William T. Hornaday

“ BULL MOOSE Monograph Number Five in The Mentor Reading Course
Imagine an animal standing between six and seven feet high at the shoulders, its legs four feet long, its neck and body covered with a heavy thatch of coarse, purplish gray hair, and its huge head crowned with massive antlers spreading from five to six feet in width! That is the moose (Alces americanus) . It is the largest animal of the deer family. The only way to appreciate a moose is to see an adult animal alive and full of strength, striding through the forests of Canada or Alaska. ”

“ Every believer in manliness, and therefore in manly sport, and every lover of nature, every man who appreciates the majesty and beauty of the wilderness and of wild life, should strike hands with the far-sighted men who wish to preserve our material resources, in the effort to keep our forests and our game beasts, game birds, and game fish—indeed, all the living creatures of prairie, and woodland, and seashore—from wanton destruction. ”

“ The most striking and melancholy feature in connection with American big game is the rapidity with which it has vanished. When, just before the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, the rifle-bearing hunters of the backwoods first penetrated the great forests west of the Alleghanies, deer, elk, black bear, and even buffalo, swarmed in what are now the States of Kentucky and Tennessee, and the country north of the Ohio was a great and almost virgin hunting-ground. ”

“ Does anyone doubt that in North America the hunting of big game,—once marvelously abundant,—is fast becoming an extinct pastime? As a game animal, the American bison is gone. In the United States, antelope hunting is gone, forever. The Arizona elk is totally extinct. In the United States, mountain sheep hunting is extinct in all States save two: and it should be so in those also. Mountain goat hunting is possible in two States only. It is now next to impossible to find and kill a wild grizzly in the United States. ”

“ The characteristic features of America’s big game animals are to be treated as natural history. The wasteful slaughter of them is unnatural history. Ever since the days of Daniel Boone, the American pioneers and exploiters of Nature’s resources have most diligently been exterminating our bison, elk, deer, moose, antelope, sheep, and goats. For twenty years we have been toiling to save the American bison from total extinction. ”

“ Europe and Asia have the reindeer, but North America has a truly grand array of caribou species. In size and geography they range all the way from the absurd little Peary caribou of Ellesmere Land, which looks like a goat with deer antlers upon it, to the giant of the Cassiar Mountains, known as Osborn’s caribou. Roughly speaking, our North American species are divided by their antlers into two groups, the Woodland and the Barren Ground. ”

“ The highest type of big-game hunting is the finding of fine animals in their haunts, photographing them movably and unmovably, and then bidding them go in peace. To be really and truly ignorant of such distinguished American citizens as the moose and musk-ox, caribou, sheep, goat, antelope, deer and Alaskan brown bear, is reprehensible, and should be punishable by a fine. ”

“ We must admit that in eastern captivity the moose cannot thrive anywhere south of Canada. The climate of New York city is like poison to moose, caribou and antelope. The salt-laden rains of winter, at 32° Fahrenheit are to blame. In New Brunswick, through wise laws rigidly enforced, (as a rule) the moose are increasing, even though hunted every year. In Maine, moose-hunting has been stopped. The great State game preserve in northern Minnesota contains many hundred moose, quite well protected. ”

“ Even in the Yellowstone Park the antelope herds are now but little better than stationary. Excepting the goat and musk-ox, the prong-horn is North America’s most exclusively American species of big game. It is so very odd that it occupies a Family all alone. It is the only living hollow-horned ruminant that sheds its horns, every year. ”

“ I believe that the mountain goat will be the last of the big-game species of the open mountains of North America to be exterminated by man. The sheep, moose, caribou and musk-ox will go long in advance of the ubiquitous goat. In protected areas like Glacier Park and the Elk River Game Preserve of southeast British Columbia, the species should endure for a century, or perhaps for two centuries. ”

“ So let us make it clear now to every member of The Mentor Association that the preparation of special programs and courses of reading is a regular part of The Mentor Service, and that we give it freely and gladly. The service includes other things besides. We answer questions on all kinds of subjects in the various fields of knowledge. Our daily mail is heavy with inquiries, and we give the questioners the benefit of the knowledge and experience of recognized authorities.
Just another word about programs. Some people do not understand what a program for a reading club means. ”

“ It is because the old big-horn rams are found where the scenery is grandest and most inspiring; they are the keenest of eye, nose and ear of all our big game, and hunting them successfully means real mountaineering. ”

“ In Africa a lady can kill a big elephant, but in the Rocky Mountains ladies do not kill big-horn rams with the rings of eight or ten years on their horns.
There are times when hunting the mountain goat becomes sport for men; but many a goat has been killed by an easy fluke. The old big-horn ram, with horns that are worth while, requires real hunting, and many a man has taken the long trail for one and gone back empty-handed.
I should be mighty sorry to see sheep-hunting become an extinct pastime ”

“ Whenever a musk-ox herd is attacked by wolves, or by dogs, the adult bulls and cows immediately form themselves into a hollow circle, with the calves inside; and thus they stand literally shoulder to shoulder, facing outward with horns at the “ready,” quite able to repel all attacks save those with firearms. If a dog or wolf comes near enough to a musk-ox so that there appears to be a chance to impale it, out rushes the musk-ox in a swift charge. Usually the nimble footed canine escapes unharmed, and as soon as it is beyond reach the musk-ox quickly returns to his place in the circle. ”

“ The most interesting side of every wild animal is its mind,—what it thinks, and why. First of all, however, we must know the personality of our animal and be able to speak its name as promptly as the politician names his voting acquaintances. To call an antelope a “deer” is to lose a vote. ”

