The circle banner. [volume] (Circle, Mont.) 1914-1939, 1920-09-17
STATEMENT BY STATE
GAME WARDEN DEHART

For some months past the goo6
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 couple of nose bays hung
upon either side of the pony, the boy
receives instructions to ride about
the farm and promiscuously 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 I 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 laudab1e 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 have had
the leasure of visiting the above |
mentioned section of Montana, and |
I find that 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
II have also visited recently In
Sheridan county, and 1 am advised
upon good authority that during the
season of 1918, when the honest,
horny-handed son of toll was busily j
engaged in breaking the virgin soil,
to planting his crop, the
younger members of the family were /
engaged in following the plowman, L
sowing the poisoned grain for the s
of the rodent family '
only, but upon the following morning V
there could be found the mother Q
grouse and as many as dozen small b
grouse dead in the last furrow turn
I'd by the man behind the pillow the ! t
day.
Dozens of instances of this char p
lcter may be found, and many cases I
where coyotes had carried the pois- n
med birds to their dens and fed the il
-oung, family of five or six young C
tiers would be found dead about the 8
home. This was common throughout v
his section of the state. t.
Kill Domestic Birds P
Come with me, if you please, to Il
he Gallatin valley and inquire of our d.
ear old friend Karst, who has been bi
ngaged in the mercantile business
nd caring for the traveller along the fo
rest Gallatin for many years, how al
lany domestic fowls he lost (by ac- til
ident purely, when filling receipt tn
cles with this carefully prepared II
oisoned grain, plainly marked "for ce
,dents only" A small quantity of liz
lie poisoned grain was scattered up Vi
q the ground and later cared for by so
rs. Karst's carefully raised domes- LEI
C fowls, and only % or 80 we're st
lied at one time, yet we are inform do
that the poisoned grain will not 90
, harm to the feathered family. tn
"My own personal observations az
i've been, when driving through the re
'untry, where the use of poisoned m,
ain had been INDUCED in, that in trt
distance of 100 miles where or 90
narily robins and meadow larks an
uld be found abundantly, / was not an
lie to find a half dozen birds all
Id. biz
In Northern Montana up
Permit me to ask you to come da
til me to northern Montana, where foe