Chapter XI: Part 11

The domestic sheep, which were once the prey of the bears, no longer range in these forests, and so far as the depredation of bears among cattle is concerned, it is of so trifling a nature as practically not to exist. It would seem that a nation of so vast wealth as ours could afford to indulge in an occasional extravagance, such as keeping alive these few remaining bears; of maintaining them at the public expense simply for the gratification of curiosity, of a quite legitimate curiosity on the part of those who love the wild life, and every last vanishing trait that remains of its old, keen energy. So far as danger to man is involved by their presence, the experience in the Yellowstone National Park is that there is no such danger; when allowed to do so, they draw their rations as meekly as a converted Apache; if they err at all, it is on the side of exaggerated and rather pitiful humility.

It is mainly with the deer, however, that we are concerned. It is out of the question for any thinking man who takes the slightest interest in these creatures to stand passively by and permit them to be exterminated. To prevent such a catastrophe proper measures must be taken. The hunting community increases with as great rapidity as that with which game decreases. Where one man hunted twenty-five years ago, a score hunt for big game to-day. Unfortunately it has become the fashion. It is a diversion involving no danger and, for those that understand it, but slight hardship. If people are to continue to have this source of amusement, some well matured and concerted plan must be devised to insure the continuance of game. Never in the past history of the world has man held at his command the same potential control of wild beasts as now, the same power to concentrate against them the forces of science. Man's supremacy has advanced by leaps and bounds, while the animal's power to escape remains unchanged; all the conditions for their survival constantly become more difficult. Man has, in its perfection, the rapid-firing rifle, which, with the use of smokeless powder, gives him an enormous increase of effectiveness in its flat trajectory. This is quite as great an element of its destructiveness as its more deadly power and capacity for quick shooting, since it eliminates the necessity for accurately gauging distance, one of the hardest things for the amateur hunter to learn. If man so desires, he can command the aid of dogs. By their power of scent he has wild animals at his mercy, and unless he deliberately regulates the slaughter which he will permit, their entire extermination would be a matter of only a few years. Only at the end of the last year we were told of the celebration in the Tyrol of the killing, by the Emperor of Austria, of his two thousandth chamois. Eight years ago this same record was achieved by another Austrian, a Grand Duke. This was in both instances, as I understand, by the means of fair and square stalking, quite different from the methods of the more degenerate battue. At a single shooting exhibition of this latter sort by the Crown Prince of Germany at his estate in Schleswig, on one day in December last, were killed two hundred and ten fallow deer, three hundred and forty-one red deer, and on the day following, eighty-seven large wild boar, one hundred and twenty-six small ones, eighty-six fallow deer, and two hundred and one red deer. Any man, private citizen as well as emperor or prince, has it within his power, if he be possessed of the blood craze, to kill scores and hundreds of every kind of game. By the facilities of rapid travel the hunter, with the least possible sacrifice of time, is transported with whatever of luxury a Pullman car can confer (luxury to him who likes it) to the haunts and almost within the very sanctuaries of game. Where formerly an expedition of months was required, now in a few days' time he is carried to the most out-of-the-way places, to the barrens, the forests, the peaks, the mountain glades--almost to the muskeg and the tundra.

How far the rage for hunting has captured the community in this country of the western seaboard it is surprising to learn. In the year 1902 there were issued for the seven forest reserves south of the Pass of Tehachapi, a tract three-quarters the size of Massachusetts, four thousand permits to hunt. Inasmuch as one permit may admit more than a single person to the privileges of hunting, it was estimated that at least five thousand people bearing rifles entered the reserves. This besides the enormous horde of the peaceably disposed who also seek diversion here, and who naturally disturb the deer to a certain extent. The supervisor of two reserves--the San Gabriel and San Bernardino--embracing a tract less than half the size of Connecticut, assured me that in 1902 sixty thousand persons entered within their borders; in the summer of 1903 this number was estimated at no less than ten thousand in excess of the previous year. In these two reserves the number of permits for rifles and revolvers issued between June 1 and December 31, increased from 1,900 in the year 1902, to 3,483 in 1903, and as, in some cases, these were issued for two or more persons, the supervisor estimates that at least 4,500 rifles were carried last summer into these two reserves. He was of the opinion that two-thirds of these were borne by hunters, the remainder as protection against bears and other ferocious wild beasts, which exist only in imagination.[12]

[Footnote 12: "Relative to the figures for game permits, and the reason for the larger number issued for 1903 over 1902, I cannot myself altogether explain the large increase. One reason, however, was that our rainfall for the winter of 1902-3 was very large compared with that of the five previous winters. As a result grass and feed were plentiful, and attracted many more travelers and hunters, who figured that game would be much more plentiful owing to the abundance of feed. I believe that this was the principal reason why so many obtained permits. The abundant rain made camping more pleasant, as it started up springs which had been dry for several years. I believe that this very thing, however, also tended to protect the game as it permitted them to scatter more than for several years before, as water was more abundant. With all the increase in guns and hunters I do not think that any more deer were killed than during the summer of 1902." (Letter from Forest Supervisor, Mr. Everett B. Thomas, Los Angeles, Feb. 13, 1904.) It is to be noted that in the southern California reserves, on the ground of precaution against forest fires, no shotguns may be carried into the reserves. As a result quail have greatly increased in numbers.]

