The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1903-04-12
Discussion Of the
Race Proposition

give summer and winter range for all
the species of great game indigenous to
another continent. The abundance
the tameness. and the rapid increase
OF game in the Yellowstone park fur
nishes perpetual argument in favor of
| establishing in all our forest reserva-
lions refugees where game should be
absolutely safe from pursuit by man.
| and where, if protected from that pur-
suit, they would increase with marvel
| GUS rapidity; and, as they increased,
| would overflow into the surrounding
| country and furnish hunting to Amer
| lean rit1emen for all time to come.
| II the facts as to the increase and
| tameness of the game in the Yellow
| stone park are not convincing, many
| similar examples might be cited of the
| rapidity with which large mammals,
| even though slow breeders, increase
| when not pursued by man.
| An example of this only a few weeks
| ago was cited in the rapidity with
| which the horse, a large mammal,
| without natural enemies, increased
| during the first two and a half CEN
| turtles of existence on this continent.
| spreading as it did over almost all por-
| lions of North and South America
} that were best adapted to its mode Of
| life. On many of the islands of the
| western and Southern seas, fur seals
| formerly occurred in numbers too vast
Iof estimate; but as soon as the de-
| Stroyer man got among them he slew
| them in so wholesale a manner that
| from most of their haunts they soon
| disappeared. In a few places. how
! ever, their taking, being a measure
| regulated by the government owning
| the islands, they have continued to ex-
| list In numbers almost as large as ever:
| so long as only the surplus nOn-breed-
| ing seals are killed the supply always
| kept up. At the time Of the transfer
| of the Pribilof islands from Russia to
| the United States, there was a short
period when there was no law enforc-
| ed, and during this time there was
| rush OF hunters there, which, If they
had not fought among themselves.
would have resulted in the extinction
! of the fur seals there. As 1t was, they
were killed down very low; yet after a
few years of protection they became
once more as numerous as ever. Other
cases have occurred where the seals
have apparently all been killed off
from some hauling ground that once
contained great numbers, which has
therefore been deserted by sealers for
a number of years; and later visitors
have found that some small surviving
remnant being .undsturbed have so
greatly increased as once more to fur
nish large catches of skins.
In certain restricted localities in
South Africa, even the greatest of
mammals has shown what protection
will do for it. South of the Zambesi
and Cunene rivers the African ele-
plant is practically extinct. Ivory
hunters, the natives, and cold blooded
butchers, who loved to slaughter the
vast brutes, have swept that country,
in which they once abounded, abso-
lutely bare of these great beasts. But
about the year 1880 the British govern
ment prohibited the killing of wild ele-
phs.nts in Cape Colony.
There is no known animal against
whose increase and survival so much
| might be urged as the elephant. It's
| vast bulk, the length of time that it
| carries it's young, and the fact that it
| produces but single offspring at
| birth, would lead US to imagine that
| this was one animal that it was hope
less to try to protect. Nevertheless, in
Cape Colony, in the great forests which