American Big Game in Its Haunts - Various
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Among the experienced hunters of both forms of Dall's sheep are
Messrs. Dali DeWeese, of Colorado, and A.J. Stone, Collector of Arctic
Mammals for the American Museum of Natural History. Mr. Stone gives two
distinct ranges for this sheep, (1) the Alaska Mountains and Kenai
Peninsula, and (2) the entire stretch of the Rocky Mountains north of
latitude 60 degrees to near the Arctic coast just at the McKenzie,
reaching thence west to the headwaters of the Noatak and Kowak rivers
that flow into Kotzebue Sound.
Stone's sheep, which was described by Dr. Allen in 1897, came from the
head of the Stickine River, and two years after its description Dr. J.A.
Allen quotes Mr. A.J. Stone, the collector, as saying: "I traced the
_Ovis stonei_, or black sheep, throughout the mountainous country
of the headwaters of the Stickine, and south to the headwaters of the
Nass, but could find no reliable information of their occurrence further
south in this longitude. They are found throughout the Cassiar
Mountains, which extend north to 61 degrees north latitude and west to
134 degrees west longitude. How much further west they may be found I
have been unable to determine. Nor could I ascertain whether their range
extends from the Cassiar Mountains into the Rocky Mountains to the north
of Francis and Liard River. But the best information obtained led me to
believe that it does not. They are found in the Rocky Mountains to the
south as far as the headwaters of the Nelson and Peace rivers in
latitude 56 degrees, but I proved conclusively that in the main range of
the Rocky Mountains very few of them are found north of the Liard
River. Where this river sweeps south through the Rocky Mountains to
Hell's Gate, a few of these animals are founds as far north as Beaver
River, a tributary of the Liard. None, however, are found north of this,
and I am thoroughly convinced that this is the only place where these
animals may be found north of the Liard River.
"I find that in the Cassiar Mountains and in the Rocky Mountains they
everywhere range above timber line, as they do in the mountains of
Stickine, the Cheonees, and the Etsezas.
"Directly to the north of the Beaver River, and north of the Liard River
below the confluence of the Beaver, we first meet with _Ovis
dalli_."
A Stony Indian once told me that in his country--the main range of the
Rocky Mountains--there were two sorts of sheep, one small, dark in
color, and with slender horns, which are seldom broken, and another sort
larger and pale in color, with heavy, thick horns that are often broken
at the point. He went on to say that these small black sheep are all
found north of Bow River, Alberta, and that on the south side of Bow
River the big sheep only occur. The country referred to all lies on the
eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains. The hunting ground of the Stonies
runs as far north as Peace River, and it is hardly to be doubted that
they know Stone's sheep. The Brewster Bros., of Banff, Alberta, inform
me that Stone's sheep is found on the head of Peace River.
A dozen or fifteen years ago one of the greatest sheep ranges that was
at all accessible was in the mountains at the head of the Ashnola River,
in British Columbia, and on the head of the Methow, which rises in the
same mountains and flows south into Washington. This is a country very
rough and without roads, only to be traversed with a pack train.
Mr. Lew Wilmot writes me that there are still quite a number of sheep
ranging from Mt. Chapacca, up through the Ashnola, and on the
headwaters of the Methow. Indeed, it is thought by some that sheep are
more numerous there now than they were a few years ago. In Dyche's
"Campfires of a Naturalist" a record is given of sheep in the Palmer
Lake region, at the east base of the Cascade range in Washington.
The Rev. John McDougall, of Morley, Alberta, wrote me in 1899, in answer
to inquiries as to the mountain sheep inhabiting the country ranged over
by the Stony Indians, "that it is the opinion of these Indians that the
sheep which frequent the mountains from Montana northward as far as our
Indians hunt, are all of one kind, but that in localities they differ in
size, and somewhat in color.
"They say that from the 49th parallel to the headwaters of the
Saskatchewan River, sheep are larger than those in the Selkirks and
coast ranges; and also that as they go north of the Saskatchewan the
sheep become smaller. As to color, they say that the more southerly and
western sheep are the lighter; and that as you pass north the sheep are
darker in color. These Stonies report mountain sheep as still to be
found in all of the mountain country they roam in. Their hunting ground
is about 400 miles long by 150 broad, and is principally confined to the
Rocky Mountain range."
