Our Vanishing Wild Life Part 61

We can readily understand the new hue and cry against conservation that the sheep men now are raising. Of course they are against all new game and forest reserves,--unless the woolly hordes are given the right to graze in them!

Many men of the Great West,--the West beyond the Great Plains,--are afflicted with a desire to do as they please with the natural resources of that region. That is the great curse that to-day rests upon our game.

When the nearest game warden is 50 miles away, and big game is only 5 miles away, it is time for that game to take to the tall timber.

But in the West, and East and South, there are many men and women who believe in reasonable conservation, and deplore destruction. We have not by any means reached the point where we can think of stopping in the making of game preserves, or forest preserves. Of the former, we have scarcely begun to make. The majority of the states of our Union know of _state_ game preserves only by hearsay. But the time is coming when the states will come forward, and perform the serious duty that they neglect to-day.

Let the statesmen of America be not afraid of making too many game preserves! For the next year, one per day would be none too many!

Remember, that on one hand we have the Army of Destruction, and on the other the expectant millions of Posterity. No executor or trustee ever erred in safeguarding an estate too carefully. Fifty years hence, if your successors and mine find that too much land has been set aside for the good of the people, they can mighty easily restore any surplus to the public domain, and at a vastly increased valuation. Give Posterity at least _one_ chance to debate the question: "Were our forefathers too liberal in the making of game and forest reserves?"

We can always carve up any useless surplus of the public domain, and restore it to commercial uses; but none of the men of to-day will live long enough to see so strange a proceeding carried into effect.

The game preserves of the United States government are so small (with the exception of the Yellowstone and Glacier Parks), that very few people ever hear of them, and fewer still know of them in detail. It seems to be quite time that they should be set forth categorically; and it is most earnestly to be hoped that this list soon will be doubled.

THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK.--This was the first of the national parks and game preserves of the United States. Some of our game preserves are not exactly national parks, but this is both, by Act of Congress.

It is 62 miles long from north to south, 54 miles wide and contains a total area of 3,348 square miles, or 2,142,720 acres. Its western border lies in Idaho, and along its northern border a narrow strip lies in Montana. It is under the jurisdiction of the Secretary of the Interior, and it is guarded by a detachment of cavalry from the United States Army. The Superintendent is now a commissioned officer of the United States Army. The business of protecting the game is performed partly by four scouts, who are civilians specially engaged for that purpose, but the number has always been totally inadequate to the work to be performed.

At least one-half of the public interest attaching to the Yellowstone Park is based upon its wild animals. There, the average visitor sees, for the first time, wild mountain sheep, antelope, mule deer, elk, grizzly bears and white pelicans, roaming free. But for the tragedy of the Park bison herd,--slaughtered by poachers from 1890 to 1893, from 300 head down to 30--visitors would see wild bison also; but now the few wild bison remaining keep as far as possible from the routes of tourist travel. The bison were slaughtered through an inadequate protective force, and (then) utterly inadequate laws.

Lieut.-Col. L.M. Brett, U.S.A., Superintendent of the Yellowstone Park advises me (July 29, 1912) that the wild big game in the Yellowstone Park in the summer of 1912, is as shown below, based on actual counts and estimates of the Park scouts, and particularly Scout McBride. "The estimates of buffalo, elk, antelope, deer, sheep and bear are based on actual counts, or very close observations, and are pretty nearly correct." (Col. Brett).

Wild Buffalo 49 Moose 550 Elk (in summer) 35,000 Antelope 500 Mountain Sheep 210 Mule Deer 400 White-tailed Deer 100 Grizzly Bears 50 Black Bears 100 Pumas 100 Gray Wolves none Coyotes 400 Pelicans 1,000

The actual count of 49 wild bison in the Park, 10 of which are calves of 1912, will be to all friends of the bison a delightful surprise.

Heretofore the little band had seemed to be stationary, which if true would soon mean a decline.

The history of the wild game of the Yellowstone Park is blackened by two occurrences, and one existing fact. The fact is: the town of Gardiner is situated on the northern boundary of the Park, in the State of Montana.

