In order to provide adequate winter grazing grounds for the Yellowstone-Wyoming elk, it seems imperative that the national government should expend between $30,000 and $40,000 in buying back from ranchmen certain areas in the Jackson valley, particularly a tract known as "the swamp," and others on the surrounding foothills where the herds annually go to graze in winter, A measure to render this possible was presented to Congress in the winter of 1912, and without opposition an appropriation of $45,000 was made.
The splendid photographs of the elk herds that recently have been made by S.N. Leek, of Jackson Hole, clearly reveal the fact that the herds now consist chiefly of cows, calves, yearlings and young bulls with small antlers. In one photograph showing about twenty-five hundred elk, there are not visible even half a dozen pairs of antlers that belong to adult bulls. There should be a hundred! This condition means that the best bulls, with the finest heads, are constantly being selected and killed by sportsmen and others who want their heads; and the young, immature bulls are left to do the breeding that alone will sustain the species.
HUNGRY ELK IN JACKSON HOLE, WYOMING
Part of a Herd of About 2,500 Head, being fed on hay, in the Winter of 1910-11
Note the Absence of Adult Bulls. Copyright, 1911, by S.N. Leek
It is a well-known principle in stock-breeding that sires should be fully adult, of maximum strength, and in the prime of life. No stockbreeder in his senses ever thinks of breeding from a youthful, immature sire. The result would be weak offspring not up to the standard.
This inexorable law of inheritance and transmission is just as much a law for the elk, moose and deer of North America as it is for domestic cattle and horses. If the present conditions in the Wyoming elk herds continue to prevail for several generations, as sure as time goes on we shall see a marked deterioration in the size and antlers of the elk.