In an effort to establish something of the range of the mountain sheep,
during the very last years of the nineteenth century, I communicated
with a large number of gentlemen who were either resident in, or
travelers through, portions of the West now or formerly occupied by the
mountain sheep, and the results of these inquiries I give below:
Prof. L.V. Pirsson, of Yale University, who has spent a number of years
in studying the geology of various portions of the northern Rocky
Mountains, wrote me with considerable fullness in 1896 concerning the
game situation in some of the front ranges of the Rockies, where sheep
were formerly very abundant. In the Crazy Mountains he says he saw no
sheep, and that while it was possible they might be there, they must
certainly be rare. In 1880 there were many sheep there. In the Castle
Mountains none were seen, nor reported, nor any traces seen. The same is
true of the Little Belt, Highwood, and Judith Mountains. He understood
that sheep were still present in the bad lands; immediately about the
mountains and east of them the country was too well settled for any game
to live. Earlier, however, in the summer of 1890, passing through the
Snowy Mountains, which lie north of the National Park, sheep were seen
on two occasions; a band of ten ewes and lambs on Sheep Mountain, and a
band of seven rams on the head of the stream known as the Buffalo Fork
of the Lamar River. In 1893 an old ram was killed on Black Butte, at the
extreme eastern end of the Judith Mountains, near Cone Butte, and it is
quite possible that this animal had strayed out of the bad lands on the
lower Musselshell, or on the Missouri. Even at that time there were said
to be no sheep on the Little Rockies, Bearpaws, or Sweetgrass Hills.
All the ranges spoken of were formerly great sheep ranges, and on all of
them, many years ago, I saw sheep in considerable numbers.
There are a very few sheep in the Wolf Mountains of Montana.
There are still mountain sheep among the rough bad lands on both sides
of the Missouri River, between the mouth of the Musselshell and the
mouth of Big Dry. It is hard to estimate the number of these sheep, but
there must be many hundreds of them, and perhaps thousands. As recently
as August, 1900, Mr. S.C. Leady, a ranchman in this region, advised me
that he counted in one bunch, coming to water, forty-nine sheep.
Mr. Leady further advised me that in his country, owing to the sparse
settlement, the game laws are not at all regarded, and sheep are hunted
at all times of the year. The settlers themselves advocate the
protection of the game, but there is really no one to enforce the
laws. Recent advices from this country show that the conditions there
are now somewhat improved.
It is probable that in suitable localities in the Missouri River bad
lands sheep are still found in some numbers all the way from the mouth
of the Little Missouri to the mouth of the Judith River.
Mr. O.C. Graetz, now, or recently, of Kipp, Montana, advised me, through
my friend, J.B. Monroe, that in 1894, in the Big Horn Mountains, Wyo.,
on the head of the Little Horn River, in the rough and rolling country
he saw a band of eleven sheep. The same man tells me that also in 1894,
in Sweetwater county, in Wyoming, near the Sweetwater River, south of
South Pass, on a mountain known as Oregon Butte, he twice saw two
sheep. The country was rolling and high, with scattering timber, but not
much of it. In this country, and at that time, the sheep were not much
hunted.
Mr. Elwood Hofer, one of the best known guides of the West, whose home
is in Gardiner, Park county, Mont., has very kindly furnished me with
information about the sheep on the borders of the Yellowstone National
Park. Writing in May, 1898, he says: "At this time sheep are not
numerous anywhere in this country, compared with what they were before
the railroad (Northern Pacific Railroad) was built in 1881. In summer
they are found in small bands all through the mountains, in and about
the National Park. I found them all along the divide, and out on the
spurs, between the Yellowstone and Stinking Water rivers, and on down
between the Yellowstone and Snake rivers, on one side, and the south
fork of Stinking Water River and the Wind River on the east. I found
sheep at the extreme headwaters of the Yellowstone, and of the Wind
River, and the Buffalo Fork of Snake River. There are sheep in the
Tetons, Gallatin-Madison range, and even on Mount Holmes. I have seen
them around Electric Peak, and so on north, along the west side of the
Yellowstone as far as the Bozeman Pass; but not lately, for I have not
been in those mountains for a number of years. All along the range from
the north side of the Park to within sight of Livingston there are a few
sheep.
"On the Stinking Water, where I used to see bands of fifteen to twenty
sheep, now we only see from three to five. Of late years I have seen
very few large rams, and those only in the Park. Last summer
Mr. Archibald Rogers saw a large ram at the headwaters of Eagle Creek,
very close to the Park. In winter there are usually a few large rams in
the Gardiner Canyon. I hear that there are a few sheep out toward
Bozeman, on Mt. Blackmore, and the mountains near there.
"I believe that some of the reasons for the scarcity of mountain sheep
in this country are these: First, the settlement of the plains country
close to the mountains, prevents their going to their winter ranges, and
so starves them; secondly, the same cause keeps them in the mountains,
where the mountain lions can get at them; and thirdly, the scab has
killed a good many. I do not think that the rifle has had much to do
with destroying the sheep."
