American Big Game in Its Haunts: The Book of the Boone and Crockett Club
History
American Big Game in Its Haunts: The Book of the Boone and Crockett Club
Big game hunting -- United States
When these lines were written, Congressional action in this direction
was hoped for at an early day; but, except in the case of the
Yellowstone National Park, such action has not been taken. Meantime,
hunting in these forest reserves has gone on. In some of them game has
been almost exterminated. Two little bunches of buffalo which then had
their range within the reserves have been swept out of existence.
It is obvious that effectively to protect the big game at large there
must be localities where hunting shall be absolutely forbidden. That any
species of big game will rapidly increase if absolutely protected is
perfectly well known; and in the Yellowstone Park we have ever before us
an object lesson, which shows precisely what effective protection of
game can do.
It is little more than twenty years since the first efforts were made to
prevent the killing of game within that National Reservation, and only
about ten years since Congress provided an effective method for
preventing such killing. He must be dull indeed who does not realize
what that game refuge has done for a great territory, and of how much
actual money value its protection has been to the adjoining States of
Montana and Idaho, and especially of Wyoming. The visit of President
Roosevelt to the National Park last spring made these conditions plain
to the whole nation. At that time every newspaper in the land gave long
accounts of what the President saw and did there, and told of the hordes
of game that he viewed and counted. He saw nothing that he had not
before known of, nothing that was not well known to all the members of
the Boone and Crockett Club; but it was largely through the President's
visit, and the accounts of what he saw in the Yellowstone Park, that the
public has come to know what rigid protection can do and has done for
our great game.
Since such a refuge can bring about such results, it is high time that
we had more of these refuges, in order that like results may follow in
different sections of the West, and for different species of wild game;
as well for the benefit of other localities and their residents, as for
that wider public which will hereafter visit them in ever increasing
numbers.
A bill introduced at the last session of Congress authorized the
President, when in his judgment it should seem desirable, to set aside
portions of forest reserves as game refuges, where no hunting should be
allowed. The bill passed the Senate, but failed in the House, largely
through lack of time, yet some opposition was manifested to it by
members of Congress from the States in which the forest reserves are
located, who seemed to feel that such a law would in some way abridge
the rights and privileges of their constituents. This is a narrow view,
and one not justified by the experience of persons dwelling in the
vicinity of the Yellowstone National Park.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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