KAIBAB RESERVE.

Forest and Bird, Issue 25, 1 October 1931, Page 11

KAIBAB RESERVE.

[The following extracts, culled from “Bird Lore,” with reference to the Kaibab Reserve in Arizona, make interesting reading when our own deer meance is considered. It will be noticed that the special committee set up to report recommends that the natural enemies be preserved lest the vegetation is completely destroyed. In New Zealand the natural enemy is, of course, absent. What will become of our forests?]

One of the most peculiar and difficult problems in connection with the management of game-animals is that which has developed in the Kaibab Game Preserve, of Northern Arizona, established by Act of Congress in 1906. For a number of years all hunting of deer was prohibited. Several hundred cougars, thousand of coyotes, as well as many wildcats and a few gray wolves of the region were destroyed. The deer, relieved of the destructive effect of their wild and human enemies, quickly began to show a marked increase in numbers, and soon the officials of the United States Forest Service, who have charge of the preserve, became conscious of the alarming decrease of available food-supply. Since the autumn of 1924 restricted hunting has been permitted with a view to trying, if possible, to save the range. Despite this action, tesimony on all sides indicates that great numbers of deer have died of starvation, and the range has steadily deteriorated. The Kaibab area is a forested plateau on the north rim of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River. It is approximately 1,052,000 acres in extent, something more than two-thirds of the area being within the Game Preserve, the rest being included in the Grand Canyon National Park. Roughly, we may say it is bounded on three sides by cliffs which almost everywhere are inaccessible, and on the remaining side by deserts. The region, therefore, so far as the deer are concerned, is about as isolated as if they were on an island. At an altitude of from 8,000 to 9,000 feet, the deer pass the summer, dropping down in winter on the west and east sides to altitudes of from 4,000 to 5,000 feet.

A few months ago the United States Forest Service requested a number of organisations to appoint official representatives who would compose a Committee to investigate the Kaibab region and to study the conditions by actual observations and make to the Forest Service such recommendations as it saw fit. The Committee traversed all sections of the Kaibab area travelling approximately 650 miles in actual field of examination. It observed every forest type of the area during the period June Bth to 15th, 1931. In its report to the Forest Service the Committee stated in part: — “It is the conclusion of the Committee, after carefully reviewing the general condition of the Kaibab range, and also observing the degree of recovery within the fenced experimental plots, that the Kaibab area is not now producing more than 10 per cent, of the available and nutritious forage that this range once produced. “No doubt the entire accessible Kaibab area has suffered at least two periods of severe range depletion; first, by domestic grazing animals, and then by deer. In the words of a financier, the capital investment, which in this case is the forage, has been used up almost completely. “The forage of the entire Kaibab area is yet in a deplorable condition, and with the exception of the east-side winter range, it is doubtful whether there has been any considerable range recovery due to the reduction of the deer-herd. It is believed, however, by those who have studied Kaibab conditions over several years, that in places there is slight suspension of range deterioration because of the reduction of the deer and domestic stock. There exists a most urgent need for reducing the present number of deer in the Kaibab area to a point much below the present limited carrying capacity of the range and maintaining the deer-herd at such a level until such time as the various species of shrubs and young trees upon which the deer depend for browse are re-established. Thereafter, by careful game management, the deer may be permitted to increase to such numbers as the natural food-supply may sustain. During this necessary period of re-establishment, we recommend that all forms of natural wild animal life, other than deer, in the Kaibab area be left undisturbed, except for necessary scientific purposes, or where serious damage to private property is being done, and that suspension of Federal and State predatory animal killing be continued; also, the area should be closed to private trapping and hunting of flesh-eating animals until adequate annual reductions of deer are made.”