Page 360 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

3;^
OUR VANISHING WILD LIFE
In 1911, the U. S. Government appropriated for feeding starving elk,
and exporting elk
In 1912, the Camp-Fire Club of Detroit gave, for feeding hungry elk.
In 1910-11, about 3,000 elk perished in Jackson Hole
In 1911-12, Mr. Leek's photographs of the elk herds showed an alarming absence
of mature bulls, indicating that now the most of the breeding is done by- immaturemales. Thismeansthesuredeteriorationofthespecies.
The prompt manner in which Congress responded in the late winter of 191 1 to a distress call in behalf of the starving elk, is beyond all ordinary terms of praise. It was magnificent. In fear and trembling, Congress wasasked,throughSenatorLodge,toappropriate$5,000. Congressand Senator Lodge made it $20,000; and for the first time the legislature of Wyoming appealed for national aid to save the joint-stock herds of Wvo- ming and the Yellowstone Park.
Glacier Park, Montana.—In the wild and picturesque mountains of northwestern Montana, covering both sides of the great Continental Divide, there is a region that has been splendidly furnished by the hand of Nature. It is a bewildering maze of thundering peaks, plunging valleys, evergreen forests, glistening glaciers, mirror lakes and roaring mountain streams. Its leading citizens are white mountain goats, mountain sheep, moose, mule deer and white-tailed deer, and among those present are black and grizzly bears galore.
Commercially, the 1,400 square miles of Glacier Park, even with its 60 glaciers and 260 lakes, are worth exactly the price of its big trees, andnotapennymore. Formining,agriculture,horticultureandstock- raising,itisacipher. Asatranscendantpleasuregroundandrecreation wilderness for ninety millions of people, it is worth ninety millions of dollars, and not a penny less. It is a pleasure park of which the greatest of the nations of the earth,—whichever that may be,—might well be overbearingly proud; and its accessibility is almost unbelievable until seen.
This park is bounded on the south by the Great Northern Railway, on the east by the Blackfoot Indian Reservation, on the north by Alberta and British Columbia, and on the west by West Fork of the Flathead River. Horizontally, it contains 1,400 square miles; but as the goat climbs,itsareaisatleastdoublethat. Itsvalleysarefilledanditslakes are encircled by grand forests of Douglas fir, hemlock, spruce, white pine, cedar and larch ; and if ever they are destroyed by fire, it will be a national calamity, a century long.
So long as the American people keep out of the poorhouse, let there be no lumber-cutting vandalism in that park, destroying the beauty of every acre of forest that is touched by axe or saw. The greatest beauty of those forests is the forest floor, which lumbering operations would utterly destroy.
Nevermindifthereis"ripetimber"there! TheAmericannationis not suffering for the dollars that those lovely forest giants would fetch byboardmeasure. Whatifatreedoesfallnowandthenfromoldage! Wecanstandtheexpense. IfPosterityahundredyearshencefindsit- .self lumberless, and wishes to use those trees, then let Posterity pay the
..
$20,000
'
100