The Curse of Domestic Sheep Upon Game and Cattle.—­Much has been said in print and out of print regarding the extent to which domestic sheep have destroyed the cattle ranges and incidentally many game ranges of the West; but the half hath not been told.  The American people as a whole do not realize that the domestic sheep has driven the domestic steer from the free grass of the wild West, with the same speed and thoroughness with which the buffalo-hunters of the 70’s and 80’s swept away the bison.  I have seen hundreds of thousands of acres of what once were beautiful and fertile cattle-grazing lands in Montana, that has been left by grazing sheep herds looking precisely as if the ground had been shaven with razors and then sandpapered.  The sheep have driven out the cattle, and the price of beef has gone up accordingly.  Neither cattle, horses nor wild game can find food on ground that has been grazed over by sheep.

The following is the testimony of a reliable eye witness, Mr. Dillon Wallace, and the full text appears in his book, “Saddle and Camp in the Rockies,” (page 169):—­

Domestic sheep and sheep herders are the greatest enemies of the antelope, as well as of other game animals and birds in the regions where herders take their flocks.  The ranges over which domestic sheep pasture are denuded of forage and stripped of all growth, and antelope will not remain upon a range where sheep have been.

Thus the sheep, sweeping clean all before them and leaving the ranges over which they pass unproductive, for several succeeding seasons, of pasturage for either wild or domestic animals, together with the destructive shepherds, are the worst enemies at present of Utah’s wild game, particularly of antelope, sage hens, and grouse.

In Iron county, which has already become an extensive sheep region, settlers tell us that before the advent of sheep, grass grew so luxuriously that a yearling calf lying in it could not be seen.  Not only has the grass here been eaten, but the roots tramped out and killed by the hoofs of thousands upon thousands of sheep, and now wide areas, where not long since grass was so plentiful, are as bare and desolate as sand-piles.

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CHAPTER XXIX

NEW LAWS NEEDED IN THE STATES
(Continued)

CONNECTICUT: 

The sale of all native wild game, regardless of its source, should be prohibited at all times.  Enact at once a five-year close season law on the remnant of ruffed grouse, quail, woodcock, snipe, and all shore birds.

  Even in the home of the newest and deadliest “autoloading” shotgun,
  those guns and pump guns should be prohibited in hunting.

  The enormous bag limits of 35 rail and 50 each per day of plover,
  snipe and shore birds is a crime!  They should be replaced by a
  ten-year close season law for all of those species.