Sheep were formerly exceedingly abundant in all the bad lands along the
Yellowstone and Missouri rivers, and in the rough, broken country from
Powder River west to the Big Horn. The Little Missouri country was a
good sheep range, and also the broken country about Fort Laramie. In the
Black Hills of Dakota they were formerly abundant, and also along the
North Platte River, near the canons of the Platte, in the Caspar
Mountain, and in all the rough country down nearly to the forks of the
Platte.
The easternmost locality which I have for the bighorn is the Birdwood
Creek in Nebraska. This lies just north of O'Fallon Station on the Union
Pacific Railroad and flows nearly due south into the North Platte
River. It is in the northwestern corner of Lincoln county, Nebraska,
just west of the meridian of 101 degrees. Here, in 1877, the late Major
Frank North, well known to all men familiar with the West between the
years 1860 and 1880, saw, but did not kill, a male mountain sheep. The
animal was only 100 yards from him, was plainly seen and certainly
recognized. Major North had no gun, and thought of killing the sheep
with his revolver, but his brother, Luther H. North, who was armed with
a rifle, was not far from him, and Major North dropped down out of sight
and motioned his brother to come to him, so that he might kill it. By
the time Luther had come up, the sheep had walked over a ridge and was
not seen again, but there is no doubt as to its identification. It had
probably come from Court House Rock in Scott's Bluff county, Nebraska,
where there were still a few sheep as recently as twenty-five years ago.
These animals were also more or less abundant along the Little Missouri
River as late as the late '80's, and perhaps still later. This had
always been a favorite range for them, and in 1874 they were noticed and
reported on by Government expeditions which passed through the country,
and the hunters and trappers who about that time plied their trade along
that river found them abundant. Mr. Roosevelt has written much of
hunting them on that stream.
The low bluffs of the Yellowstone River--in the days when that was a
hostile Indian country, and only the hunter who was particularly
reckless and daring ventured into it--were a favorite feeding ground for
sheep. They were reported very numerous by the first expeditions that
went up the river, and a few have been killed there within five or six
years, although the valley is given over to farming and the upper
prairie is covered with cattle. This used to be one of the greatest
sheep ranges in all the West; the wide flats of the river bottom, the
higher table lands above, and the worn bad lands between, furnishing
ideal sheep ground. The last killed there, so far as I know, were a ram
and two ewes, which were taken about forty miles below Rosebud Station,
on the river, in 1897 or 1898.
Of Wyoming, Mr. Wm. Wells writes: "I have only been up here in
northwestern Wyoming for a year, but from what I have seen, sheep are
holding their own fairly well, and may be increasing in places. In 1897,
Mr. H.D. Shelden, of Detroit, Mich., and myself were hunting sheep just
west of the headwaters of Hobacks River. There was a sort of knife-edge
ridge running about fifteen miles north and south, the summit of which
was about 2,000 feet above a bench or table-land. The ridge was well
watered, and in some places the timber ran nearly up to the top of the
ridge. On this ridge there were about 100 sheep, divided into three
bands. Each band seemed to make its home in a cup-like hollow on the
east side of the ridge, about 500 feet below the crest, but the members
of the different bands seemed to visit back and forth, as the numbers
were not always the same.
"We could take our horses up into either one of the three hollows, and
some of the sheep were so tame that we have several times been within
fifty yards in plain sight, and had the sheep pay very little attention
to us. In one instance two ewes and lambs went on ahead of us at a walk
for several hundred yards, often stopping to look back; and in another a
sheep, after looking at us, two horses and two dogs, across a canyon 200
yards wide, pawed a bed in the slide rock and lay down. In another case
I drove about thirty head of ewes and lambs to within thirty-five yards
of Mr. Shelden, and when he rose up in plain sight, they stood and
looked at him. When he saw that there was no ram there, he yelled at
them, upon which they ran off about 400 yards, and then stood and looked
at us.
"I do not think that these sheep had been hunted, until this time, for
several years. As nearly as I could tell, they ranged winter and summer
on nearly the same ground. At the top of the range, facing the east,
were overhanging ledges of rock, and under these the dung was two feet
or more deep.
"Either during the winter or early spring the sheep had been down in the
timber on the east side of the ridge, as I found the remains of several,
in the winter coat, that had been killed by cougars."
