The caribou thousands of Newfoundland are fairly accessible to sportsmen and pot-hunters, but at the same time the colonial government can protect them from extermination if it will.  Already much has been done to check the reckless and wicked slaughter that once prevailed.  A bag limit of three bull caribou per annum has been fixed, which is enforced as to non-residents and sportsmen, but in a way that is much too “American” it is often ignored by residents in touch with the game.  For instance, the guide of a New York gentleman whom I know admitted to my friend that each year he killed “about 25” caribou for himself and his family of four other persons.  He explained thus:  “When the inspector comes around, I show him two caribou hanging in my woodshed, but back in the woods I have a little shack where I keep the others until I want them.”

The real sportsmen of the world never will make the slightest perceptible impression on the caribou of Newfoundland.  For one thing, the hunting is much too tame to be interesting.  If the caribou of that Island ever are exterminated, it will be strictly by the people of Newfoundland, themselves.  If the government will tighten its grip on the herds, they need never be exterminated.

The caribou of New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario are few and widely scattered.  Unless carefully conserved, they are not likely to last long; for their country is annually penetrated in every direction by armed men, white and red.  There is no means by which it can be proven, but from the number of armed men in those regions I feel sure that the typical woodland caribou species is being shot faster than it is breeding.  The sportsmen and naturalists of Canada and New Brunswick would render good service by making a close and careful investigation of that question.

The caribou of the northwestern wilderness are in a situation peculiarly their own.  They inhabit a region of naked mountains and thin forests, wherein they are conspicuous, easily stalked and easily killed.  Nowhere do they exist in large herds of thousands, or even of many hundreds.  They live in small bands of from ten to twenty head, and even those are far apart.  The region in which they live is certain to be thoroughly opened up by railways, and exploited.  Fifty years from now we will find every portion of the now-wild Northwest fairly accessible by rail.  The building of the railways will be to the caribou—­and to other big game—­the day of doom.  In that wild, rough region, no power on earth,—­save that which might be able to deprive all the inhabitants and all visitors of firearms,—­can possibly save the game outside of a few preserves that are diligently patroled.