ABSTRACT
When the European colonists came to America they found what they naturally regarded as an abundance of land, forests, minerals, and game. In the course of years they proceeded to waste the land and forests and minerals, and kill the game. They extirpated the prairie chicken (heath hen) in the eastern states, the elk in Arizona and New Mexico, the bison and elk east of the Mississippi River, the musk ox in Alaska, the bighorn along the Upper Missouri River, the grizzly bear in California and throughout much of its range, and the grayling fish in Michigan. In later years they managed to exterminate the big sea mink of New England, the Carolina paroquet, Eskimo curlew, and passenger pigeon.
