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Show Prevent Fires and Protect Wild Game j A vigorous program of fish plant-i plant-i ing in National Forest waters has been in effect for several years, states District Forester R. H. Rut-ledge. Rut-ledge. Last year for example in the Intermountain region over four and one half million fish were put out. Work on this scale requires the expenditure of much time and money, and it is neither fair to the sportsman sports-man or the taxpayer that it should be undone. Forest fires are perhaps per-haps the quickest and surest means of ruining this labor and also of reducing re-ducing naturaly excellent fishing streams to barren waters. After a forest fire the character of the mountain moun-tain streams is entirely changed from a stream of clear cold water to a shallow muddy wash running with dirty warm water. Not only is the fishing ruined but the stream becomes becom-es unplantable until years of natural natur-al revegetation restore the original conditions. In some parts of this Intermountain region the process of destruction has gone so far that it seems impossible to restore these conditions for scores of years. Fires in this region are due very largely to human carelessness, especially those that occur near streams, for lightning as a rule hits the ridge tops. Greater care is needed. Nearly 300 fires were caused by human carelessness care-lessness last year, most of them in the rich hunting and fishing land of southern Idaho and western Wyoming. Wyo-ming. Far too often the sportsman himself was to blame. "Safe" fires and fires that were "out" were frequent fre-quent offenders, as were the smokers smok-ers with their cigars, cigarettes and pipes. All forest users must learn the most particular care with fires in dry woods, as there is an ever present danger that they will destroy the fishing and hunting that attracts them to the forest to say nothing of I the destruction of timber itself and .' the watershed cover that means so much to the irrigated farms in the valleys below. |