Of course it is impossible for wild animals of great size to exist in countries that are covered with farms, villages and people. Under such conditions the wild and the tame cannot harmonize. It is a fact, however, that elk could exist and thrive in every national forest and national park in our country, and also on uncountable hundreds of thousands of rough, wild, timbered hills and mountains such as exist in probably twenty-five different states. There is no reason, except man's short-sighted greed and foolishness, why there are not to-day one hundred thousand elk living in the Allegheny Mountains, furnishing each year fifty thousand three-year-old males as free food for the people.
The trouble is,—the greedy habitants could not be induced to kill only the three-year-old-males, in the fall, and let the cows, calves and breeding bulls alone! By sensible management the Rocky Mountains, the Sierra Nevadas and the Coast Range would support enough wild elk to feed a million people. But we Americans seem utterly incapable of maintaining anywhere from decade to decade a large and really valuable supply of wild game. Outside the Yellowstone Park and northwestern Wyoming, the American elk exists only in small bands—mere remnants and samples of the millions we could and should have.
If they could be protected, and the surplus presently killed according to some rational, working system, then every national forest in the United States should be stocked with elk! In view of the awful cost of beef (to-day 10-1/2 cents per pound in Chicago on the hoof!), it is high time that we should consider the raising of game on the public domain on such lines that it would form a valuable food supply without diminishing the value of the forests.
Just now (1912) the American people are sorely puzzled by a remarkable elk problem that each winter is presented for solution in the Jackson Hole country, Wyoming. Driven southward by the deep snows of winter, the elk thousands that in summer graze and grow fat in the Yellowstone Park march down into Jackson Hole, to find in those valleys less snow and more food. Now, it happens that the best and most of the former winter grazing grounds of the elk are covered by fenced ranches! As a result, the elk that strive to winter there, about fifteen thousand head, are each winter threatened with starvation; and during three or four winters of recent date, an aggregate of several thousand calves, weak yearlings and weakened cows perished of hunger. The winters of 1908, 1909 and 1910 were progressively more and more severe; and 1911 saw about 2500 deaths, (S.N. Leek).
In 1909-10, the State of Wyoming spent $7,000 for hay, and fed it to the starving elk. In 1911, Wyoming spent $5,000 more, and appealed to Congress for help. Thanks to the efforts of Senator Lodge and others, Congress instantly responded with a splendid emergency appropriation of $20,000, partly for the purpose of feeding the elk, and also to meet the cost of transporting elsewhere as many of the elk as it might seem best to move. The starving of the elk ceased with 1911.
Outdoor Life magazine (Denver, Colo.) for August, 1912, contains an excellent article by Dr. W.B. Shore, entitled, "Trapping and Shipping Elk." I wish I could reprint it entire, for the solid information that it contains. It gives a clear and comprehensive account of last spring's operations by the Government and by the state of Montana in capturing and shipping elk from the Yellowstone Park herd, for the double purpose of diminishing the elk surplus in the Park and stocking vacant ranges elsewhere.
The operations were conducted on the same basis as the shipping of cattle—the corral, the chute, the open car, and the car-load in bulk. Dr. Shore states that the undertaking was really no more difficult than the shipping of range cattle; but the presence of a considerable proportion of young and tender calves, such as are never handled with beef cattle, led to 8.8 per cent of deaths in transit. The deaths and the percentage are nothing at which to be surprised, when it is remembered, that the animals had just come through a hard winter, and their natural vitality was at the lowest point of the year.
The following is a condensed summary of the results of the work:
| Destination | Number of Elk | Hours on Road | Killed or Died in Car | Died After Unloading | ||
| 1 | Car. | Startup, Washington | 60: calves, yearlings and two-year olds | 94 | 11 | 7 |
| 1 | " | Hamilton, Montana | 43: cows & calves | 30 | 4 | 1 |
| 1 | " | Thompson Falls, Montana | 40 | — | 2 | 0 |
| 1 | " | Stephensville, Montana | 36 | — | 1 | 1 |
| 1 | " | Deer Lodge, Montana | 40 | 24 | 2 | 0 |
| 1 | " | Hamilton, Montana | 40 | — | 0 | 0 |
| 1 | " | Mt. Vernon, Washington | 46 | 4 days; unloaded & fed twice | 7 | 0 |
| --- | --- | --- | ||||
| 305 | 27 | 9 | ||||
| The total deaths in transit and after, of 36 elk out of 305, amounted to 11.4 per cent. | ||||||
| All those shipped to Montana points were shipped by the state of Montana. | ||||||