In Gardiner there are a number of men, armed with rifles, who toward game have the gray-wolf quality of mercy.

The first stain is the ma.s.sacre of the 270 wild bison for their heads and robes, already noted. The second blot is the equally savage slaughter in the early winter of 1911, by some of the people of Gardiner, reinforced by so-called sportsmen from other parts of the state, of all the park elk they could kill,--bulls, cows and calves,--because a large band wandered across the line into the shambles of Gardiner, on Buffalo Flats.

If the people of Gardiner can not refrain from slaughtering the game of the Park--the very animals annually seen by 20,000 visitors to the Park,--then it is time for the American people to summon the town of Gardiner before the bar of public opinion, to show cause why the town should not be wiped off the map.

The 35,000 elk that summer in the Park are compelled in winter to migrate to lower alt.i.tudes in order to find gra.s.s that is not under two feet of snow. In the winter of 1911-12, possibly 5,000 went south, into Jackson Hole, and 3,000 went northward into Montana. The sheep-grazing north of the Park, and the general settlement by ranchmen of Jackson Hole, have deprived the elk herds of those regions of their natural food. For several years past, up to and including the winter of 1910-11, some thousands of weak and immature elk have perished in the Jackson Hole country, from starvation and exposure. The ranchmen of that region have had terrible times,--in witnessing the sufferings of thousands of elk tamed by hunger, and begging in piteous dumb show for the small and all-too-few haystacks of the ranchmen.

The people of Jackson Hole, headed by S.N. Leek, the famous photographer and lecturer on those elk herds, have done all that they could do in the premises. The spirit manifested by them has been the exact reverse of that manifested in Gardiner. To their everlasting credit, they have kept domestic sheep out of the Jackson Valley,--by giving the owners of invading herds "hours" in which to get their sheep "all out, and over the western range."

In 1909, the State of Wyoming spent in feeding starving elk $5,000 In 1911, the State of Wyoming spent in feeding starving elk 5,000 In 1911, the U.S. Government appropriated for feeding starving elk, and exporting elk $20,000 In 1912, the Camp-Fire Club of Detroit gave, for feeding hungry elk 100 In 1910-11, about 3,000 elk perished in Jackson Hole In 1911-12, Mr. Leek's photographs of the elk herds showed an alarming absence of mature bulls, indicating that now the most of the breeding is done by immature males. This means the sure deterioration of the species.

The prompt manner in which Congress responded in the late winter of 1911 to a distress call in behalf of the starving elk, is beyond all ordinary terms of praise. It was magnificent. In fear and trembling, Congress was asked, through Senator Lodge, to appropriate $5,000. Congress and Senator Lodge made it $20,000; and for the first time the legislature of Wyoming appealed for national aid to save the joint-stock herds of Wyoming and the Yellowstone Park.

GLACIER PARK, MONTANA.--In the wild and picturesque mountains of northwestern Montana, covering both sides of the great Continental Divide, there is a region that has been splendidly furnished by the hand of Nature. It is a bewildering maze of thundering peaks, plunging valleys, evergreen forests, glistening glaciers, mirror lakes and roaring mountain streams. Its leading citizens are white mountain goats, mountain sheep, moose, mule deer and white-tailed deer, and among those present are black and grizzly bears galore.

Commercially, the 1,400 square miles of Glacier Park, even with its 60 glaciers and 260 lakes, are worth exactly the price of its big trees, and not a penny more. For mining, agriculture, horticulture and stock-raising, it is a cipher. As a transcendant pleasure ground and recreation wilderness for ninety millions of people, it is worth ninety millions of dollars, and not a penny less. It is a pleasure park of which the greatest of the nations of the earth,--whichever that may be,--might well be overbearingly proud; and its accessibility is almost unbelievable until seen.

This park is bounded on the south by the Great Northern Railway, on the east by the Blackfoot Indian Reservation, on the north by Alberta and British Columbia, and on the west by West Fork of the Flathead River.

