Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1942-09-25
sun RIVER ELK
HERD IS BOMBED
BY SALT CAKES
TRI-MOTORED AIRPLANE IS USED
IN -BLTTZ" METHOD OF
DISTRIBUTION

Fifty-pound cakes OF salt were sent
whiNing out Of an airplane like bombs
this summer SO that elk herds in the
Sun river wilderness could eat their
salt and have their winter forage. too.
Using one big tri-motored airplane,
the Montana game department fin
ished in one day job which formerly
took men and pack horses more than
a month.
Like bombardiers. a game depart
ment crew aimed 50-pound salt blocks
at map-marked targets in high alti-
tude summer meadows which have no
nearby salt licks.
The objective was to lure the elk
from their natural salt ticks in the
Sun river country's lower valleys too
near the herds winter range.
The elk's primary weakness is a
periodic craving for salt, in the spring
and in the fall.
In the late summer, an elk will
find sweet grass on the winter range
and convenient salt lick nearby" eX-
plains Bob Cooney, the departments
big game manager. so the elk eats
himself out of house and home by
grazing near his salt and destroying
his winter feeding grounds.
That throws the animal into ranch
ers private preserves when the snow
drives him into lower attitudes. And,
boy, do they love that home-cured
hay!"
The Sun river country, covering
about 1900 square miles west and
north of Augusta in northern Mon
tana, is wild and primitive region.
Rangers Help
Before this year, Cooney and Chief
Game Warden J. S. Mcfarland wan
gled agreements with the federal for
est service whereby district rangers
carried salt to the high ranges. The
rangers had to make pack horse trips
through the region, anyway.
But because of the war, the forest
service ran short of men and time.
So Cooney and Jack Parsell big game
leader in the wildlife restoration di-
vision, decided to try dropping the
salt from a plane.
Five and a half tons of 50-pound
salt bricks were shipped by rail to
Augusta. And then the tri-motored
plane flew in with Cooney, Mcfarland
and Pilot Dick johnson, of Missoula.
1t was one of those wettish, gloomy
mountain days when even the sour
dough prospectors won't hang out the
washing. Twin Peaks, Sugarloaf and
their jagged neighbors poked treach-
erously into rolls of fog.
But Pilot johnson said he could fly.
The plane made six trips out of
Augusta in six hours. Cooney and Nc
Farland pushed out the salt blocks,
which tumbled 800 to 400 feet down to
the target spots.
A few blocks smashed to powder
against rocks, but others fell into high
lush meadows where the elk could
sandwich in some salt between his ire
mendous autumn meals of grass. Ma
ture stirs up a voracious appetite in
of fat for winter.
Wanted Protection
Before the game department started
planting salt in the high ranges, to
keep the elk from eating in August
what they would need in December,
an angered rancher advertised in
Brooklyn for machine gunners to pro-
tect his place from the hungry ami
mails.
No trigger men showed up, and the
elk ate most of the ranchers hay.
Now the Sun river country's few
ranchers agree that salt bombing of
the up-country meadows brings better
results for both the elk and the ranch
men than would machine gun bullets.
The Sun river country is full of
mountain goats, grizzly BEARS noun
tain sheep and mule deer, and even
few wandering moose. Only the elk,
though, get airplane special delivery
service.