Page 193 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

CHAPTER XVII
PRESENT AND FUTURE OF NORTH AMERICAN BIG GAME (Concluded)
The White-tailed Deer.—Five hundred years hence, when the greed and rapacity of "civilized" man has completed the loot and ruin of the continent of North America, the white-tailed deer will be the last speciesofourbiggametobeexterminated. Itsmentaltraits,itssize, its color and its habits all combine to render it the most persistent of our large animals, and the best fitted to survive. It neither bawls nor bugles to attract its enemies, it can not be called to a sportsman, like the moose, and it sticks to its timber with rare and commendable close- ness. Whenitseesastrangelivingthingwalkingerect,itdoesnotstop to stare and catch soft-nosed bullets, but dashes away in quest of solitude.
The worst shooting that I ever did or saw done at game was at running white-tailed deer, in the Montana river bottoms.
For the reasons given, the white-tail exists and persists in a hundred United States localities from which all other big game save the black bearhavebeenexterminated. Forexample,inourAdirondacksthemoose were exterminated years and years ago, but the beloved wilderness called the "North Woods" still is populated by about 20,000 deer, and about 8,000arekilledannually. ThedeerofMainearesufficientlynumerous that in 1909 a total of 15,879 were killed. With some assistance from the thin sprinkling of moose and caribou, the deer of Maine annually draw into that state, for permanent dedication, a huge sum of money, variouslyestimatedatfrom$1,000,000to$2,000,000. Inspiteofheavy slaughter, and vigorous attempts at extermination by over-shooting,
the deer of northern Michigan obstinately refuse to be wiped out.
There is, however, a large group of states in which this species has beenexterminated. ThestatescomprisingitareOhio,Indiana,Illinois,
Iowa, and adjacent portions of seven other states.
As if to shame the people of Iowa, a curious deer episode is recorded. In 1885, W. B. Cupp3^ of Avoca, Iowa, purchased five deer, and placed theminapaddockonhis600-acrefarm. By1900theyhadincreased to 32 head; and then one night some one kindly opened the gate of their enclosure, and gave them the freedom of the city. Mr. Cuppy made no
effort to capture them, possibly because they decided to annex his farm astheirhabitat. Whenaneighborledthemwithabaitofcorntotheir owner's door, he declined to impound them, on the ground that it was unnecessary.