The Kinsley Graphic

THE GREATEST OF ALL HERDS.

Thirty-Two Thousand Elk in One Band in the Jackson's Hole District, Wyoming.

The largest herd of wild animals in the United States, and probably in the world, is the great band of elk which winters in the lowlands of Jackson's Hole district Wyoming. There are, at this writing estimated to be some 32,000 head of elk in the band. The men who have given this estimate are well-known ranchers and cattlemen, or cowboys and owners of sheep and stock ranges. Their estimate comes pretty close to being a correct one. During the severe winters in Wyoming, when the elk, driven by the bitter cold and heavy snows, approach almost to their very doors, they have unusual opportunities for observing this great herd of magnificent animals, reports the Kansas City Star.

All the elk in Jackson's Hole district are carefully protected by the scattered residents of the country. At present the herd is under the constant surveillance of two deputy game wardens, while district game wardens watch the band whenever any portion of it strays into the district over which they have authority. In the summertime the herd is widely scattered over an extent of country the radius of which is more than 500 miles, embracing a territory of virgin beauty and primeval grandeur.

Of those elk which enter Colorado a large percentage is killed, while the few which stray into Utah fall at the hands of the Uintah Ute Indians. The elk which wander too far from home are not killed in the summer, but in the late fall.

By far the larger portion of the herd which is guarded in the winter in Jackson's Hole passes the summer in the timbered heights in the Teton, Gros Ventre, and Shoshone mountains, the Big Horn Basin, the Yellowstone National Park, and even in the free range near the settlement of Jackson itself. One gentleman last summer counted a herd of 500 elk within two and a half miles of Jackson.

Within the last five years the elk have decreased 1,800 in number. This alarming decrease is due as much to the restriction of their natural range as to the efforts of sportsmen, Indians, or commercial hunters, who, it is often alleged, have pursued the herd in order to obtain the much-prized elk's teeth for a certain fraternity. In severe winter weather a great number of elks perish from starvation. Rather than venture to the lower pastures, they founder through the deep snows of the mountains, browsing from the buds of birch and quaking aspen. A thaw, followed by severe cold weather, makes a heavy crust that proves the undoing of the emaciated elk. Then progress becomes so difficult as to prevent the animal from obtaining sufficient food.

It is often incorrectly stated that elk browse on sheathes of pine and firs. If this were the case they would never starve, for their range abounds in conifers. Very few elk are pulled down by wolves, cougar, or other wild animals; in fact, they remain in the mountain altitudes long after the deep snows have driven these hungry marauders away, and the spring thaws reveal untouched carcasses of starved elks.

Elk are far and free travelers. They have not that strong love of locality which characterizes most members of the deer tribe, and when they once get under way they swing over the roughest ground and through dense forests of pine, up steep mountains covered with fairly impenetrable brush and windfalls, at almost the pace of a locomotive. The big herd in Jackson's Hole is a considerable source of income to the residents of that country, and as such it is as carefully guarded as is possible in so wild and rough a region. A couple of years ago a newspaper correspondent who had made the trip into Yellowstone park went further into the Jackson's Hole country. Alarmed by the sight of a fence of whitened elk horns, he wrote his editor an article upon the indiscriminate slaughter of the elk. He was mistaken, however. All these horns are shed by the elk in the early spring and are gathered during the cattle round-ups. In the fall when the elk are shot the horns are fastened firmly to the skull, and unless one expects to have them separately mounted as trophies he does not trouble to detach them.

In their mental equipment elk are like cattle, caribou, and reindeer. They do not possess the instinctive cunning of most members of the deer tribe. One will sometimes see a band laboriously pawing the snow for pasture in some deep-covered valley, while the summits and hog-backs have been blown clear by the wind. Deer, horses, and even sheep exhibit a keener reasoning in this respect. Only erratic methods of travel and habits of migration, together with their tendency to retreat as far as possible from the outposts of civilization, have made the existence of a large band possible until now.