Page 363 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

NATIONAL AND STATE PRESERVES AND REFUGES 341
necessary to the carrying of the matter before the President in proper form, and kept it going, with the result that on March 2, 1909, President Roosevelt affixed his signature to the document that closed the circuit.
Thus was created the Mount Olympus National Monument, pre- serving forever 608,640 acres of magnificent mountains, valleys, glaciers, streams and forests, and all the wild creatures living therein and thereon. The people of the state of Washington have good reason to rejoice in the fact that their most highly-prized scenic wonderland, and the last sur- vivors of the wapiti in that state, are now preserved for all coming time. At the same time, we congratulate Dr. Palmer on the brilliant success of his initiative.
The Superior National Game and Forest Preserve.—The people of Minnesota long desired that a certain great tract of wilderness in the extreme northern portion of that state, now well stocked with moose and deer, should be established as a game and forest preserve. Unfortunately, however, the national government could go no farther than to withdraw the lands (and waters) from entry, and declare it a forestreserve. Attherightmoment,somebrightgeniusproposedthat the national government should by executive order create a ''forest reserve," and then that the legislature of Minnesota should pass an act providing that every national forest of that state should also be regarded as a state -game preserve!
Both those things were done,—almost as soon as said! Mr. Carlos Avery, the Executive Agent of the Board of Game and Fish Commis- sioners of Minnesota is entitled to great credit for the action of his state, and we have to thank Mr. Gifford Pinchot and President Roosevelt for the executive action that represented the first half of the effort.
The new Superior Preserve is valuable as a game and forest reserve, and nothing else. It is a wilderness of small lakes, marshes, creeks, hum- mocks of land, scrubby timber, and practically nothing of commercial value. Butthewildernesscontainsmanymoose,andzoologically,itis for all practical purposes a moose preserve.
In it, in 1908 Mr. Avery saw fifty-one moose in three days, Mr. Ful- lerton saw 183 in nine days, and Mr. Fullerton estimated the total number of moose in Minnesota as a whole at 10,000 head.
In area it contains 1,420,000 acres, and the creation of this great preserve was accomplished on April 13, 1909.
The Wichita National Game Preserve.—In the Wichita Moun- tains, of southwestern Oklahoma, there is a National game preserve containing 57,120 acres. On this preserve is a fenced bison range and a herd of thirty-nine American bison which owe their existence to the initiativeoftheNewYorkZoologicalSociety. OnMarch25,1905,the Society proposed to the National Government the founding of a range and herd, on a basis that was entirely new. To the Society it seemed desirable that for the encouragement of Congress in the preservation of species that are threatened with extermination, the scientific corporations