose, elk, caribou of two species, white sheep, black sheep, big-horn sheep, mule deer, white-tailed deer, mountain goat, grizzly, black and inland white bears.

THE SIERRA MADRE OF MEXICO, containing jaguar, puma, _grizzly_ and black bears, mule deer, white-tailed deer, antelope, mountain sheep and peccaries.

I have necessarily omitted all those regions of the United States and Canada that still contain a remnant of big game, but have been literally "shot to pieces" by gunners.

In the United States and southern Canada there are about fifteen localities which contain a supply of big game sufficient that a conscientious sportsman might therein hunt and kill one head per year with a clear conscience. _All others should be closed for five years_!

Here is the list of availables; and regarding it there will be about as many opinions as there are big-game sportsmen:

HUNTING GROUNDS IN AND NEAR THE UNITED STATES AND SOUTHERN CANADA WHEREIN IT IS RIGHT TO HUNT BIG GAME

THE MAINE WOODS: Well stocked with white-tailed deer.

NEW BRUNSWICK: Well stocked with moose; a few caribou, deer and black bear.

WHITE MOUNTAINS OF NEW HAMPs.h.i.+RE AND VERMONT: For deer.

THE ADIRONDACKS, NEW YORK: Well stocked with white-tailed deer, only.

PENNSYLVANIA MOUNTAINS: Contain many deer and black bears, and soon will contain more.

NORTHERN MINNESOTA: Deer and moose.

NORTHERN MICHIGAN AND WISCONSIN: White-tailed deer.

NORTHWESTERN WYOMING: Thousands of elk in fall and winter; a few deer, grizzly and black bears, but no sheep that it would be right to kill.

WESTERN AND SOUTHWESTERN MONTANA: Elk in season, mule and white-tail deer; no sheep that it would be right to kill.

NORTHWESTERN MONTANA: Mule and white-tailed deer, only. No sheep, bear, moose, elk or antelope _to kill_!

WYOMING, EAST OF YELLOWSTONE PARK: A few elk, by migration from the Park; a few deer, and bear of two species.

NORTHERN WOODS OF ONTARIO AND QUEBEC: Moose; deer.

SOUTHERN BRITISH COLUMBIA: Goat, a few sheep and deer; grizzly bear.

Moose, caribou and elk should not be killed.

NORTHERN BRITISH COLUMBIA: Six fine species of big game.

NORTHWESTERN ALBERTA: Grizzly bear, big-horn and mountain goat.

Under existing conditions I regard the above-named hunting grounds as _nearly all_ in which it is right or fair for big-game hunting now to be permitted, even on a strict basis. Nearly all others should immediately be closed, for large game, for ten years.

Of course such a proceeding, if carried into effect, would provoke loud protests from sportsmen, gunners, game-hogs, pot-hunters and others; but I only wish to high heaven that we had the power to carry such a program as that into effect! _Then we would see some game in ten years_; and our grand-children would thank us for some real big-game protection at a critical period.

Except in the few localities above-mentioned, I regard the big-game situation in the United States and southern Canada as particularly desperate. Unless there is an immediate and complete revolution in this country from an era of slaughter to an era of preservation, as sure as the sun rises on the morrow, outside of the hard and fast game preserves, and places like Maine and the Adirondacks, this generation of Americans and near-Americans will live to see our country _swept clean of big game_!

Two years ago, I did not believe this; but I do now. It is impossible to exaggerate the wide extent or the seriousness of this situation. In a country where any and every individual can rise and bl.u.s.ter, "I'm-just-as-good-as-_you_-are," and bellow for his "rights" as a "tax-payer," there is no stopping the millions who kill whenever there is an open season. And to many Americans, no right is dearer than the right to kill the game which by even the commonest law of equity belongs, not to the shooter exclusively, but partly to two thousand other persons who don't shoot at all!

Unless we come to an "About, face!" in quick time, all our big game outside the preserves is doomed to sure and quick extermination. This is not an individual opinion, merely: it is a _fact_; and a hundred thousand men know it to be such.

