The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-09-25
HUNTING WITH CAMERA George Shiras, It's Inventor, Has Adventures Back from
 Ear Northwest Tells of Habits of Various Wild AnimalS-His Sue
 cess As a Hunter
Seattle Post-InteIligencer)

| the Northwestern from a successful
 expedition to the Kenai peninsula. MT. Shiras brought back some won- | derful pictures of the giant moose of i Alaska and of the white mountain sheep, the Ovis Dalli, found only in l the Northland. The moose pictures l complete a set which MT. Shiras be-
 gan years ago and which took him l to the woods of Maine, New Bruns-
 wick, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Min 1 nesota, Idaho and Wyoming.
 i Mr., Shiras is at the Washington An- 1 neX; where he will remain until Sun-
 day, when he will leave for his sum-
 mer home at Marquette, Mich.
 More than twenty years ago MT.
 Shiras gave up his rifle for the cam 1 era. Now he looks upon his shy 1 friends of the wilderness and of the stream as subjects for pictures and
 not for the slaughter of the trophy | hunter.
 He brought back with him a large l collection of pictures of which sheep, l distinct species found only in Alas l ka Incidentally, he added largely to
 his collection of otter, porcupine, mar mots and of many birds, such as the | Arctic tern, shags, gulls, eagles, will 1 low and rock ptarmigan, spruce grouse | and ducks.
 MT. Shiras went to Alaska during I the first week in July and visited that | part of the Northern district lying | thirty miles back of Seward and along the Kenai and Skilac lakes.
 After studying and photographing the giant moose for more than a | month MT. Shiras went back of Skilac lake twelve miles, on one of the high est ranges of mountains and camped ten days above the timber line where only willow twigs could be found for fire.
 On this range he found sheep in abundance. He saw 500 white sheep and with the use of telephoto camera and of shorter range instruments he secured pictures of more than 200 diff ferent sheep Some of the sheep were stalked with infinite pains and photo
 graphed at a distance of twenty-five feet. By using powerful field glasses and observing their movements al
 most continuously for fourteen hours a day, it was possible for MT. Shiras to learn a great deal about the feed-
 ing habits and the range of this anil mal Naturalists and hunters have contended that the sense of smell is not highly developed in the mountain sheep for the reason that 1t has long depended upon it's keen vision to warn it of the approach of danger. MT. shiras established the fact that the sheep could scent a man at a distance of 400 yards, while it could see a man at two and a half miles. He noted with interest the manner of the rams in signaling danger to the flock.
 MT Shiras located two moose Hcks on Renal Lake, where the moose came down to drink the mineral water and to lap the salt and the iron. He also located an other lick on the, Copper River, back of Cordova, which show ed evidence of having been frequent ed by sheep for hundreds of years. The samples of water will be analyz- ed for the purpose of ascertaining what mineral appeals so strongly to the shy mountain animals.
 Mr. Shiras failed to get any bear pictures. He came upon bear trails along rivers, which indicated that he was four or five days too late.
 The long experience of MT. Shiras in the wilderness has led him to the conclusion that the savage beasts" written of by the nature takers are mostly mythical.
 .'The almost daily reports of the man chasing and devouring wolf, the fierce lynx, the savage bear, the terrible cougar and the 'revengefuP bull moose excite wonderment," said MT. Shiras, "but in my humble judg- ment all such blood curdling attributes are unfounded and mendacious in nearly every particular.
 After a personal experience of more than thirty-five years in the Ameri- can wilderness, from the Gulf of Mex ico to the Hudson Bay water and to Alaska, and especially throughout the range of those particular animals, I think it would be safe to say that more persons are injured or killed through the attacks of domestic anil mals or wild animals in confinement in a single season than by all the wild animals of the forest in the last fifty years. : ..True it is that the grizzly bear, badly wounded or defending it's young may occasionally show fight, but the old day when the powerful animal voluntarily stood it's ground is gone forever, at least in every district where the repeating rifle has taught the lesson of mans Overpowering mas tery.
 ''The pestiferous mosquito or black fly may force the bravest hunter into a rapid retreat, but no man need ever hesitate to go voluntarily and unarmed into any so-called wilderness resorts of his country through fear of menacing beasts.
 'tThe nose dangerous the supposed traits of any particular animals, the more the certainty of it being the one nov most fearful of mans pres ence, whatever may be it's attitude toward the other animals of the forest. | To this one fact alone does this pre- .daceous quadruped now owe it's exist | ence, for were it to meet instead of retreat from the man with the gun, l the end would long ago have been reached.'
 MT. Shiras has shown by his work | that better information may be ob- | tained and more accurate conclusions | can be reached with one season of | camera hunting and with opportunity | to study at close range than will ever be reached where the crack of the l rifle almost invariably follows the ap- pearance of wild game.
 So conscientious is Mr. Shiras in his big game pictures that he would | never include in his collection the | bear in Yellowstone Park, which daily | feed On the scraps from the hotels. | Several years ago a magazine carried | ar interesting story of flashlighting l bear The pictures were taken of the l Yellowstone Park bear under condi- | tions which showed the primal forest | in the background
 Nr. Shiras says that this was nature | faking of the most deceptive kind l for the reason that the Yellowstonel Park bear are semi-domesticated and | are so accustomed to the presence of l man that one may approach within | a few feet without soaring them off.
 T desired to show the park bear as the nature fakers did not show them, surrounded by garbage cans and scraps from the hotel" said Mr. Shiras. 'I set up a moving picture machine near group of the animals | which were feeding near one of the l hotels. Several of the bear acting on