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National Geographic : 1916 Nov
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Photograph by E. C . Oberholtzer COW MOOSE WITH HER YOUNG Notice the fold of skin at her neck resembling a bell causes, together with a steadily increas ing commercial demand for animal prod ucts, have had an appalling effect. The buffalo, elk, and antelope are reduced to a pitiful fraction of their former count less numbers. WANTON WASTE OF WILD LIFE Practically all other large game has alarmingly decreased, and its extermina tion has been partly stayed only by the recent enforcement of protective laws. It is quite true that the presence of wild buffalo, for instance, in any region occu pied for farming and stock-raising pur poses is incompatible with such use. Thus the extermination of the bison as a deni zen of our western plains was inevitable. The destruction, however, of these noble game animals by millions for their hides only furnishes a notable example of the wanton wastefulness which has hereto fore largely characterized the handling of our wild life. A like disregard for the future has been shown in the pursuit of the sea mammals. The whaling and sealing in dustries are very ancient, extending back for a thousand years or more; but the greatest and most ruthless destruction of the whales and seals has come within the last century, especially through the use of steamships and bomb-guns. Without adequate international protection, there is grave danger that the most valuable of these sea mammals will be exterminated. The fur seal and the sea-elephant, once so abundant on the coast of southern California, are nearly or quite gone, and the sea otter of the North Pacific is dan gerously near extinction. The recent great abundance of large land mammals in North America, both in individuals and species, is in striking con trast with their scarcity in South Amer ica, the difference evidently being due to the long isolation of the southern conti nent from other land-masses, whence it
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