In 1905, a herd of twenty of the so-called dwarf elk of the San Joaquin Valley, California, were taken to the Sequoia National Park, and placed in a fenced range that had been established for it on the Kaweah River.

The extermination of the wapiti began with the settlement of the American colonies.  Naturally, the largest animals were the ones most eagerly sought by the meat-hungry pioneers, and the elk and bison were the first game species to disappear.  The colonists believed in the survival of the fittest, and we are glad that they did.  The one thing that a hungry pioneer cannot withstand is—­temptation—­in a form that embraces five hundred pounds of succulent flesh.  And let it not be supposed that in the eastern states there were only a few elk.  The Pennsylvania salt licks were crowded with them, and the early writers describe them as existing in “immense bands” and “great numbers.”

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.