Mr. D.C. Nowlin, of Jackson, Wyo., was good enough to write me in 1898,
concerning the sheep in the general neighborhood of Jackson's Hole; that
is to say, in the ranges immediately south of the National Park, a
section not far from that just described. He says: "In certain ranges
near here sheep are comparatively plentiful, and are killed every
hunting season.
"Occasionally a scabby ram is killed. I killed one here which showed
very plainly the ravages of scab, especially around the ears, and on the
neck and shoulders. Evidently the disease is identical with that so
common among domestic sheep, and I have heard more than one creditable
account of mountain sheep mingling temporarily with domestic flocks and
thus contracting the scab. I am confident that the same parasite which
is found upon scabby domestic sheep is responsible for the disease which
affects the bighorn. It is not difficult to account for the transmission
of the disease, as western sheep-men roam with their flocks at will,
from the peach belt to timber line, regardless alike of the legal or
inherent rights of man or beast. Partly through isolation, and partly
through moral suasion by our people, no domestic sheep have invaded
Jackson's Hole."
Mr. Ira Dodge, of Cora, Wyo., in response to inquiries as to the sheep
in his section of the country, says: "Mountain sheep are, like most
other game, where you find them; but their feeding grounds are mainly
high table-lands, at the foot of, or near, high rocky peaks or
ranges. These table-lands occur at or near timber line, varying one or
two thousand feet either way. In this latitude timber line occurs at
about 11,500 feet. In all the ranges in this locality, namely, the Wind
River, Gros Ventre, and Uintah, water is found in abundance, and, as a
rule, there is plenty of timber. I think I have more often found sheep
in the timber, or below timber line, than at higher altitudes, although
sometimes I have located the finest rams far above the last scrubby
pine.
"The largest bunch of sheep that I have seen was in the fall of 1893. I
estimated the band at 75 to 100. In that bunch there were no rams, and
they remained in sight for quite a long time; so that I had a good
opportunity to estimate them.
"I do not profess to know where the majority of these sheep winter, but,
undoubtedly, a great number winter on the table-lands before mentioned,
where a rich growth of grass furnishes an abundance of feed. At this
altitude the wind blows so hard and continuously, and the snow is so
light and dry, that there would be no time during the whole winter when
the snow would lie on the ground long enough to starve sheep to death.
Several small bunches of sheep winter on the Big Gros Ventre
River. These, I think, are the same sheep that are found in summer time
on the Gros Ventre range. I have occasionally killed sheep that were
scabby, but I have no positive knowledge that this disease has killed
any number of sheep. In the fall of 1894 I discovered eleven large ram
skulls in one place, and since that time found four more near by. My
first impression was that the eleven were killed by a snowslide, as they
were at the foot of one of those places where snowslides occur, but
finding the other four within a mile, and in a place where a snowslide
could not have killed them, it rather dispelled my first theory. As
mountain sheep can travel over snow drifts nearly as well as a caribou,
I do not believe that they were stranded in a snowstorm and perished,
and no hunter would have killed so great a number and left such
magnificent heads. The scab theory is about the only solution left. The
sheep are not hunted very much here, and I believe their greatest enemy
is the mountain lion.
"There is one isolated bunch of mountain sheep on the Colorado Desert,
situated in Fremont and Sweetwater counties, Wyo., which seems to be
holding its own against many range riders, meat and specimen hunters, as
well as coyotes. They are very light in color, much more so than their
cousins found higher up in the mountains, and locally they are called
ibex, or white goats. The country they live in is very similar to the
bad lands of Dakota, and I dare say that their long life on the plains
has created in them a distinct sub-species of the bighorn."
The Colorado Desert is situated in Wyoming, between the Green River on
the west, and the Red Desert on the east. The sheep are seen mostly on
the breaks on Green River. They are sometimes chased by cowboys, but I
have never known of one being caught in that way.
I am told that in some bad lands in the Red Desert, locally known as
Dobe Town, there is a herd of wild sheep, which are occasionally pursued
by range riders. Rarely one is roped.
Mr. Fred E. White, of Jackson, Wyo., advised me in 1898 of the existence
of sheep in the mountains which drain into Gros Ventre Fork, the heads
of Green River and Buffalo Fork of Snake River. Mr. White was with the
Webb party, some years ago, when they secured a number of sheep. The
same correspondent calls attention to the very large number of sheep
which in 1888, and for a few years thereafter, ranged in the high
mountains between the waters of the Yellowstone and the Stinking
Water. This is one of the countries from which sheep have been pretty
nearly exterminated by hunters and prospectors.