Horizontally, it contains 1,400 square miles; but as the goat climbs, its area is at least double that. Its valleys are filled and its lakes are encircled by grand forests of Douglas fir, hemlock, spruce, white pine, cedar and larch; and if ever they are destroyed by fire, it will be a national calamity, a century long.

_So long as the American people keep out of the poorhouse, let there be no lumber-cutting vandalism in that park, destroying the beauty of every acre of forest that is touched by axe or saw. The greatest beauty of those forests is the forest floor, which lumbering operations would utterly destroy_.

Never mind if there is "ripe timber" there! The American nation is not suffering for the dollars that those lovely forest giants would fetch by board measure. What if a tree does fall now and then from old age! We can stand the expense. If Posterity a hundred years hence finds itself lumberless, and wishes to use those trees, then let Posterity pay the price, and take them. We are not suffering for them; and our duty is to save them inviolate, and hand them down as a heritage that we proudly transmit unimpaired.

[Ill.u.s.tration: UNITED STATES NATIONAL GAME PRESERVES and Five Pacific Bird Refuges]

The friends of wild life are particularly interested in Glacier Park as a national game reservoir, and refuge for wild life. On the north, in Alberta, it is soon to be extended by Waterton Lakes Park.

When I visited Glacier Park, in 1909, with Frederick H. Kennard and Charles H. Conrad, I procured from three intelligent guides their best estimates of the amount of big game then in the Park. The guides were Thomas H. Scott, Josiah Rogers and Walter S. Gibb.[L]

[Footnote L: See _Recreation_ Magazine, May, 1910, p. 213]

They compared notes, and finally agreed upon these figures:

Elk 200 Moose 2,500 Mountain Sheep 700 Mountain Goats 10,500 Grizzly Bears 1,000 to 1,500 Black Bears 2,500 to 3,000

As previously stated, one of the surprising features of this new wonder land is its accessibility. The Great Northern lands you at Belton. A ride of three miles over a good road through a beautiful forest brings you to the foot of Lake McDonald, and in one hour more by boat you are at the hotels at the head of the lake. At that point you are within three hours' horse-back ride of Sperry Glacier and the marvelous panorama that unrolls before you from the top of Lincoln Peak. At the foot of that Peak we saw a big, wild white mountain goat: and another one watched us climb up to the Sperry Glacier.

MT. OLYMPUS NATIONAL MONUMENT.--For at least six years the advocates of the preservation of American wild life and forests vainly desired that the grand mountain territory around Mount Olympus, in northwestern Was.h.i.+ngton, should be established as a national forest and game preserve. In addition to the preservation of the forests, it was greatly desired that the remnant bands of Olympic wapiti (described as _Cervus roosevelti_) should be perpetuated. It now contains 1,975 specimens of that variety. In Congress, two determined efforts were made in behalf of the region referred to, but both were defeated by the enemies of forests and wild life.

In an auspicious moment, Dr. T.S. Palmer, a.s.sistant Chief of the Biological Survey, Department of Agriculture, thought of a law under which it would be both proper and right to bring the desired preserve into existence. The law referred to expressly clothes the President of the United States with power to preserve any monumental feature of nature which it clearly is the duty of the state to preserve for all time from the hands of the spoilers.

With the enthusiastic approval and a.s.sistance of Representative William E. Humphrey, of Seattle, Dr. Palmer set in motion the machinery necessary to the carrying of the matter before the President in proper form, and kept it going, with the result that on March 2, 1909, President Roosevelt affixed his signature to the doc.u.ment that closed the circuit.

Thus was created the Mount Olympus National Monument, preserving forever 608,640 acres of magnificent mountains, valleys, glaciers, streams and forests, and all the wild creatures living therein and thereon. The people of the state of Was.h.i.+ngton have good reason to rejoice in the fact that their most highly-prized scenic wonderland, and the last survivors of the wapiti in that state, are now preserved for all coming time. At the same time, we congratulate Dr. Palmer on the brilliant success of his initiative.

