There Is, Moreover, Good Evidence That The Native Destruction Has
Diminished.
As already seen, the tribes which hunt the Barren-Ground
Caribou, number less than one-half of what they did 100 years ago.
Since then, they have learned to use the rifle, and this, I am
assured by all the traders, has lessened the destruction.
By the
old method, with the spear in the water, or in the pound trap, one
native might kill 100 Caribou in one day, during the migrations;
but these methods called for woodcraft and were very laborious. The
rifle being much easier, has displaced the spear; but there is a
limit to its destruction, especially with cartridges at five cents
to seven cents each, and, as already seen, the hunters do not
average 20 Caribou each in a year.
Thus, all the known facts point to a greatly diminished slaughter
to-day when compared with that of 100 years ago. This, then, is my
summary of the Barren-Ground Caribou between the Mackenzie River
and Hudson's Bay. They number over 30,000,000, and may be double
of that. They are in primitive conditions and probably never more
numerous than now.
The native destruction is less now than formerly and never did make
any perceptible difference.
Finally, the matter has by no means escaped the attention of the
wide-awake Canadian government represented by the Minister of the
Interior and the Royal North-west Mounted Police. It could not be
in better hands; and there is no reason to fear in any degree a
repetition of the Buffalo slaughter that disgraced the plains of
the United States.
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