It is to be borne in mind that all through this California country there exists a race of hunters--active, determined men, who passionately love this diversion. The people there have not been so long graduated as we of the Atlantic Coast from the conditions of the frontier. The ozone of a new country stirs more quickly the predatory instinct, never quite dead in any virile race. The rifle slips easily from its scabbard, and there in plain sight before them are the forest-clad mountains, a mile above their heads, in the cool and vital air, ever beckoning the hunter to be up and away. These people feel in their blood the call of the wild. With a very considerable proportion of the people upon farms, and still more in villages and small towns, the Fall hunt is the commanding interest of the year. This is the one athletic contest into which they enter heart and soul; it is foot-ball and yachting and polo and horse racing combined. For a young man to go into the forest after deer and to come back empty-handed, is to lose prestige to a certain extent among his fellows. Oftentimes, when a beginner returns in this way unsuccessful, he is so unmercifully chaffed by his companions that he mentally records a vow not to be beaten a second time, and, when he finds himself again in the forest for his annual hunt, with the enthusiasm of youth, he would almost rather die than be defeated.

How hard the conditions are for the hunter no one would believe who has not himself seen the country. In many places the hills are covered with an almost impenetrable chaparral of scrub oak, buckthorn, greasewood, manzanita, and deer-brush, in which the wary deer have taken refuge. In and through these, guided sometimes by the tracks of the deer, or encouraged by the presence of such tracks even if he cannot follow them, up steep mountains, exposed to the heat of the sun, in dust, over rocks, and without water, toils the hunter, who accounts himself lucky if, by tramping scores of miles through this sort of impediment, he succeeds, after days of toil, in killing his deer. Perhaps he has been without fresh meat for a week or a fortnight, and often on short commons; is it to be wondered at that when a shot offers he avails himself of the opportunity even if it be a doe that he fires at? How can the deer withstand such concentration of fury?

Dr. Bartlett, Forest Supervisor of the Trabuco and San Jacinto Reserves, assured me that the number of licenses to hunt in those two reserves issued annually exceeded, in his opinion, the entire number of deer within their boundaries.

Everyone now is ready to admit that the extermination of the herd of buffalo in the seventies was permitted by a crude, short-sighted policy on our part as a nation, and should we of the early twentieth century allow the remaining deer, elk, mountain sheep, and antelope, the last of the great bears, and the innumerable small creatures of the wild, to be crowded off the face of the earth, we should be depriving our children and our children's children of a satisfaction and of a source of interest which they would keenly regret. It would be well if we bore in mind that we stand in a sort of fiduciary relation to the people who are to come after us, so far as the wild portion of our land is concerned, those few remote tracts still untarnished by man's craze to convert everything in the world, or beneath the surface of the earth, into dollars for his own immediate profit. He has the same short-sighted policy in his hunting. He is content to gratify the impulse of the hour without thought of those who are to spend their lives here when we have led our brief careers and have gone to a well merited oblivion, to reap our reward--

Heads without names, no more remembered.

Let us look this matter squarely in the face. We are the inheritors of these domains. It is one of the most precious assets of posterity. Here, year by year, in steadily increasing proportion, as wisdom more prevails, will men take comfort; and as the comprehension of nature's charms penetrates their minds will they find content. One chief satisfaction that every American feels from the mere fact of his nationality is the full assurance in his heart that any measure founded on sound reason and prompted by generous impulse will receive, if not immediate acceptance, at all events eventual recognition. In the end justice will prevail. Thus, in this matter before us, it will naturally take a few years for Congress to realize that a genuine demand exists for the creation of these refuges in every State, East as well as West, but the interest in wild creatures, and the desire for their protection, if not a clamorous demand, is one almost universally felt. All men, except a meager few of the dwarfed and strictly city-bred, partake of this, and it is so much a sign of the times that no Sunday edition is complete without its column devoted to wild creatures, their traits, their habits, or their eccentricities. One could hardly name, outside of money-making and politics, an interest which all men more generally share.

Every lad is a born naturalist, and the true wisdom, as all sensible people know, is to carry unfatigued through life the boy's power of enjoyment, his freshness of perception, his alertness and zest. Where the child's capacity for close observation survives into manhood, supplemented by man's power of sustained attention, we have the typical temperament of the lover of the woods, the mountains, and the wild--of the naturalist in the sense that Thoreau was a naturalist, and many another whose memory is cherished.