THE SUPERIOR NATIONAL GAME AND FOREST PRESERVE.--The people of Minnesota long desired that a certain great tract of wilderness in the extreme northern portion of that state, now well stocked with moose and deer, should be established as a game and forest preserve. Unfortunately, however, the national government could go no farther than to withdraw the lands (and waters) from entry, and declare it a forest reserve. At the right moment, some bright genius proposed that the national government should by executive order create a "_forest_ reserve," and then that the legislature of Minnesota should pa.s.s an act providing that every national forest of that state should also be regarded as a _state game preserve_!

Both those things were done,--almost as soon as said! Mr. Carlos Avery, the Executive Agent of the Board of Game and Fish Commissioners of Minnesota is ent.i.tled to great credit for the action of his state, and we have to thank Mr. Gifford Pinchot and President Roosevelt for the executive action that represented the first half of the effort.

The new Superior Preserve is valuable as a game and forest reserve, and nothing else. It is a wilderness of small lakes, marshes, creeks, hummocks of land, scrubby timber, and practically nothing of commercial value. But the wilderness contains many moose, and zoologically, it is for all practical purposes a moose preserve.

In it, in 1908 Mr. Avery saw fifty-one moose in three days, Mr.

Fullerton saw 183 in nine days, and Mr. Fullerton estimated the total number of moose in Minnesota as a whole at 10,000 head.

In area it contains 1,420,000 acres, and the creation of this great preserve was accomplished on April 13, 1909.

THE WICHITA NATIONAL GAME PRESERVE.--In the Wichita Mountains, of southwestern Oklahoma, there is a National game preserve containing 57,120 acres. On this preserve is a fenced bison range and a herd of thirty-nine American bison which owe their existence to the initiative of the New York Zoological Society. On March 25, 1905, the Society proposed to the National Government the founding of a range and herd, on a basis that was entirely new. To the Society it seemed desirable that for the encouragement of Congress in the preservation of species that are threatened with extermination, the scientific corporations of America, and private individuals also, should do something more than to offer advice and exhortations to the government.

Accordingly, the Zoological Society offered to present to the Government, delivered on the ground in Oklahoma, a herd of fifteen pure-blood bison as the nucleus of a new national herd, provided Congress would furnish a satisfactory fenced range, and maintain the herd. The offer was at once accepted by Hon. James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture, and the Society was invited to propose a site for a range.

The Society sent a representative to the Wichita National Forest Reserve, who recommended a range, and made a report upon it, which the Society adopted.

By act of Congress the range was at once established and fenced. Its area is twelve square miles (9,760 acres). In October, 1908, the Zoological Society took from its herd in the Zoological Park nine female and six male bison, and delivered them at the bison range. There were many predictions that all those bison would die of Texas fever within one year; but the parties most interested persisted in trying conclusions with the famous tick of Texas.

Mr. Frank Rush was appointed Warden of the new National Bison Range, and his management has been so successful that only two of the bison died of the fever, the disease has been stamped out, and the herd now contains thirty-nine head. Within five years it should reach the one-hundred mark. Elk, deer and antelope have been placed in the range, and all save the antelope are doing well. The Wichita Bison Range is an unqualified success.

THE MONTANA NATIONAL BISON RANGE.--The opening of the Flathead Indian Reservation to settlement, in 1909, afforded a golden opportunity to locate in that region another national bison herd. Accordingly, in 1908, the American Bison Society formulated a plan by which the establishment of such a range and herd might be brought about. That plan was successfully carried into effect, in 1909 and '10.

The Bison Society proposed to the national government to donate a herd of at least twenty-five bison, provided Congress would purchase a range, fence it and maintain the herd. The offer was immediately accepted, and with commendable promptness Congress appropriated $40,000 with which to purchase the range, and fence it. The Bison Society examined various sites, and finally recommended what was regarded as an ideal location situated near Ravalli, Montana, north of the Jocko River and Northern Pacific Railway, and east of the Flathead River. The nearest stations are Ravalli and Dixon.

The area of the range is about twenty-nine square miles (18,521 acres) and for the purpose that it is to serve it is beautiful and perfect beyond compare. In it the bison herd requires no winter feeding whatever.