Page 191 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

THE PRESENT AND FUTURE OF BIG GAME 169
In regard to the in-breeding of the elk herds in large open parks and preserves throughout North America, there are positively no ill effects tofear. Wildanimalsthatarecloselyconfinedgenerationaftergeneration are bound to deteriorate physically; but with healthy wild animals liv- ing in large open ranges, feeding and breeding naturally, the in-breed- ing that occurs produces no deterioration.
In the twin certainties of over-population, and deterioration from excessive killing of the good sires, we have to face two new problems of verydecidedimportance. Nothingshortofveryradicalmeasureswill provide a remedy. For the immediate future, I can offer a solution. While it seems almost impossible deliberately to kill females, I think that the present is a very exceptional case, and one that compels us to apply the painful remedy that I now propose.
Premises: 1.—There are at present too many breeding cows in the Yellowstone herds.
2.—There are far too few good breeding bulls. Conclusion:—For five years, entirely prohibit the killing of adult male elk, and kill only females, and young males. This would gradually diminish the number of calves born each year, by about 2,500, and by the end of five years it would reduce the number, and the annual birth, of females to a figure sufficiently limited that the herds could be main-
tained on existing ranges.
Corollary.—At the end of five years, stop killing females, and kill
onlyyoungmales. Thisplanwouldpermitalargenumberofbullelk to mature; and then the largest and strongest animals would do the breeding,—just as Nature always intends shall be done.
South America
Of all the big-game regions of the earth. South America is the poorest. Of hoofed game she possesses only a dozen species that are worth the attention of sportsmen; and like all other animal life in that land of little game, they are desperately hard to find. In South America you must work your heart out in order to get either game or specimens that will be worth showing.
At present, we need not worry about the marsh deer, the pampas deer, the guemal, or the venado, nor the tapir, jaguar, ocelot and bears. All these species are abundantly able to take care of themselves; and to find and kill any one of them is a man's task. In Patagonia the natives do wastefully slaughter the guanacos; and there are times also when great numbers of guanacos come down in winter to certain mountain lakes, presumably in search of food, and perish by hundreds through starvation. (H. Hesketh Prichard.)
Mexico
About ten years more will see the extinction of the mountain sheep of Lower California,—in the wake of the recently exterminated Mexican