SPECIES TO BE SELECTED FOR BREEDING.
The number of species of deer suited for breeding in inclosures in the United States is great, though the chances for success are by no means the same for all. As a rule those native to America are to be preferred, since they are already acclimated. In selecting any species, similarity between its natural habitat and that to which it is to be transferred must be considered. Important, also, is its adaptability to varied conditions, as shown by former attempts to acclimatize it.
Unless they have shown a peculiar adaptability to such change, deer should not be taken from arid parts of the United States to humid parts. To a disregard of this principle are probably due many of the failures that have attended experiments in breeding the American antelope, the Columbia blacktail deer, the moose, and other animals in places differing widely from their natural ranges.
The history of attempts to acclimatize the several kinds of deer shows that some readily adapt themselves to a great variety of conditions, and efforts to introduce them into new countries have been almost uniformly successful. Such has been the experience with the axis deer, the Japanese and Pekin sikas, the red and the fallow deer of Europe, and especially with the wapiti, or Rocky Mountain elk, and the Virginia deer. While experiments with the foreign species named offer every promise of success to the owners of American preserves, there are obvious reasons for recommending the two native animals just mentioned as best suited for the production of venison in the United States.
THE WAPITI, OR ROCKY MOUNTAIN ELK.
The Wapiti (Cervus canadensis), including two related species and a geographic race, and known in America as the elk, is, next to the moose, the largest of our deer. It was once abundant over the greater part of the United States, whence its range extended northward to about latitude 60° in the Peace River region of the interior of Canada. In the United States the limits of its range eastward were the Adirondacks, western New Jersey, and eastern Pennsylvania; southward it reaches the southern Alleghenies, northern Texas, southern Mexico, and Arizona; and westward the Pacific Ocean.
For the practical purposes of this bulletin all the forms of the wapiti are treated as a single species. At the present time the range of these animals has so far diminished that they occur only in a few scattered localities outside of the Yellowstone National Park and the mountainous country surrounding it, where large herds remain. Smaller herds still occur in Colorado, western Montana, Idaho, eastern Oregon, Manitoba, Alberta, British Columbia, and the coast mountains of Washington, Oregon, and northwestern California. A band of the small California valley elk still inhabits the southern part of the San Joaquin Valley.
The herds that summer in the Yellowstone National Park and in winter spread southward and eastward in Wyoming are said to number about 30,000 head, and constitute the only large bands of this noble game animal that are left. Although protected in their summer ranges and partially safeguarded from destruction in winter by the State of Wyoming, there is yet great danger that these herds may perish from lack of food in a succession of severe winters. Partial provision for winter forage has been made within the National Park, but the supply is inadequate for the large number of animals. Further safeguards are needed to place the Wyoming elk herds beyond the reach of winter starvation.
In addition to the wild herds, there are a considerable number of elk in private game preserves and parks, as well as in nearly all the public zoological parks and gardens of this country. The herds in captivity form the nucleus from which, under wise management, some of the former ranges of this animal may be restocked and from which a profitable business of growing elk venison for market may be developed. At the present time this species affords a most promising field for ventures in breeding for profit.