Norwich bulletin., 1920-02-06
IN THE DAYS NEWS
Saving the Elks

"A tragedy that all lovers of wild l life, big game, and noble animals have feared for years now is being enact 1 ed" says a bulletin from the Wash l ington headquarters of the National Geographic society.
 ssTFhe American elk is being driven from his last stronghold in Yellow stone National Park. at the top of the l United States and faces slaughter, ! lands to the north and south of the park Horace M. Albright, superin- | tendent of Yellowstone National Park, I who is keenly alive to the great dan
 ger furnished the material for this bulletin.
 "The menace to the elk arises be- i cause of the unprecedented early win 1 ter this year. On October P occurred 1 the worst snow storm Yellowstone Park has known since one far later | in the; season, in January 1891. The l elks existence depends upon his free l dom to wander from the highland snows to the shelter mad forage of 1 the valleys below. The early blizzard 1 drove him outside the protection or | the national reservation into the midst I of the open season for hunting in the
 two adjacent states.
 1 The southern herds followed the | rivers which flow out of Yellowstone 1 in all directions, to the Jackson Hole 1 country, once the haunt of bandits l and cattle thieves, where human life now is safe but where this self-same 1 influx of civilization spells death for i the elk. The northern herds descend ed into Montana borderlands where 1 settlements have flung wild animal 1 barrier across the edge of the park. l Wholesale shooting of the elk was 1 tie first consequence. Much of this
 shooting, according to reports re- 1 ceived in Washington. did little credit to sportsmanship. Marksmen did not trouble to follow and capture animals i they had wounded. Their sheltered 1 life in the national reservation has made the elk tame; and they wandered into many backyard to find unex- pected enemies. It is estimated that l between 5000 and 10000 elk have al- l ready been killed off.
 'fBut this shooting did not mark the 1 climax of the tragedy. AS noted, the i settlements have cut off the grazing | lands. There is some provision for the southern herds, thouPh woefully ] inadequate, but practically none for
 the northern herds.
 1 "The protection afforded the elk l which strayed into Wyoming is that of l the state game preserves, known as l the Hoodoo, Shoshone and Teton. 1 Further protection is that afforded in l a limited way by the Winter Elk Re l fuge at Jackson, Wyoming, founded I by the Biological Survey. There hay 1 is raised for feeding the elk, but far 1 from enough is on hand for the feed T ing of the thousands forced out of
 the reservations. by the early winter.
 These efforts have a three fold ob- I jective. The first looks toward the ! nn1I nf thn | about the Teton Range and the head 1 waters of the Y Yellowstone, an area of 1 some 1900 square miles. in Yellow
 stone park. Incidentally the haven
 afforded for the elk is but one argu- ment for this addition to the park
 region south of Yellowstone to be a l land of natural beauty and more rug
 ged scenery than the marvellous won-
 ders of the Yellowstone itself.
 "An effort is being made to enlarge
 the elk refuge, so that when the an-
 mals are driven even farther south
 thman the park addition would extend l they still may be cared for despite the
 eErcroaching settlements. A third line
 of effort looks toward a similar farm
 in Montana. Agitation for more
 stringent state game laws, which would include protection of females ) marks another possible phase of tht movement.
 "Ouce the elk was the widest rang CT among the American hoofed game animals. From Canada to points neal what now is the Mexican border, anC from the eastern seaboard to the Pa, ] cific coast. the elk, like the buffalo
 made itself perfectly at home at ses level or, atop the tinberiine or noun ] tain peaks. But it did so by moving with the change of season, rather thai by adapting itself to it's environment 1 and burrowing through the snow, al ] its cousin, the buffalo, is more willing si to do"
 ) Tn describing the elk the bulletin t quotes from "Wild Animals of Norti
 America" a puhmlication of the Ma.
 tional Geographic Society, as follows si 'By curious transposition of name l the early settlers applied to the Amer , ican wapiti the term elk. which be longs to the European representativ, of our moose, Our elk is close rA
 lative of the European stag. It is tn, i handsomest and. next to the moose : the largest member of the deer fam 3 1 fly in America. The old bulls, weigh ! ing more than 800 pounds. bear su perb widely branched antIers. whicl
 give them picturesque and nobi
 lnien. This is the only American dee :. 1 which has a wei marked light rump y patch The young numbering iron 2 one to three, are white spotted. Iik t the lawns Of other deer
 s ''Elk are the most poIvgamous of al
 1 our deer. each bull catherine a .smal
 ! herr of cows during the fall. At tb ni beginning of the mating season fh i, l bulls wander widely through the higl ,, l forest glades, their musical buglinl piercing the silence with son1A of fll : most stirring notes of the wilderness