It is not impossible for a man to be deeply learned and still to lack the power of awakening enthusiasm in others; as a matter of fact, to be so heavily freighted with information that he forgets to nourish his own finer faculties, his intuition, his sympathy, and his insight. One must have lived for a time in the California mountains to realize how great is the service to the men of his own and to succeeding generations of him who more than any one else has illuminated the study of the Sierras and of all our forest-clad mountains, our glacier-formed hills, valleys and glades. Not by any means do all lovers of nature, however faithful their purpose, come to its study with the endowment of John Muir. In him we see the trained faculties of the close and accurate observer, joined to the temperament of the poet--the capacity to think, to see and to feel--and by the power of sustained and strong emotion to make us the sharers of his joy. The beauty and the majesty of the forest to him confer the same exaltation of mind, the same intellectual transport, which the trained musician feels when listening to the celestial harmonies of a great orchestra. In proportion as one conceives, or can imagine, the fineness of the musical endowment of a Bach or Beethoven, and in proportion as he can realize in his own mind the infinity of training and preparation which has contributed to the development of such a master musician--in such proportion may he comprehend and appreciate the unusual qualities and achievements of a man like Muir. He will realize to some degree--indistinctly to be sure, "seeing men as trees walking"--the infinity of nice and accurate observation, the discriminating choice of illustration, the infallible tact and unvarying sureness with which he holds our interest, and the dominant poetic insight into the nature of things, which are spread before the reader in lavish abundance, in Muir's two books, "The Mountains of California" and "Our National Parks." No other books, in this province, by living author offer to the reader so rich a feast. Recognizing the fine endowments of Thoreau, and how greatly all are his debtors, still we of this generation are lucky in having one greater than he among us, if wisdom of life and joyousness be the criterion of a sound and of a sane philosophy. The time will come when this will be generally recognized. The verdict of posterity is the right one, and the love of mankind is given throughout the centuries to the men of insight, who possess the rare mental endowment of sustained pleasure. Call it perpetual youth, or joyousness, or what you like, the fact remains that the power of sustained enthusiasm, lightness of heart and gaiety, with the faculty of communicating to others that state of mind, is not one of the commonest endowments of the human brain. It is one that confers great happiness to others, and one to whose possessor we are under great obligation. Compare the career of Thoreau, lonely, sad, and wedded to death--on the one hand, with that of Muir, on the other--a lover of his kind, healthful, inspiring to gaiety, superabounding in vitality. Naturalists of this type of mind, and so faithful in perfecting the talents entrusted to them, do not often appear in any age.

In the designations of refuges for deer, various questions are to be considered, such as abundance of food, proximity to water, suitable shelter, an exposure to their liking, for they may be permitted to have whims in a matter of this sort, just as fully as Indians or the residents of the city, when they deign to honor the country by their presence. The deer feel that they are entitled to a certain remote absence from molestation; moderate hunting will not entirely discourage them--a dash of excitement might prove rather entertaining to a young buck with a little recklessness in his temperament--but unless a deer be clad in bullet-proof boiler iron, there are ranges in the reserves of southern California where he would never dare to show his face during the open season--regular rifle ranges. Where very severely hunted, like the road agent, they "take to the brush," that is, hide in the chaparral. This is almost impenetrable. It is very largely composed of scrub oak, buckthorn, chámisal or greasewood, with a scattered growth of wild lilac, wild cherry, etc. So far as the deer make this their permanent home, there is no fear of their extermination. They may be hunted effectively only with the most extreme caution. Not one person in a thousand ever attains to the level of a still-hunter whose accomplishment guarantees him success under such conditions. There are men of this sort, but these are artists in their pursuit, whose attainments, like those of the professional generally, are beyond comparison with those of the ordinary amateur. To hunt successfully in the chaparral, requires a special genius. One must have exhaustless patience, tact trained by a lifetime of this sort of work, perseverance incapable of discouragement, the silence of an Indian, and in this phrase--when we are dealing with the skill of one who can make progress without sound through the tangles of the dry and stiff California chaparral--is involved an exercise of skill comparable only to the fineness of touch of a Joachim or a St. Gaudens. This sort of hunter marks one end of the scale of perfection; near the other and more familiar extreme is found the individual of whom this story is told. He was an Englishman and had just returned from a trip into the jungle of India after big game, where he was accompanied by a guide, most expert in his profession. One of the sportsman's friends asked this man how his employer shot while on the trip. His reply was a model of tact and concise statement: "He shot divinely, but God was very merciful to the animals."

