Page 294 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

272 OVR VANISHING WILD LIFE
in Glenn County, Cal., on Feb. 5, 1906, when two men (whose story was published in Outdoor Life, xvii, p. 371, April, 1906), killed 450 geese in one day, and actually bagged 218 of them in one hour!
Every person who has paid attention to game protection on the Pacific coast well knows that during the past eight years or more, the work of game protection in California has been in a state of frequent turmoil. AttimesthelackofharmonybetweentheStateFishandGame Commission and the sportsmen of the state has been damaging to the interestsofwildlife,anddeplorable. InthecaseofWardenWelch,in Santa Cruz County, pernicious politics came near robbing the state of a splendid warden, but the courts finally overthrew the overthrowers of Mr. Welch, and reinstated him.
The fish and game commissioners of any state should be broad- minded,non-partisan,strictlyhonestandsincere. Solongastheypossess these qualities, they deserve and should have the earnest and aggressive support of all sportsmen and all lovers of wild life. The remnant of wild life is entitled to a square deal, and harmony in the camp of its friends. Fortunately California has an excellent force of salaried game wardens
(82 in all) and 577 volunteer wardens serving without salary.
Colorado :
The State of Colorado should instantly stop the sale of native wild game to be used as food.
It should stop all late winter and spring shooting of native wild birds.
It should give the sage grouse, pinnated grouse and all shore birds a ten year close season, remove the dove from the list of game birds, and give it a permanent close season.
It should remove the crane and the swan from the list of game birds.
In twenty-five short years we have seen in Colorado a waste of wild life and the destruction of a living inheritance that has few parallels in history. PossiblythepeopleofColoradoaresatisfiedwiththeresiduum but some outsiders regard all Rock}^ Mountain shambles with a feeling of horror.
A brief quarter-century ago, Colorado was a zoological park of grand sceneryandbiggame. Thesceneryremains,butofthegreatwildherds, only samples are left, and of some species not even that.
The last bison of Colorado were exterminated in Lost Park b}' scoundrels calling themselves "taxidermists," in 1897. Of the 200,000 mule deer that inhabited Routt County and other portions of Colorado, notenoughnowremaintomakedeerhuntinginteresting. Aperpetual close season was put on mountain sheep just in time to save a dozen small flocksasseedstock. Thoseflockshavebeenpermittedtolive,andthey have bred until now there are perhaps 3,500 sheep in the state. Of elk, only a remnant is left, now protected for fifteen years.
The grizzly bear is so thoroughly gone that one is seen only by a rare accident; but black bears and pumas are sufficiently numerous to afford fair sport, provided the hunter has a fine outfit of dogs, horses and
;