The copper country evening news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 18??-1907, 1897-07-28
HUNTING WILD HORSES
Queer Fun For the Cowboy sportsmen 7,
Southern Utah.

Queer Fun For the Cowboy sportsme, T..
Southern Utah.
lyon may talk about huntipg doou
and elk or mountain goats, but for real
sport horse hunting is destined 70 lov
all such shooting in the shade in tho
near future. -
This remark was made by b. T
Saunders, one Of the cattle kings of
Utah. MI Saunders each year sells
about 2, 800 head OF cattle to Montapa
stockmen.
In the Rocky mountain ranges tbero
are now roaming about fully 2, O00. O0o
horses that may be said to belong to no
one. The range horse has become So
worthless and such a drug on the mar.
ket that for several years past stockmep
have not branded the young horses
growing up The horses on the plains
now are about one-half without brands
and are relapsed into perfectly wild
state.
Down in the southern part of Utah
where my cattle range all the wear
boys are shooting these wild horses
whenever they get chance. This prac-
tice, of course, makes those horses that
escape wilder than ever, and it is only
now and then that band of horses can
be approached near enough to get shot
at them There is no danger of any one
being injured by this sport, as the
horses are nuisance, and all cattlemen
wish to see them exterminated. Manv
cattlemen themselves own bands Of
horses that are running wild, and when
they go ont TO round them up it is not
as OF old to brand, but 10 shoot them.
I'm the Rocky mountain ranges in
Montana, Utah, Nevada and elsewhere
it is now generally acknowledged that
range horses are public nuisance and
they ought to be exterminated. They
eat up the grass needed for cattle. and
they are as hard on a range as sheen.
The horses eat grass right down to the
roots, thus i'll dry weather completely
destroying the range they Craze over.
There was time not many years
ago when big band of horses was con-
sidered very valuable property and
guarded carefully. A horse thief was
considered on the range one degree
worse than murderer and was hanged
sometimes on very slight evidence.
"A man who would now go out on
the range and steal few bands of
horses would be allowed to ship them
away and be hailed as public benefac-
tor. Around his neck, instead of a rope,
would be thrown wreaths of flowers,
and all men would praise him as
philanthropist of very high order.
1T is fact that any one who wished
could round up all the horses he could
find in almost any section of the Rocky
mountain range and no one would ques-
ton his right. The day of the range
horse is past, and it will never come
again. The time is coming, in my mind,
when the horse, like the buffalo, will
be in danger of becoming extinct
don you know that in recent years
the railroads compel a shipper to prepay
freight on horses, which is the only sort
Of live stock where such rule applies
1.-THE sport of hunting horses is en-
couraged by stockmen and can be in
dulged in with impunity 1t is destined,
l think, TO become very popular, as it is
exciting and somewhat dangerous.
"The proposition Of canning horse
meat for the European market was
thought at one time to be way of util-
izing the range horse TO advantage, but
that is evidently a failure. 1t was talked
of for some time but nothing more is
heard of it. The only way can see of
getting rid Of horses is to make the sport
of shooting them popular. as believe it
is destined to become.
''Of course dead horse is no good,
but thousands of buffaloes were killed
for the sport there was hunting them,
so why not horses?"-Butte Miner.