He who reads this brief account may naturally ask: What were the practical results of your Western trip? Have you any ideas which may be of value in the solution of this problem of Game Refuges? My primary conception of the duties of a Game Expert, sent out by a Bureau of a United States Department, was to approach this entire subject without preconceived theories, with an open and unbiased mind; to see as many of the various reserves as possible, under the guidance of the best men to be had, and, increasing in this manner my knowledge by every available means, to reserve the period of general consideration and of specific recommendation until the whole preliminary reconnoissance should be accomplished. The thing of prime importance is that the game expert should see the reserves, and see them thoroughly. In a measure of such scope what we desire is a well thought-out plan, based on knowledge of the actual conditions, knowledge acquired in the field for the future use of him who has acquired it. No report can transfer to the mind of another an impression thus derived.

I had been but a short time engaged in this campaign of education before it seemed wise to abandon the limitations imposed by traveling in wagons; these held one to the valleys and to the dusty ways of men. After that emancipation I lived in the haunts of the deer, traveling with a pack train, and cruising in about the same altitude affected by that most thoroughbred of all the conifers, the sugar pine. Trust the genius of that tree, the pine, of all those that grow on any of the mountains of North America, of finest power, beauty, individuality, and distinction, to select the most attractive altitude for its home, the daintiest air, the air fullest of strong vitality and determination, whether man or deer is to participate in the virtues of the favored zone. Many a time I went far beyond the region of the sugar pine, and not infrequently cruised beneath its lower limits.

What that tree loves is a zone of about four thousand feet in width extending from three to seven thousand feet above the level of the sea. The upper reaches of this belt are where the deer range during the open season of the summer when they must be afforded protection. These were traversed with care, and seen with as much thoroughness as possible. More of the reserves might easily have been visited in other States, had I been content to do this in a sketchy and cursory manner, but my idea was to derive the greatest possible amount of instruction for a definite specific purpose, and it seemed to me for the accomplishment of this end to be essential that one should spend a sufficiently long time in each forest to receive a strong impression of its own peculiar and distinctive nature, to get an idea into one's head, which would stick, of its individuality, and, if I may say so, of its personal features and idiosyncrasies. Not until more than three months had been spent in the faithful execution of this plan was the problem studied from any other view than that refuges were to be created of considerable size, and that their lines of demarcation would naturally be formed by something easily grasped by the eye, either rivers or the crests of mountain ranges.

After the lapse of that time, looking at this from every point of view, it became my opinion that the ideal solution was the creation of many small refuges rather than the establishment of a few large ones. To be effective, the size of these ranges should not be less than ten miles square; if slightly larger, so much the better. Should, therefore, these be of about four townships each, the best results would be obtained. The bill for the creation of Game Refuges after it had passed the Senate, and as amended by the Committee on Public Lands of the House of Representatives, in the spring of 1903, read:

"The President of the United States is hereby authorized to designate such areas in the public Forest Reserves, _not exceeding one in each State or Territory_, as should, in his opinion, be set aside for the protection of game animals, birds, and fish, and be recognized as a breeding place therefor."

If this bill were to become law in its present form, the object for which it was created would be largely defeated. One may easily overlook the fact that an area corresponding to that of California would, on the Atlantic Coast, extend from Newport, R. I., to Charleston, S. C. It embraces communities and interests in many respects as widely separated as those of New England and the Atlantic Southern States. Were one Game Refuge only to be created in the State of California, unless it included practically the whole of the reserves south of Tehachapi, protection would not be afforded to the different species of large a constantly increasing population, and an ever-increasing interest in big-game hunting. The designation of one Game Refuge in the Sierra Reserve would practically not reduce the slaughter of deer in this whole vast region of southern California. Were the single Game Refuge, which might under the law be designated, to be placed in southern California, even although it embraced the entire area of the seven southern reserves, it would not aid to any great extent in preventing the extinction of game in the region of the Sierra Reserve, of the Stanislaus Reserve, or of the great reserves which are doubtless soon to be created in the northern half of the State. A bill so conceived would not fulfill the purpose of its creation.

