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Show est reproduction for decades, and then starved by thousands. The Kaibab Plateau on the north side of the Grand Canyon is the most often quoted example of this mismanagement. " There a small herd of about one- tenth of the 1928 herd is about all the range can safely carry at the present time." 69 In still more recent times, game management techniques have furnished a key to reasonable control of deer, but if the hunter is to be effective in replacing the mountain lion in Nature's deer- reproduction program, he may find it more and more necessary to discard certain biologically unsound habits not shared by the lion, such as the selective killing of males only. Antelope have increased sufficiently in certain parts of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Wyoming to permit a limited open season, but the numbers and distribution of these animals are but a fraction of that which originally prevailed in the country as a whole. The preservation of antelope is synonymous with the restoration of grassland which constitutes one of our greatest and most important conservation problems. It does not take keen scientific observation to see that " grazing refuge" rather than " hunting refuge" is the urgent need of the antelope range at present. Provisions should be made in each district for antelope in common with livestock. 70 The buffalo millions are represented in the Colorado River Basin by a herd of approximately 200 head in House Rock Valley in northern Arizona, a band of about 28 in the vicinity of the Henry Mountains in southern Utah, a small herd on or near Anderson Mesa, and 31 head in Colorado National Monument. Forage in House Rock Valley is poor and the herd has to be reduced periodically. Forage is scanty in the vicinity of the Henry Mountains, although this band is still increasing. Forage conditions in Colorado National Monument are deplorable. A substantial reduction in the number of buffalo there had to be made in 1945, but a still greater reduction is needed. Bighorn, though protected everywhere, have for the most part continued to dwindle in the Colorado River Basin, although perhaps at a slower rate than during the depression years, when poaching by 69 Swift, 1945b, p. 132. 70 Knipe, 1944, p. 38. " prospectors" was more common. In Arizona, " certain localities will see the last of the Bighorn within the next decade. However, the outlook is better for those remaining in Yuma and Mohave counties." 71 In New Mexico, only three bands of native bighorn appear to remain, none of them being in the Colorado River Basin. 72 In Utah, there were at one time many along the gorges of the Green and Colorado Rivers. They are still fairly common there, but local residents state that their numbers have been greatly reduced in recent years, apparently by the widely observed epidemics of scabies, which seem to have been transmitted by domestic sheep. A few bighorn remain along the high plateau lands from Zion National Park to the Uinta Mountains. In Colorado and Wyoming, the bighorn may have ceased their downward trend in some localities. In Pike National Forest, Colo., which is outside of the Colorado River Basin, good summer and winter forage on the Tarryall Range has permitted the bighorn to increase to about 600, and the surplus is being used to restock other localities. Beaver, bears, and peccaries are said to have increased since 1943,73 but such statements are relative and require qualification. Beaver restocking programs have been carried out in Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado, but as a rule only the more remote and less productive areas are suitable for beaver today. The animals must be kept out of many agricultural regions which formerly were their most fertile habitat because of the damage that they do to crops, irrigation canals, aqueducts, and highways. Less than 10 percent of the original beaver habitat has been restored. In the Colorado River Basin the once abundant black bear has increased in some places, but the grizzly, which was distributed throughout most of the mountains and foothills, now is extinct, except perhaps at the extreme northern end of the basin near Jackson Hole. The peccary, at one time threatened with extinction, was given total protection in the 1930' s and has recovered sufficiently for an open season to be declared in Arizona. In New Mexico, they were reported from the Coronado National Forest in 1943, but from none of the other national forests, 74 71 Arizona Game and Fish Commission, 1942, p. 16. 72 Halloran, 1944. 73 Swift, 1945b, p. 121. 74 Swift, 1945b, p. 123. 73 |