“ The moose can be recognized by its broad, square-ended, overhanging nose, its high hump on the shoulders, its long, coarse, smoky gray hair, and the antlers of the male, which are enormously flattened and expanded. Moose are found in northern Maine, and some other parts of the Northern States, Canada and Alaska.
It is hard to kill a moose. Most of those killed are shot from ambush. In the autumn months the moose hunter may sometimes make a horn of birch bark and, concealing himself beside a pond at nightfall, may by imitating the call of the cow moose attract a bull within shooting distance. ”

“ Thanks to the efforts of the United States and Canadian Governments, the New York Zoological Society and the American Bison Society, the buffalo now is secure against extinction. Our government now owns and maintains six herds, having a total of about 570 head, and the Canadian Government owns about 1,600 head. Our chief hope is based on the herd in the Montana National Bison Range, now containing 134 head, living in a rich pasture of 29 square miles, capable of supporting 1,000 bison without the purchase of a pound of hay. ”

“ In the Montana and Wichita Bison Ranges, of 29 and 14 square miles, efforts are being made to establish herds. Canada is making two large prairie preserves, under fence, especially for the purpose of saving the antelope from extinction. Taking all these efforts together, there is a fighting chance that the species eventually will be saved from oblivion, but at present the odds are very much against it. As a sport with the rifle, however, legitimate prong-horned antelope hunting is already as extinct as mammoth-spearing on glacial ice. ”

“ Many wild animals are more interesting per capita than some men. To learn to know our best wild animals is like annexing new territory. It increases our mental and moral resources, and provides a new channel for the disposition of surplus wealth. ”

“ Its favorite pastures in summer are the treeless slopes above the timber-line; and even in winter, when the raging storms drive the elk and deer down into the valleys, the mountain sheep descends for only a short distance. The mountain sheep is a bold climber. Its legs are robust and strong, and when pursued it can dash down steep declivities in safety.
It is very easy to recognize any adult mountain sheep by the massive round curving horns. No wild animals other than wild sheep have circling horns.
The largest of specimens of wild sheep are found in Asia. There are six species in America. ”

“ There is yet ample opportunity for the big game hunter in the United States, Canada and Alaska.... It is necessary to remember that these opportunities are, nevertheless, vanishing; and if we are a sensible people we will make it our business to see that the process of extinction is arrested. At the present moment the great herds of caribou are being butchered, as in the past the great herds of bison and wapiti have been butchered. ”

“ The bull moose has under the throat a long strip of skin called a “bell.” In the adult male animal this bell is sometimes a foot in length The female moose has no antlers, and out of every thousand females only one has a bell.
In captivity the moose is docile, and affectionate. They have even been trained to drive in harness. But owing to the peculiar nature of their digestive organs, they cannot live long upon ordinary grass or hay. Green grass is fatal to them.
During the deep snows of winter moose herd together in sheltered spots in the forest. ”

“ It is said that goats will cross walls of rock which neither man, dog nor mountain sheep would dare attempt to pass. Sometimes they walk along the face of a precipice of apparently smooth rock; yet in doing so they frequently look back and turn around whenever they feel so inclined. The white goat is built something on the order of a small American bison. Its head is carried low and the horns are small and short. Its hair is yellowish-white. Next to the skin is a thick coat of fine wool through which grows a long outside thatch of coarse hair. ”

“ The ideal home of the moose is burned-over tracts of timber, wherein the brush grows rankly, the obstructing trees are absent, and in running or traveling the moose has only to stride over fallen trunks lying four feet high, and always about. The moose is the only land animal now living on this continent that is physically qualified, with a standing of 100 per cent, to travel fast over “down timber” and get away with it. ”

“ The male elk is at its handsomest in October or November, when his skin is bright and immaculately clean and his fine antlers have just been renewed.
The elk has small and shapely legs. It avoids swamps and low ground and likes to frequent mountain parks. It is also a forest animal. Formerly it ranged far out into the western edge of the great plains and it was accustomed in summer to ascend the Rocky Mountains to the very crest of the Continental Divide. ”

“ If his wits were equal to his bulk, no man with a gun ever would see a live moose save through binoculars, and we never would acquire any antlers save those discarded by the animal. The homeliest members of the Deer Family are its female moose in calving time, beside which warthogs and hippopotami are sirens and sylphs. ”

“ It can not endure rain in winter! Everywhere in the United States where this remarkable species still survives, it should at once be given complete protection. In Glacier Park it is now almost a common occurrence for visitors to see wild mountain goats. I saw two myself, near the Sperry Glacier, in 1909, and the flocks are undoubtedly much more numerous to-day.
CARIBOU
In its summer coat, with its antlers “in the velvet”
Mentally and temperamentally the mountain goat is a remarkable animal. ”

“ It is a large animal with strength enough to vanquish the strongest man in about one minute. Its shoulders are sharp and high, and its head is held low and thrust straight forward. The Woodland caribou of Maine has a body color of bluish brown and gray. In October, however, its new coat is of the color known as seal brown. Its antlers are short and have more than thirty points. As a whole the antlers have the appearance of a tree-top. ”

“ The ordinary program is so slim and elementary that there is no inspiration in it. We prepare programs that contain the meat of the subject in condensed form, and we supply appropriate introductions to the meetings, and suggest supplementary reading matter. ”

“ That herd has risen from 37 head presented in 1909 by the American Bison Society. The Wichita and Wind Cave National Herds were founded by herds drawn from the New York Zoological Park, and presented by the Zoological Society.
Excepting for the white-tailed deer and the elk, it is to-day a grave question whether there will be any big game hunting in the United States twenty years hence. ”

“ In such protected sanctuaries they should finally increase to such an extent that the natural overflow will make legitimate goat-hunting in the surrounding mountains. I should be sorry to see goat-hunting become a lost art ”