There are just as cogent reasons of a positive nature why many small refuges are preferable to a few large ones. It is said that in the vicinity of George Vanderbilt's game preserves at Biltmore, North Carolina, deer, when started by dogs even fifteen or twenty miles away, will seek shelter within the limits of that protected forest, knowing perfectly well that once within its bounds they will not be disturbed. The same may be observed in the vicinity of the Yellowstone National Park; the bears, for instance, a canny folk, and shrewd to read the signs of the times, seem to be well aware that they are not to be disturbed near the hotels, and they show themselves at such places without fear; at the same time that outside the Park (and when the early snow is on the ground their tracks are often observed going both out and in) these same beasts are very shy indeed. The hunter soon discovers that it is with the greatest difficulty that one ever sees them at all outside of the bounds of the Park. Bears, as well as deer, adapt themselves to the exigencies of the situation; the grizzly, since the white man stole from him and the Indian the whole face of the earth, has become a night-ranging instead of a diurnal creature. The deer, we may safely rest assured, makes quite as close a study of humans as man does of the deer. It is a question of life and death with them that they should understand him and his methods. Both the deer and the hunters would profit by the widest possible distribution of these protected areas. Each section of the State is entitled to the benefit to be derived from their presence in its vicinity. Moreover, and I believe that this is a consideration of no slight moment, the creation of many small refuges, not too close together, would obviate one great difficulty which threatens to wreck the entire scheme. There have appeared signs of opposition in certain quarters to the creation in the various reserves of game refuges by Federal power on the ground that this would be to surrender to the Government at Washington authority which should be solely exercised by the State. In a certain sense it is the old issue of State rights. Where this feeling exists it is adhered to with extraordinary tenacity, and it is as catching as the measles; just so soon as one State takes this stand, another is liable to raise the same issue. They are jealous of any power except their own which would close from hunting to their citizens considerable portions of the forest reserves within the confines of the State. Their claim is that by an abuse of such delegated power, a President of the United States might, if so inclined, shut out the citizens from hunting at all in the forest reserves of their own State. This argument is not an easy one to wave aside. Should, however, the size of the individual refuges be limited to four townships each, and the minimum distance between such refuges be defined, one grave objection to these refuges would be overcome, and the citizens of the various States would cooperate with Federal authority to accomplish that which the sentiment at home in many instances is not at present sufficiently enlightened to demand, and which by reason of party differences the State legislatures are powerless to effect.

Having elaborated in one's mind the idea that a Game Refuge, in order to be a success, should be about ten or twelve miles square, the question arises, how near are these to be placed to one another? If they are established at the beginning, not less than twenty or twenty-five miles from each other, it seems to me that the exigencies of the situation would be met. It is not our purpose, in creating them, seriously to interfere with the privileges of hunters adjoining the forests where they are established. On the contrary, all that is wished is to preserve the present number of the deer, or to allow them slightly to increase. The system of game refuges of the size indicated, would, I believe, accomplish this end. In all probability, at the beginning of the open season, the deer would be distributed with a considerable degree of uniformity throughout the reserve, outside of the game refuges as well as within. They would go, of course, where the food and conditions suited them. As the hunting season opened, and the game, in a double sense, become more lively, the deer would naturally seek shelter where they could find it. Since this, with them, would be a question literally of vital interest, their education would progress rapidly, particularly that of the wary old bucks, experienced in danger which they had survived in the past simply because their bump of caution was well developed, these would soon realize that they were safe within the bounds of a certain tract--that there the sound of the rifle was never heard, that there far less frequently they ran across the hateful scent of their enemies, and for some mysterious reason were left to their own devices. When once this idea has found firm lodgment in the head of an astute deer, the very first thing that he will do will be to get into an asylum of this sort, and to stay there; if he has any business to transact beyond its boundaries, exactly as an Indian would do in similar circumstances, he will delegate the same to a young buck who is on his promotion, and has his reputation to make, and who possesses the untarnished courage of ignorance and youth. It seems to me that this system of small refuges would have the merit of fairness both to the hunters and to the deer, and it is respectfully submitted to the legislators of the United States. This may seem one of the simplest of solutions, and hardly worth a summer's cruise to discover. It may prove that this is not the first occasion when the simplest solution is the best. Because a thing is simple it is not always the case, however, that it finds the most ready acceptance. If, in my humble capacity of public service, I am the indirect means of this being accomplished, I shall feel that my summer's work was not altogether in vain.

_Alden Sampson_.

Temiskaming Moose

The accompanying photographs of moose were taken about the middle of July, 1902, on the Montreal river, which flows from the Ontario side into Lake Temiskaming.

A number of snap shots were obtained during the three days' stay in this vicinity, but the others were at longer range and the animals appear very small in the negative.

As is well known, during the hot summer months the moose are often to be found feeding on the lily pads or cooling themselves in the water, being driven from the bush where there are heat, mosquitoes and flies.

Not having been shot at nor hunted, all the moose at this time seemed rather easy to approach. Two of these pictures are of one bull, and the other two of one cow, the two animals taken on different occasions. I got three snaps of each before they were too far away. When first sighted, each was standing nibbling at the lily pads, and the final spurt in the canoe was made in each case while the animal stood with head clear under the water, feeding at the bottom. The distance of each of the first photographs taken was from 45 to 55 feet.

_Paul J. Dashiell._

Two Trophies from India

In the early part of March, 1898, my friend, Mr. E. Townsend Irvin, and I arrived at the bungalow of Mr. Younghusband, who was Commissioner of the Province of Raipur, in Central India. Mr. Younghusband very kindly gave us a letter to his neighbor, the Rajah of Kahrigur, who furnished us with shikaris, beaters, bullock carts, two ponies and an elephant. We had varied success the first three weeks, killing a bear, several nilghai, wild boar and deer.

