2. To promote travel and exploration in the wild and
unknown, or but partially known, portions of the country.
3. To work for the preservation of the large game of this
country, and, so far as possible, to further legislation for
that purpose, and to assist in enforcing the existing laws.
4. To promote inquiry into and to record observations on the
habits and natural history of the various wild animals.
5. To bring about among the members the interchange of
opinions and ideas on hunting, travel, exploration, on the
various kinds of hunting-rifles, on the haunts of game
animals, etc.
The Club is organized primarily to promote manly sport with the rifle
among the large game of the wilderness, to encourage travel and
exploration in little-known regions of our country, and to work for game
and forest preservation by the State. Attention has been paid to all
three points by the Club, but especially to sport and protection.
Nevertheless exploration has not been neglected. In a trip after
wilderness game the hunter is perforce obliged to traverse and explore
little-known regions, at least when he is in search of the rarer
animals, or is desirous of reaching the best hunting-grounds; and in
addition to such exploration, which is merely incidental to the ordinary
hunting trip, members of the Club have done not a little original
exploration for its own sake, including surveying, and geographical and
geological map-making. The results of these explorations, when
sufficiently noteworthy, have appeared in periodicals devoted to such
subjects, or in Government reports. The present volume is devoted to
big-game hunting and to questions of game preservation.
In behalf of game protection the Club works through the State for the
procuring and setting apart of reservations where forests and game alike
shall be protected at all seasons by the law. These great forest
reservations thus become the nurseries and breeding-grounds of game and
of the large wild animals which are elsewhere inevitably exterminated by
the march of settlement. Already several such reservations have been
established in different States, both by National and by State
action--for instance, the Adirondack Reserve in New York, the Colorado
Canyon Reserve in Arizona, the big timber reserves in Colorado and
Washington, the island set apart in Alaska as an undisturbed
breeding-ground for salmon and sea-fowl, the Yosemite Valley and the
Sequoia Parks in California. The most important reservation, however, is
the Yellowstone Park, which is owned by the National Government, and is
the last refuge of the buffalo in this country, besides being the chief
home of the elk and of many other wild beasts. This is the most striking
and typical of all these reserves, and has been thought well worth
special description in the present volume, with reference to its effects
upon the preservation of game.
The enactment of laws prohibiting the killing of game anywhere, save at
certain seasons and under certain conditions, must be left largely to
the States themselves; and among the States there is the widest possible
difference both as to the laws and as to the way they are enforced. It
is enforcement which needs most attention. Very many of the States have
good game laws, but in very few are they rigidly enforced. Maine offers
a striking instance of how well they work when properly framed and
administered with honesty and efficiency. There are undoubtedly many
more moose, caribou, and deer in Maine now than there were twenty-five
years ago; and if the Maine Legislature will see that the good work is
continued, these noble beasts of the chase will continue to increase, to
the delight, not only of the hunter, but of every lover of nature and of
the hardy life of the wilderness, and to the very great pecuniary profit
of the people of the State. In other States--Colorado, for
instance--good has come from the enactment and enforcement of game laws;
but in no other State have the governmental authorities acted with the
wisdom displayed by those of Maine, and in no other State have the
results been so noteworthy. It is greatly to be wished that such States
as Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, which inclose the best
hunting-grounds now existing in the United States, would follow Maine's
lead.
Another means by which the Club hopes to bring about a proper spirit for
the preservation of our big game is by frowning on and discouraging
among sportsmen themselves all unsportsmanlike proceedings and all
needless slaughter. The Club has persistently discouraged anything
tending to glorify the making of big bags of game, and it strives to
discourage the killing of the females of any game species save under
rigid limitations. No harm comes to any species from the destruction of
a moderate number of bulls, bucks, or rams, and these are the legitimate
objects for the hunter's skill. Only legitimate methods of sport should
be followed; torch hunting and the slaughter of game in deep snow or in
the water are held to be unsportsmanlike.
Hunting big game in the wilderness is, above all things, a sport for a
vigorous and masterful people. The rifle-bearing hunter, whether he goes
on foot or on horseback, whether he voyages in a canoe or travels with a
dog-sled, must be sound of body and firm of mind, and must possess
energy, resolution, manliness, self-reliance, and capacity for hardy
self-help. In short, the big-game hunter must possess qualities without
which no race can do its life-work well; and these are the very
qualities which it is the purpose of this Club, so far as may be, to
develop and foster.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL.