Protecting the Olympic Elk
A federal official tours Washington's forests to propose the first game refuges, hoping to prevent the total loss of the state's elk population.
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Aldea Sampson, a game preserve expert for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, arrived in Seattle yesterday to survey forest reserves. His mission is to gather data to establish permanent game refuges and breeding grounds. The bureau is especially focused on the Olympic forest reserve, which contains one of the last significant populations of elk on the Pacific Coast. Sampson stated that the intent is not to ban hunting in the forests entirely, but to create protected corridors—roughly ten miles square—where game can recover, preventing them from suffering the same near-extinction as the American buffalo.
“The intention is not to close the forest reserves to hunters, but to prevent happening to the larger game of the country what has happened to the buffalo.”
This early federal intervention reflects the origins of the conservation movement in Washington. The tension between managing public lands for sport, preservation, and habitat protection continues to be a central argument in Washington’s civic life.
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