Last winter (1911-12), because the deer of Montana were driven by cold and hunger out of the mountains and far down into the ranchmen's valleys, eleven thousand of them were ruthlessly slaughtered. State Game Warden Avare says that often heads of families took out as many licenses as there were persons in the family, and the whole quota was killed. Such people deserve to go deerless into the future; but we can not allow them to rob innocent people.

OUR SPECIES OF BIG GAME

THE p.r.o.nG-HORNED ANTELOPE, unique and wonderful, will be one of _the first species of North American big game to become totally extinct_. We may see this come to pa.s.s within twenty years. They can not be bred in protection, _save in very large fenced ranges_. They are delicate, capricious, and easily upset. They die literally "at the drop of a hat."

They are quite subject to actinomycosis (lumpy-jaw), which in wild animals is incurable.

Already all the states that possess wild antelope, except Nevada, have pa.s.sed laws giving that species long close seasons; which is highly creditable to the states that have done their duty. Nevada must get in line at the next session of her legislature!

In 1908, Dr. T.S. Palmer published in his annual report of "Progress in Game Protection" the following in regard to the p.r.o.ng-horned antelope:

"Antelope are still found in diminished numbers in fourteen western states. A considerable number were killed during the year in Montana, where the species seems to have suffered more than elsewhere since the season was opened in 1907.

"A striking ill.u.s.tration of the decrease of the antelope is afforded by Colorado. In 1898 the State Warden estimated that there were 25,000 in the state, whereas in 1908 the Game Commissioner places the number at only 2,000. The total number of antelope now in the United States probably does not exceed 17,000, distributed approximately as follows:

Colorado 2,000 Yellowstone Park 2,000 Idaho 200 Other States 2,000 Montana 4,000 ----- New Mexico 1,300 Saskatchewan 2,000 Oregon 1,500 ----- Wyoming 4,000 19,000

To-day (1912), Dr. Palmer says the total number of antelope is less than it was in 1908, and in spite of protection the number is steadily diminis.h.i.+ng. This is indeed serious news. The existing bands, already small, are steadily growing smaller. The antelope are killed lawlessly, and the crimes of such slaughter are, in nearly every instance, successfully concealed.

Previously, we have based strong hopes for the preservation of the antelope species on the herd in the Yellowstone Park, but those animals are vanis.h.i.+ng fearfully fast. In 1906, Dr. Palmer reported that "About fifteen hundred antelope came down to the feeding grounds near the haystacks in the vicinity of Gardiner." In 1908 the Yellowstone Park was credited with two thousand head. _To-day, the number alive, by actual count, is only five hundred head_; and this after twenty-five years of protection! Where have the others gone? This shows, alas! that perpetual close seasons can not _always_ bring back the vanished thousands of game!

[Ill.u.s.tration: p.r.o.nG-HORNED ANTELOPE]

Here is a reliable report (June 29, 1912) regarding the p.r.o.ng-horned antelope in Lower California, from E.W. Nelson: "Antelope formerly ranged over nearly the entire length of Lower California, but are now gone from a large part of their ancient range, and their steadily decreasing numbers indicate their early extinction throughout the peninsula."

In captivity the antelope is exasperatingly delicate and short-lived. It has about as much stamina as a pet monkey. As an exhibition animal in zoological gardens and parks it is a failure; for it always looks faded, spiritless and dead, like a stuffed animal ready to be thrown into the discard. Zoologists can not save the p.r.o.ng-horn species save at long range, in preserves so huge that the sensitive little beast will not even suspect that it is confined.

Two serious attempts have been made to transplant and acclimatize the antelope--in the Wichita National Bison Range, in Oklahoma, and in the Montana Bison Range, at Ravalli. In 1911 the Boone and Crockett Club provided a fund which defrayed the expenses of s.h.i.+pping from the Yellowstone Park a small nucleus herd to each of those ranges. Eight were sent to the Wichita Range, of which five arrived alive. Of the seven sent to the Montana Range, four arrived alive and were duly set free. While it seems a pity to take specimens from the Yellowstone Park herd, the disagreeable fact is that there is no other source on which to draw for breeding stock.

The Provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, in Canada, still permit the hunting and killing of antelope; which is wholly and entirely wrong.