The Wolf Point herald. (Wolf Point, Mont.) 1913-1940, 1920-09-16
STATEMENT BY STATE
GAME WARDEN DEHART

For some months past the good
people of Montana have become
more or less interested in the results
that have been obtained in the in
discriminate use of gopher poison by
the distribution of grain soaked in
~strychnine and then distributed by
the process of placing boys of 10 to
IA years Of age upon the gentle pony
usually found about the farm home,
and with a couple of nose bays hung
upon either side of the pony, the boy
receives instructions to ride about
the farm and pr~omiscuously throw
the poisoned grain for the rodent
family's use only, using the wireless,
no doubt, to notify the %feathered
family to keep hands off.
eff l am correctly informed this
criminal practice was first introduce
ed in the valley of the Little Horn
in Carbon county, Montana. The
agent who was engaged in the work
of destroying the rodent family by
this method visited me, after spend
ing much time in his supposedly law
full and laudable undertaking, and l
discussed with him the results OBJ
tanned. While we failed to agree fully
as to the best results that may have
been secured, the agent did acknowl-
edge to me that he had undoubtedly
destroyed many horned owls and
magpies, since which time 1 have had
the leaSure of visiting the above
mentioned section of Montana, and
I find hat what was formerly rec
ognized as the greatest upland game
bird section in eastern Montana, has,
since the introduction of the gopher
poisoning crusade, become a blank,
as the grouse family has disappear
ed from the face of the earth there.
Kill Many Grouse
81 have also visited recently in
Sheridan county, and I am advised
upon good authority that during the
season of 1918, when the honest,
horny-handed son of toll was busily
engaged in breaking the virgin soil,
preparatory to planting his crop, the !
younger members of the family were |
engaged in following the plowman, {
the poisoned grain for the s
consumption of the rodent family '
only, but upon the following morning Y
could be found the mother q
grouse and as many as a dozen small
grouse dead in the last furrow turn b
ID by the man behind the pillow the t
previous day. 7
Dozens of instances of this char p
Lcter may be found, and many cases I
where coyotes had carried the pois- 4
1ned birds to their dens and fed the il
young, a family of five or six young c
would be found dead about the S
home. This was common throughout v
his section of the state. t
Kill Domestic Birds F
"Come with me, if you please, to t
he Gallatin valley and inquire of our d
lear old friend Karst, who has been b
in the mercantile business
md caring for the traveller along the f
vest Gallatin for many years, how a
many domestic fowls he lost (by &C Il
.ident purely, when filling receipt Il
.cles with this carefully prepared l
Ioisoned grain, plainly marked "for c.
odents only" A small quantity of II
he poisoned grain was scattered up U
the ground and later cared for by 81
drs. Karst's carefully raised domes- le
ic fowls, and only rs or 80 were s
,illed at n time, yet we are inform d
ID that the poisoned grain will not 0
10 harm to the feathered family. Il
my " personal observations a.
lave been, when driving through the RI
where the use of poisoned n
rain had been INDUCED In, that in tt
distance of 100 miles where or O
robins and meadow larks a
ould be found abundantly, 1 was not a.
BILE to find a half dozen birds all
old. b.
In Northern Montana u
Permit me to ask you to come d.
nth me to northern Montana, where fl