Special Report, Walnut Canyon National Monument, Arizona

McDougall, Walter

On the request of the Superintendent of the Southwestern Monuments and the Washington Office of the Wildlife Division for a report on a proposed state game refuge adjacent to Walnut Canyon National Monument, I spent nearly the entire day on August 18, 1938, in the monument with Custodian Paul Beaubien and returned for a second visit on the afternoon of August 20 with Mr. Roy Gambrell, representing the State Fish and Game Department. The present Walnut Caeyon National Monument is a rectangular area of 960 acres. Two additions, totaling 840 acres, are proposed, making a total of 1800 acres in a somewhat irregular shape (see attached map). Because of the small size and irregular shape of the enlarged monument not many large animals, such as deer, can be expected to remain constantly within the boundaries of the monument. For the same reason a game refuge serving as a buffer area completely surrounding the monument would not be of much benefit to the monument unless it were several times larger than the monument itself. It is not believed that such a large refuge could be justified on the basis of benefits to the monument visitors as against the detriment, real or fancied, to the sportsmen who wish to harvest the annual surplus of deer in this region. In order to insure reasonable protection to an adequate breeding mcleus of this deer population, however, and to perpetuate the possibility of tbe public of seeing deer when they visit the monument, two things are necessary. First, that part of the monument that lies north of the caDYon should be fenced to keep out domestic cattle and save the range for the deer. Second, there should be a small game refuge adjacent to the monument on the west to proteet a game trail which crosses the canyon at that place.