One afternoon our beaters stationed themselves on three sides of a rocky hill and my friend and I were placed at the open end some two hundred yards apart. The beaters had hardly begun to beat their tom toms and yell, when a roar came from the brow of the hill, and presently a large tiger came out from some bushes at the foot. He came cantering along in a clumsy fashion over an open space, affording us an excellent shot, and when he was broadside on we both fired, breaking his back. He could not move his hind legs, but stood up on his front paws. Approaching closer, we shot him in a vital spot.

The natives consider the death of a tiger cause for general rejoicing, and forming a triumphal procession amid a turmoil such as only Indian beaters can make, they carried the dead tiger to camp.

One morning word was brought to our camp, at a place called Bernara, that a tiger had killed a buffalo, some seven miles away. The natives had built a bamboo platform, called _machan_, in a tree by the kill, and we stationed ourselves on this in the late afternoon. Contrary to custom, the tiger did not come back to his kill until after the sun had set. The night was cloudy and very dark, and although several times we distinctly heard the tiger eating the buffalo, we could not see it. At about midnight we were extremely stiff, and not hearing any sound, we returned to our temporary camp; but on the advice of an old shikari I returned with him to the _machan_ to wait until daylight. Being tired, I fell asleep, but an hour before dawn the Hindu woke me, as the clouds had cleared away and the moon was shining brightly. I heard a munching sound, and could dimly discern a yellow form by the buffalo, and taking a long aim I fired both barrels of my rifle. I heard nothing except the scuttling off of the hyenas and jackals that had been attracted by the dead buffalo, so I slept again until daylight, when, to my surprise, I saw a dead leopard by the buffalo. He had come to the kill after the tiger had finished his meal.

_John H. Prentice_.

Big-Game Refuges

Since the inception of the Boone and Crockett Club its plans and purposes have changed not a little. Originally organized for social purposes, for the encouragement of big-game hunting, and the procuring of the most effective weapons with which to secure the game, it has, little by little, come to be devoted to the broader object of benefiting this and succeeding generations by preserving a stock of large game. It is still made up of enthusiastic riflemen, and their love of the chase has not abated. But, since the Club's formation, an astonishing change has come over natural conditions in the United States--a change which, fifteen or twenty years ago, could not have been foreseen. The extraordinary development of the whole Western country, with the inevitable contraction of the range of all big game, and the absolute reduction in the numbers of the game consequent on its destruction by skin hunters, head hunters and tooth hunters, has obliged the Boone and Crockett Club, in absolute self-defense, and in the hope that its efforts may save some of the species threatened with extinction, to turn its attention more and more to game protection.

The Club was established in 1888. The buffalo had already been swept away. Since that date two species of elk have practically disappeared from the land, one being still represented by a few individuals which for some years have been preserved from destruction by a California cattle company; the other, found only in the Southwest, in territory now included within the Black Mesa forest reservation, may be, perhaps, without a single living representative. Over a vast extent of the territory which the antelope once inhabited, it has ceased to exist; and so speedy and so wholesale has been its disappearance that most of the Western States, slow as they always are to interfere with the privileges of their citizens to kill and destroy at will, have passed laws either wholly protecting it or, at least, limiting the number to be killed in a season to one, two or three. In 1888 no one could have conceived that the diminution of the native large game of America would be what it has proved to be within the past fifteen years.

That the game stock may re-establish itself in certain localities, the Club has advocated the establishment in the various forest reserves of game refuges, where absolutely no hunting shall be permitted.

Through the influence of William Hallett Phillips, a deceased member of the Club, a few lines inserted in an act passed by Congress March 3, 1891, permitted the establishment of forest reserves, and Hon. John W. Noble, then Secretary of the Interior, at once recommended the application of the law to a number of forest tracts, which were forthwith set aside by Presidential proclamation. Since then, more and more forest reserves have been created, and, thanks to the wisdom and courage of the Chief Magistrates of the Nation within the past twelve years, we now have more than sixty millions of acres of such reservations. These consist largely of rough, timbered mountain lands, unfit for cultivation or settlement. They are of enormous value to the arid West, as affording an unfailing water supply to much of that region, and in a less degree they are valuable as timber reserves, from which hereafter may be harvested crops which will greatly benefit the country adjacent to them.

In the first volume of the Boone and Crockett Club Books, it was said: "In these reservations is to be found to-day every species of large game known to the United States, and the proper protection of the reservations means the perpetuating in full supply of all these indigenous mammals. If this care is provided, no species of American large game need ever become absolutely extinct; and intelligent effort for game protection may well be directed toward securing, through national legislation, the policing of forest preserves by timber and game wardens."--American Big Game Hunting, p. 330.

When these lines were written, Congressional action in this direction was hoped for at an early day; but, except in the case of the Yellowstone National Park, such action has not been taken. Meantime, hunting in these forest reserves has gone on. In some of them game has been almost exterminated. Two little bunches of buffalo which then had their range within the reserves have been swept out of existence.

