The Daily Alaska empire., 1932-06-18

. kCOnClnueC rom rage 1WOi
 
 Holzworth has been unusually &C., tive in demanding Admiralty Is- land as a sanctuary for bear. He originally claimed there are 5000 bear in the island, but later re- duced his estimate to 5000 This number, he said, is 50 per cent of Alaska's bear population. Ad- miralty Island has an area of about 1,600 square miles. The total brown bear range on the Alaska coast contains about 96,000 square miles. It includes, besides Ad- miralty, such islands as Chichagof, Baranof, Kodiak, Renal Peninsula, the Glacier Bay national monu- ment, and the mainland between Yakutat and Katalla, to mention only those districts where the brown bear abounds. Is it logical to sup pose that 50 per cent of the bear of the entire range, to use the Holzworth figures, is concentrated on IT per cent of it's total area? f4 Actual Conditions Reviewed
 kOf course it isn't As a matter of fact, on Unimak Island alone, where hunting is forbidden, there are as many bears as there are on Admiralty Island. Chichagof and Baranof have almost as many. Kodiak Island is not far behind either of them The Alaska Pen insula, that elongated strip of land that stretches more than 600 miles from Cook Inlet to the base Of the Aleutian Island chain, is the biggest single bear area in the Territory. No one knows, or can even approximate, the number of bears on it, but there are known to be literally thousands.
 On the shores of the Gulf of Alaska, between Yakutat and Ka- talla, in what is termed the Male .spina Glacier district, is another brown bear haunt that is classed as the equal to the finest in AL aska. Despite it's comparative nearness to civilization, it is the most inaccessible in the Territory. It hasn't single sheltered harboc eand owing to dangers of naviga- ton, few boats venture there with hunting parties. It is not to be reached by land expedition from either west or east except under greater hardships and more ex- cessive cost than even the most enthusiastic sportsman cares to contemplate.
 Bears Not Easily Reached
 No. 2.-This is almost completely answered by my comments on the so-called investigations. It is true that the islands are accessible to residents of nearby smaller islands where foxes are grown by breed CTS, and to salmon fishing vessels. Except for few weeks in mid summer, however, the bear is not accessible even though the islands are. In the spawning season, when salmon fill the streams, and bears congregate to gorge them selves on spawning fish, it would be easy for an experienced hunter to kill many. But it is not done. First, indiscriminate killing, de- spite assertions to the contrary, is illegal; second, Alaskans, as has been true of all frontiersmen, are not Wanton killers. They kill when they have need for food, and in some instances clothing, but the brown bears furnish neither in midsummer, or any other time [ Third, it is illegal to sell the pelts. Consequently, Alaskans leave them very much alone.
 Limitations on Hunters
 No. 3.-At no time in the past two years, or for that matter for the past seven years during which the present game administration has held sway, could nonresidents kill bears except in a well defined annual season and in limited number. cTwo for the last two years. Residents, in a minor frac- ton of the total range, for two years, 1930-1931, were permitted under regulations to kill bears dur ing the closed season if their lives or property were threatened.
 No. 4.-Fox farmers do not use brown bear meat for fox feed. In D all the years of the fur-raising in- dustry, but two isolated cases are on record of such use of bear meat. In 1880, rancher in the lower Kenai Peninsula country kill ed two brown bears and fed the meat to his foxes. In the same wear. another rancher near Pybus Bay on the east coast of Admiralty Island killed the same number and also fed their carcasses to his foxes, Never before or since