American Big Game in Its Haunts | Page 5

few years than by the creation
and use of a series of large land reserves--situated for the most part on
the great plains and among the mountains of the West--intended to
keep the forests from destruction, and therefore to conserve the water
supply. These reserves are created purely for economic purposes. The
semi-arid regions can only support a reasonable population under
conditions of the strictest economy and wisdom in the use of the water
supply, and in addition to their other economic uses the forests are
indispensably necessary for the preservation of the water supply and for
rendering possible its useful distribution throughout the proper seasons.
In addition, however, to the economic use of the wilderness by
preserving it for such purposes where it is unsuited for agricultural uses,
it is wise here and there to keep selected portions of it--of course only
those portions unfit for settlement--in a state of nature, not merely for
the sake of preserving the forests and the water, but for the sake of
preserving all its beauties and wonders unspoiled by greedy and
shortsighted vandalism. These beauties and wonders include animate as
well as inanimate objects. The wild creatures of the wilderness add to it
by their presence a charm which it can acquire in no other way. On
every ground it is well for our nation to preserve, not only for the sake
of this generation, but above all for the sake of those who come after us,
representatives of the stately and beautiful haunters of the wilds which
were once found throughout our great forests, over the vast lonely
plains, and on the high mountain ranges, but which are now on the
point of vanishing save where they are protected in natural breeding
grounds and nurseries. The work of preservation must be carried on in
such a way as to make it evident that we are working in the interest of
the people as a whole, not in the interest of any particular class; and
that the people benefited beyond all others are those who dwell nearest
to the regions in which the reserves are placed. The movement for the
preservation by the nation of sections of the wilderness as national
playgrounds is essentially a democratic movement in the interest of all

our people.
[Illustration: "OOM JOHN."]
On April 8, 1903, John Burroughs and I reached the Yellowstone Park
and were met by Major John Pitcher of the Regular Army, the
Superintendent of the Park. The Major and I forthwith took horses; he
telling me that he could show me a good deal of game while riding up
to his house at the Mammoth Hot Springs. Hardly had we left the little
town of Gardiner and gotten within the limits of the Park before we
saw prong-buck. There was a band of at least a hundred feeding some
distance from the road. We rode leisurely toward them. They were tame
compared to their kindred in unprotected places; that is, it was easy to
ride within fair rifle range of them; but they were not familiar in the
sense that we afterwords found the bighorn and the deer to be familiar.
During the two hours following my entry into the Park we rode around
the plains and lower slopes of the foothills in the neighborhood of the
mouth of the Gardiner and we saw several hundred--probably a
thousand all told--of these antelope. Major Pitcher informed me that all
the prong-horns in the Park wintered in this neighborhood. Toward the
end of April or the first of May they migrate back to their summering
homes in the open valleys along the Yellowstone and in the plains
south of the Golden Gate. While migrating they go over the mountains
and through forests if occasion demands. Although there are plenty of
coyotes in the Park there are no big wolves, and save for very
infrequent poachers the only enemy of the antelope, as indeed the only
enemy of all the game, is the cougar.
Cougars, known in the Park as elsewhere through the West as
"mountain lions," are plentiful, having increased in numbers of recent
years. Except in the neighborhood of the Gardiner River, that is within
a few miles of Mammoth Hot Springs, I found them feeding on elk,
which in the Park far outnumber all other game put together, being so
numerous that the ravages of the cougars are of no real damage to the
herds. But in the neighborhood of the Mammoth Hot Springs the
cougars are noxious because of the antelope, mountain sheep and deer
which they kill; and the Superintendent has imported some hounds with
which to hunt them. These hounds are managed by Buffalo Jones, a
famous old plainsman, who is now in the Park taking care of the
buffalo. On