| Show Cltt3lPIt9Niiirle1t STOHV Rnllroatl Train Interfere with Ity Mcnl on the Track Denver Republican Passenger Agent W F Bailey of the Colorado Midland railroad returned yesterday from Mesa county where he had been investigating investigat-ing the reports that deer were congregating congre-gating around the town of De Beque in such numbers as to destroy crops and seriously impede railway traffic It had been stated that a Midland train was compelled to come to a standstill a week ago today half a mile west of the town by a bunch of between 200 and 300 frightened deer which blocked the track before the locomotive Other stories had the face of the earth overall over-all Mesa county being rapidly shorn of alfalfa by hungry deer Passenger Agent Bailey was accompanied accom-panied to DC Beque by his son and a photographer He wanted primarily to make arrangements for taking hunters hunt-ers from the railroad station to points around it by wagon Secondarily he wished to look over the situation get photographs of the deer and some of the deer meat This programme he carried car-ried out in its entirety I saw a thousand deer right around De Beque if I saw one said Mr Bailey yesterday They are all over the Book Cliff Mesa 16 miles north of the town like droves of sheep The herds have each from 20 deer upward The animals are remarkably tame I secured nearview photographs of a dozen large herds without any trouble and could have got as many more if I wanted them It is my intention to use the photographs ina book on Cob rados game resources As a rule the greater part of the deer remain on Bcrok Cliff Mesa here they brouse on the lojig grasses which are now very rich and green The deer that bother the De Beque farmers are herds which cross over to the Grand Mesa south of the river They actually actu-ally go into the farmyards at night in the moonlight and feed on the haystacks hay-stacks S While I was there many of the farmers told me that they had to keep guards out at night in order tp save their seasons crop of hay from being eaten up by voracious deer The farmers farm-ers think the deer a nuisance and would be glad if they were all killed off by hunters or driven out of the neighborhood neighbor-hood We killed three fine animals all the law allows the day we were out taking photographs and brought the carcasses with us to Denver We could have killed a carload for nearly everything every-thing we saw was an easy shot As near as I can make out the deer around De Beque were simply snowed out of the mountains Very heavy snow storms were recorded from the White river country over a week ago and these undoubtedly drove the deer in hundreds into Mesa county and the neighboring low country |
