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Show ernor" to prevent the overproduction of the herbivorous animals. An abundant vegetation is required also to sustain the deer, elk and antelope, beaver, wild turkey, grouse, and waterfowl that once swarmed over the plains and foothills in such numbers that they were thought to be inexhaustible. The same biological relationship between warmth, abundant food, and large numbers of animals enables the more fertile waters of the lowlands to support many more fish than can the waters of the mountains, and permits the individual fish to grow larger. Although excessive fishing and the slaughter of game on a commercial scale were among the principal causes of wildlife depletion at the time that the country was settled, several more deep- seated causes soon commenced to operate and have continued to hasten disappearance of the original conditions long after the wholesale slaughter of the early days was halted by law. One of these causes of depletion has been the occupancy of most of the choice, fertile regions of the country by cities and farms. Elk, deer, beaver, turkeys, and many other wild creatures, that in the West are considered today to be almost exclusively mountain dwellers, had their centers of abundance, particularly during the winter, in the lower hills and adjacent valleys. When these lowlands were cleared for farming or for the establishment of cities, the original plant- cover was destroyed and the animal life was forced to move, if it could. The elk and deer which previously had used the mountains primarily for summer range now were forced to live there the year round. Other less adaptable kinds of animals dwindled away or died out completely. Retreat into the mountains, however, brought new problems of existence for those animals that were able to change their life habits in this manner. Fur- bearing animals found fewer rabbits, mice, and birds because the growing season for vegetation required by the latter was shorter at the higher altitudes. The deep, long- lasting snows often buried more than half of what browse there was beyond reach of elk and deer. Many mountain lakes used by waterfowl in summer froze solid in the winter months. The biological relations between numbers of animals and fertility of the environment immediately operated to maintain the migrants from the lowlands at a permanently low population. Competition between different kinds of animals for what little food there was became unnaturally severe during the winter months. Elk crowded into what was formerly a sheltered range of bighorn in the ponderosa pine belt, thereby forcing the bighorn to remain all winter on the higher, windswept areas above the timber line. 33 Today, the cold mountains and the rainless deserts are the principal remaining strongholds for many kinds of wildlife, not because they are the most suitable or productive areas, but because they are all that man has left in a relatively undisturbed condition. However, wildlife has dwindled away in the desert, too, for settlements have been built around some of the best watering places. Water from many of the remaining scattered springs has been piped away to mines and ranches, and, as mentioned later, even the rivers have dried up. Where water still remains, it is often used so heavily by livestock that all vegetation in the immediate vicinity is destroyed, leaving no cover for game birds or other animals. Under such conditions the water is as unavailable as though it had been fenced or piped away. 2. Grazing. In the days of early settlement, grazing was carried on with the same reckless, competitive abandon as was the first cutting of timber and the commercial slaughter of wildlife for the meat market. No natural resource, however abundant in the beginning, has long withstood such wasteful use. At the termination of the Civil War in 1865, the cattle business of the West entered a boom period comparable to the Gold Rush. In the scramble to get rich from the vast, new, unfenced lands, great syndicates were formed in the East and in England, and men and money poured in even from such faraway places as Australia. North and west from the Great Plains through the Uinta Basin in Utah and the Red Desert and the Upper Green River Valley in Wyoming, all the way to Canada, the tide rolled in. So abundant was the grass at first, even in that inhospitable climate, that no winter feeding was done- an inconceivable practice today. With such overstocking the primitive grassland disappeared. The severe winter of 1886 brought about the end of boom times. Cattle perished by the thousands, and unlimited grazing 33 Ratcliff and Sumner, 1945, p. 246. 62 |