The Powder River County examiner and the Broadus independent., 1922-10-27
WAR ON WILDLlFE
SAVES VAST HERDS
MUSEUM DIRECTOR SETS O.. .OOO..
900 A YEAR ON BIOLOGICAL
SURVEY HUNTERS WORK
Famous Custer Wolf Killed by Gov.
ernment Hunters in Wyoming
Alone Destroyed Cattle Valued at
$25,OOO; Mountain Lion VIII Kill
One Deer q Week.

Three million dollars a year is
saved to the country in live stock
value by the hunters and trappers
OF the biological survey who are wag-
ing war in the west on wolves. coy
otes. lynxes and mountain lions, ac-
cording to DR.. Barton Warren Ever
mann, director of the Museum of the
California Academy of Sciences.
These animals were destroying live
stock at the rate of $2O,OOO,OOO a
year when the survey began its war
on them, DR.. Evermann told the
American Association for the Ad-
vancement of Science in his presiden-
tlal address. Hunters and trappers
for the survey killed more than 5O,-
600 predatory animals in one year.
The greatest killer of livestock in
the country was accounted for by the
hunters of the survey. This was the
notorious Custer wolf of Wyoming
which has been credited with the
slaughter of $4,000 worth of cattle
In seven years. A bounty of $500
had been on his head for several
years, but the old cattle scourge was
too clever for ordinary hunters and
eluded scores who sought the reward.
LAS another illustration" contin-
ued DR.. Evermann, "a pack of eight
wolves that had inflicted losses total
Ing $4,000 on calves, pigs and sheep
about the Arkansas National forest
were all destroyed by a single bureau
hunter in a period of three weeks.
Still another old renegade wolf re-
ported to have destroyed $4,000
worth of cattle on a single ranch,
besides making heavy inroads on
other ranches, including nine head of
yearlirg cattle in the last six weeks
of his life, fell victim to a skill
fully placed trap of a bureau hun
ter.
| THE California Fish and Game
Commission estimates that noun
tain lion will kill on an average of
one deer a week throughout the year
and that there are 600 lions in the
state. At fifty-two deer each they
would kill about 10000 deer annual
ly. which is about twice the number
killed by all the hunters in the state
From this it appears that the noun
tain lion should receive no protec-
ton.
Fortunately, the great majority of
|
not predacious at all, or only in a
slight degree. Fortunately, also, some
OF the species are being preserved
fairly we'll in some part of their
range. This is especially true of the
deer.
"The federal and state govern
ments have established number of
game preserves, some of them under
fence. The principal game animals
in these reservations are buffalo, elk
and antelope. All are showing a sat-
isfactory increase each year and there
Is every reason to believe that these
herds will continue to thrive. The
outlook for wild elk, antelope, noun
tain sheep and mountain goats is not
so encouraging.
Excepting perhaps Africa, no
other country in the world ever
equaled North America in the rich
ness of its game mammals, marvel
ously rich not only in species and sus-
pecies, but also lin numbers of in
dividuals. OF the more than 800 spe-
cies that might be mentioned, it must
suffice to speak only of a few, for the
story of former marvellous abund.
ance, wasteful killing without regard
for the future and inevitable exter-
mination or serious depletion applies
to all.
''The three species of grizzly bears
that occupied such picturesque
place in the early history of Cali.
fornia are all extinct. and it is be-
lieved that not single individual
remains alive at any place today
Many of the others, while not actual
ly extinct as species, have been act
ually exterminated over large por-
tion of the country over which they
originally ranged. Among these are
several species of deer. the buffalo
moose, elk, antelope, various bears
foxes and gray squirrels"