It is obvious that effectively to protect the big game at large there must be localities where hunting shall be absolutely forbidden. That any species of big game will rapidly increase if absolutely protected is perfectly well known; and in the Yellowstone Park we have ever before us an object lesson, which shows precisely what effective protection of game can do.

It is little more than twenty years since the first efforts were made to prevent the killing of game within that National Reservation, and only about ten years since Congress provided an effective method for preventing such killing. He must be dull indeed who does not realize what that game refuge has done for a great territory, and of how much actual money value its protection has been to the adjoining States of Montana and Idaho, and especially of Wyoming. The visit of President Roosevelt to the National Park last spring made these conditions plain to the whole nation. At that time every newspaper in the land gave long accounts of what the President saw and did there, and told of the hordes of game that he viewed and counted. He saw nothing that he had not before known of, nothing that was not well known to all the members of the Boone and Crockett Club; but it was largely through the President's visit, and the accounts of what he saw in the Yellowstone Park, that the public has come to know what rigid protection can do and has done for our great game.

Since such a refuge can bring about such results, it is high time that we had more of these refuges, in order that like results may follow in different sections of the West, and for different species of wild game; as well for the benefit of other localities and their residents, as for that wider public which will hereafter visit them in ever increasing numbers.

A bill introduced at the last session of Congress authorized the President, when in his judgment it should seem desirable, to set aside portions of forest reserves as game refuges, where no hunting should be allowed. The bill passed the Senate, but failed in the House, largely through lack of time, yet some opposition was manifested to it by members of Congress from the States in which the forest reserves are located, who seemed to feel that such a law would in some way abridge the rights and privileges of their constituents. This is a narrow view, and one not justified by the experience of persons dwelling in the vicinity of the Yellowstone National Park.

If such members of Congress will consider, for example, the effect on the State of Wyoming, of the protection of the Yellowstone Park, it seems impossible to believe that they will oppose the measure. Each non-resident sportsman going into Wyoming to hunt the game--much of which spends the summer in the Yellowstone Park, and each autumn overflows into the adjacent territory--pays to the State the sum of forty dollars, and is obliged by law to hire a guide, for whose license he must pay ten dollars additional; besides that, he hires guides, saddle and pack animals, pays railroad and stage fare, and purchases provisions to last him for his hunt. In other words, at a modest calculation, each man who spends from two weeks to a month hunting in Wyoming pays to the State and its citizens not less than one hundred and fifty dollars. Statistics as to the number of hunters who visit Wyoming are not accessible; but if we assume that they are only two hundred in number, this means an actual contribution to the State of thirty thousand dollars in cash. Besides this, the protection of the game in such a refuge insures a never-failing supply of meat to the settlers living in the adjacent country, and offers them work for themselves and their horses at a time when, ranch work for the season being over, they have no paying occupation.

The value of a few skins taken by local hunters is very inconsiderable when compared with such a substantial inflow of actual cash to the State and the residents of the territory neighboring to such a refuge. Moreover, it must be remembered that, failing to put in operation some plan of this kind, which shall absolutely protect the game and enable it to re-establish itself, the supply of meat and skins, now naturally enough regarded as their own peculiar possession by the settlers living where such a refuge might be established, will inevitably grow less and less as time goes on; and, as it grows less, the contributions to State and local resources from the non-resident tax will also grow less. Thirty years ago the buffalo skinner declared that the millions of buffalo could never be exterminated; yet the buffalo disappeared, and after them one species of big game after another vanished over much of the country. The future can be judged only by the past. Thirty years ago there were elk all over the plains, from the Missouri River westward to the Rocky Mountains; now there are no elk on the plains, and, except in winter, when driven down from their summer range by the snows, they are found only in the timbered mountains. What has been so thoroughly accomplished will be sure to continue; and, unless the suggested refuges shall be established, there will soon be no game to protect--a real loss to the country.

It has long been customary for Western men of a certain type to say that Eastern sportsmen are trying to protect the game in order that they themselves may kill it, the implication being that they wish to take it away from those living near it, and who presumably have the greatest right to it. Talk of this kind has no foundation in fact, as is shown by the laws passed by the Western States, which often demand heavy license fees from non-residents, and hedge about their hunting with other restrictions. Many Eastern sportsmen desire to preserve the game, not especially that they themselves may kill it, but that it shall be preserved; if they desire to kill this game they must and do comply with the laws established by the different States, and pay the license fees.