Within the past twenty or thirty years mountain sheep have become very
scarce in all of their old haunts in Wyoming and northern Colorado. This
does not seem to be particularly due to hunting, but the sheep seem to
be either moving away or dying out. Mr. W.H. Reed, in 1898, wrote me
from Laramie, Wyo., saying: "At present there are perhaps thirty head on
Sheep Mountain, twenty-two miles west of Laramie, Wyo.; on the west side
of Laramie Peak there are perhaps twenty head; on the east side of the
Peak twelve to fifteen head, and near the Platte Canon, at the head of
Medicine Bow River, there are fifteen. In 1894 I saw at the head of the
Green River, Hobacks River, and Gros Ventre River, between two and three
hundred mountain sheep. There are sheep scattered all through the Wind
River, and a very few in the Big Horn Mountains; but all are in small
bunches, and these widely separated. Some of the old localities where
they were very abundant in the early '70's, but now are never seen, are
Whalen Canon, Raw Hide Buttes, Hartville Mountains, thirty miles
northwest of Ft. Laramie, Elk Mountains, and the adjacent hills fifteen
miles east of Fort Steele, near old Fort Halleck. They seem to have
disappeared also from the bad lands along Green River, south of the
Union Pacific Railroad, from the Freezeout Hills, Platte Canyon, at the
mouth of Sweetwater River, from Brown's Canyon, forty miles northwest of
Rawlins, from the Seminole and Ferris Mountains, and from many other
places in the middle and northeastern part of Wyoming."
In Colorado, the mountains surrounding North Park and west to the Utah
line, had many mountain sheep twenty-five years ago, but to-day old
hunters tell me that there are only two places where one is sure to find
sheep. These are Hahn's Peak and the Rabbit Ears, two peaks at the south
end of North Park.
There were sheep in and about the Black Hills of Dakota as late as 1890,
for Mr. W.S. Phillips has kindly informed me that about June of that
year he saw three sheep on Mt. Inyan Kara. These were the only ones
actually seen during the summer, but they were frequently heard of from
cattle-men, and Mr. Phillips considers it beyond dispute that at that
time they ranged from Sundance, Inyan Kara and Bear Lodge Mountains--all
on the western and southwestern slope of the Black Hills, on and near
the Wyoming-Dakota line--on the east, westerly at least to Pumpkin
Buttes and Big Powder River, and in the edge of the bad lands of Wyoming
as far north as the Little Missouri Buttes, and south to the south fork
of the Cheyenne River, and the big bend of the north fork of the Platte,
and the head of Green River. This range is based on reports of reliable
range riders, who saw them in passing through the country. It is an
ideal sheep country--rough, varying from sage brush desert, out of which
rises an occasional pine ridge butte, to bad lands, and the mountains of
the Black Hills. There are patches of grassy, fairly good pasture
land. The country is well watered, and there are many springs hidden
under the hills which run but a short distance after they come out of
the ground and then sink. Timber occurs in patches and more or less open
groves on the pine ridges that run sometimes for several miles in a
continuous hill, at a height of from one to three or four hundred feet
above the plain. The region is a cattle country.
In 1893 and '97 fresh heads and hides were seen at Pocotello, Idaho, and
at one or two other points west of there in the lava country along Snake
River and the Oregon short line. The sheep were probably killed in the
spurs and broken ranges that run out on the west flank of the main chain
of the Rockies toward the Blue Mountains of Oregon.
Mr. William Wells, of Wells, Wyo., has very kindly given me the
following notes as to Colorado, where he formerly resided. He says:
"During 1890, '91, '92, there were a good many mountain sheep on the
headwaters of Roan Creek, a tributary of Grand River, in Colorado. Roan
Creek heads on the south side of the Roan or Book Plateau, and flows
south into Grand River. The elevation of Grand River at this point is
about 5,000 feet, and the elevation of the Book Plateau is about 8,500
feet. The side of the plateau toward Grand River consists of cliffs from
2,000 to 3,000 feet high, and as the branches of Roan Creek head on top
of the plateau they form very deep box canyons as they cut their way to
the river. It is on these cliffs and in these canyons that the sheep were
found. I understand that there are some there yet, but I have not been
in that section since 1892. On all the cliffs are benches or terraces--a
cliff of 300 to 1,000 feet at the top, then a bench, then another cliff,
and so on to the bottom. The benches are well grassed, and there is more
or less timber, quaking asp, spruce and juniper in the side
canyons. There are plenty of springs along the cliffs, and as they face
the south, the winter range is good. The top of the plateau is an open
park country, and at that time was, and is yet, for that matter, full of
deer and bear, but I never saw any sheep on top, though they sometimes
come out on the upper edge of the cliffs.