By the early 1920s the park wildflowers had been largely restored as a result of Park Service policy. It was reported in 1921 that the park wildflowers presented “such a temptation to wild flower loving visitors that it was necessary to post signs to prevent the depletion of some species.” [5] Two years later Superintendent Thomson reported that wildflowers were on the increase in the park, “miles of our roadway being fairly banked with colorful blossoms and the forest glens carpeted with literally hundreds of acres of wild flowers.” [6]
In 1918 Sparrow initiated a program to exterminate certain predators in the park as a means of encouraging the growth of the deer and small mammal populations. Cougar, lynx, timber wolves, and coyotes were the objects of the extermination program. That year Sparrow was pleased to announce that deer and bear were growing in numbers and becoming “quite tame.”
He also echoed earlier recommendations to expand the park boundaries to include the Diamond Lake area. The expansion was necessary, according to the superintendent, in part because the existing park was “too small for a game preserve.” He noted:
. . . Many of the deer get quite tame and it seems like murder to kill them when they stray across the boundary. One case in point occurred recently during the hunting season. Voley Pearsons, of Klamath Falls, shot a doe on the road about 300 yards outside the southern entrance to the park. The doe had frequently visited the ranger’s cabin and was so tame that it would not run when an auto approached. As it is unlawful to kill a doe at any time, the man was arrested by the Park. Service and turned over to the local authorities at Fort Klamath, where he was fined $25 and costs. This case is cited only as evidence of the necessity of enlarging our game preserve. [7]
Wildlife in the park continued to become more numerous in 1919, particularly black. and brown bears and deer. The bears were becoming “very tame,” with black bears being “seen almost daily in the neighborhood of the lodge and the construction camps.” Taking photographs of feeding bears was becoming a popular visitor diversion. Smaller forms of wildlife were becoming more plentiful as a result of the continuing extermination program. A small herd of fifteen Yellowstone elk. had been turned loose in the adjacent forest reserve near Seven-Mile Creek in 1917, and by 1919 the herd was using the southern portion of the park as a summer range.
During 1919 there were no major forest fires in the park. Electric storms in August, however, started minor fires, and a fire on the forest reserve west of Union Peak that crossed the park boundary caused little damage as “it was confined to snow brush on an old burn.” To preclude such fires in the future work was initiated to cut brush and clear a fire lane along the park boundaries. [8]
