Of all the big-game regions of the earth, South America is the poorest. Of hoofed game she possesses only a dozen species that are worth the attention of sportsmen; and like all other animal life in that land of little game, they are desperately hard to find. In South America you must work your heart out in order to get either game or specimens that will be worth showing.
At present, we need not worry about the marsh deer, the pampas deer, the guemal, or the venado, nor the tapir, jaguar, ocelot and bears. All these species are abundantly able to take care of themselves; and to find and kill any one of them is a man's task. In Patagonia the natives do wastefully slaughter the guanacos; and there are times also when great numbers of guanacos come down in winter to certain mountain lakes, presumably in search of food, and perish by hundreds through starvation. (H. Hesketh Prichard.)
Mexico
About ten years more will see the extinction of the mountain sheep of Lower California,—in the wake of the recently exterminated Mexican sheep of the Santa Maria Lakes region. In 1908, I solemnly warned the government of President Diaz, and at that time the Mexican government expressed much concern.
It is a great pity that just now political conditions are completely estopping wild-life protection in Mexico; but it is true. If the code of proposed laws that I drew up (by request) in 1908 and submitted to Minister Molina were adopted, it would have a good effect on the fauna of Mexico.
In Mexico there is little hoofed game to kill,—deer of the white-tail groups, seven or eight species; the desert mule deer; the brocket; the prong-horned antelope, the mountain sheep and the peccary. The deer will not so easily be exterminated, but the antelope and sheep will be utterly destroyed. They will be the first to go; and I think they can not by any possibility last longer than ten years. Is it not too bad that Mexico should permit her finest species of hoofed and horned game to be obliterated before she awakens to the desirability of conservation! The Mexicans could protect their small stock of big game if they would; but in Lower California they are leasing huge tracts of land to cattle companies, and they permit the lessees to kill all the wild game they please on their leased lands, even with the aid of dogs. This is a vicious and fatal system, and contrary to all the laws of nations.
CHAPTER XVII
PRESENT AND FUTURE OF NORTH AMERICAN BIG GAME