A fundamental reason for the protection of game, and so for the establishment of such game refuges, was given by President Roosevelt in a speech made to the Club in the winter of 1903, when he expressed the opinion that it was the duty of the Government to establish these refuges and preserves for the benefit of the poor man, the man in moderate circumstances. The very rich, who are able to buy land, may establish and care for preserves of their own, but this is beyond the means of the man of moderate means; and, unless the State and Federal Governments establish such reservations, a time is at hand when the poor man will have no place to go where he can find game to hunt. The establishment of such refuges is for the benefit of the whole public--not for any class--and is therefore a thoroughly democratic proposition.

There is no question as to the right of Congress to enact laws governing the killing of game on the public domain, or within a forest reserve where this domain lies within the boundaries of a Territory. Moreover, it has been determined by the courts and otherwise that within a State the Federal Government has, on a forest reserve, all the rights of an individual proprietor, "supplemented with the power to make and enforce its own laws for the assertion of those rights, and for the disposal and full and complete management, control and protection of its lands."

In January, 1902, the Hon. John F. Lacey, of Iowa, a member of this Club, whose efforts in behalf of game protection are generally recognized, and whose name is attached to the well-known Lacey Law, received from Attorney-General Knox an opinion indicating that there is reasonable ground for the view that the Government may legislate for the protection of game on the forest reserves, whether these forest reserves lie within the Territories or within the States. From this opinion the following paragraphs are taken:

"While Congress certainly may by law prohibit and punish the entry upon or use of any part of those forest reserves for the purpose of the killing, capture or pursuit of game, this would not be sufficient. There are many persons now on those reserves by authority of law, and people are expressly authorized to go there, and it would be necessary to go further and to prohibit the killing, capture or pursuit of game, even though the entry upon the reserve is not for that purpose. But, the right to forbid intrusion for the purpose of killing, _per se_, and without reference to any trespass on the property, is another. The first may be forbidden as a trespass and for the protection of the property; but when a person is lawfully there and not a trespasser or intruder, the question is different.

"But I am decidedly of opinion that Congress may forbid and punish the killing of game on these reserves, no matter that the slayer is lawfully there and is not a trespasser. If Congress may prohibit the use of these reserves for any purpose, it may for another; and while Congress permits persons to be there upon and use them for various purposes, it may fix limits to such use and occupation, and prescribe the purpose and objects for which they shall not be used, as for the killing, capture or pursuit of specified kinds of game. Generally, any private owner may forbid, upon his own land, any act that he chooses, although the act may be lawful in itself; and certainly Congress, invested also with legislative power, may do the same thing, just as it may prohibit the sale of intoxicating liquors, though such sale is otherwise lawful.

"After considerable attention to the whole subject, I have no hesitation in expressing my opinion that Congress has ample power to forbid and punish any and all kinds of trespass, upon or injury to, the forest reserves, including the trespass of entering upon or using them for the killing, capture or pursuit of game.

"The exercise of these powers would not conflict with any State authority. Most of the States have laws forbidding the killing, capture or pursuit of different kinds of game during specified portions of the year. This makes such killing, etc., lawful at other times, but only lawful because not made unlawful. And it is lawful only when the State has power to make it lawful, by either implication or direct enactment. But, except in those cases already referred to, such as eminent domain, service of process, etc., no State has power to authorize or make lawful a trespass upon private property. So that, though Congress should prohibit such killing, etc., upon its own lands, at all seasons of the year, this would not conflict with any State authority or control. That the preservation of game is part of the public policy of those States, and for the benefit of their own people, is shown by their own legislation, and they cannot complain if Congress upon its own lands goes even further in that direction than the State, so long as the open season of the State law is not interfered with in any place where such law is paramount.

"It has always been the policy of the Government to invite and induce the purchase and settlement of its public lands; and as the existence of game thereon and in their localities adds to the desirability of the lands, and is a well-known inducement to their purchase, it may well be considered whether, for this purpose alone, and without reference to the protection of the lands from trespass, Congress may not, on its own lands, prohibit the killing of such game."

In this opinion the Attorney-General further calls attention to the difficulties of enforcing the State law, and suggests that it might be well to give marshals and their deputies, and the superintendents, supervisors, rangers, and other persons charged with the protection of these forest reserves, power on the public lands, in certain cases approaching "hot pursuit," to arrest without warrant. All who are familiar with the conditions in the more sparsely settled States will recognize the importance of some such provision. A matter of equal importance, though as yet not generally recognized, is that of providing funds for the expenses of forest officers making arrests. It is often the fact that no justice of the peace resides within fifty or a hundred miles of the place where the violation of the law occurs. The ranger making the arrest is obliged to transport his prisoner for this distance, and to provide him with transportation, food and lodging during the journey and during the time that he may be obliged to wait before bringing the prisoner arrested before a proper court. This may often amount to more than the penalty, even if the officer making the arrest secures a conviction; but, on the other hand, the individual arrested may not be able to pay his fine, and may have to go to jail. In this case the officer making the arrest is out of pocket just so much. Under such circumstances, it is evident that few officers can afford to take the risk of losing this time and money.