In 1920 Sparrow reported that fewer bears had been sighted in the park. He observed:
Though bear make frequent visits to the construction camps in search of food, they appear less numerous than last season when they could be seen almost any day and furnished considerable entertainment for tourists. That they are fewer in numbers this season is probably due to their ceasing to fear man and his works and hence were easy victims of hunters and trappers when they left the park for their winter quarters.
This observation led Sparrow to renew his support for an extension of the park boundaries. He commented that “when a national park is established it should be large enough to let a scared bear or deer have a good run without going over the boundary to be killed.”
During 1920 the fire lane project was continued to aid park personnel in resource management and preservation. Brush was cut “from a strip 8 feet wide around the park boundary as a precaution against forest fires and to aid prevention of trespass by stockmen and game poachers.” All “trees within this strip were blazed on two sides.”[9]
Wildlife issues continued to be of prime concern to park management during the remainder of the 1920s. More bears fed on the garbage dump at Government Camp in 1922 than ever before, attracting considerable interest on the part of park visitors. Deer were increasing, in part because few cougars or other predatory animals had been seen in the park for several years. [10] In 1923 NPS Director Mather offered a glowing account of wildlife in the park:
Wild life has been more abundant than heretofore, several bears daily visiting Government Camp to be fed or kodaked liberally by visitors. They became quite tame by midseason, a fact which unfortunately makes such of them as do not hibernate within the park easy game for hunters. Deer have been exceedingly abundant. Several elk., progeny of the herd transplanted into Klamath County, have been seen occasionally. Foxes, timber wolves, and coyotes were not uncommon sights, and one cougar was reported. Small game is present in countless numbers. Bird life has also been very abundant; a number of rare birds have been identified, and an unusual number of humming birds have been present in the great fields of wild flowers that carpet the forest glens. The ranger force is, however, not sufficient to adequately patrol the 249 square miles of park to protect against poaching. [11]
The park continued to encourage the growth of the bear population in part as a tourist attraction. In 1924 Superintendent Thomson reported that ten bears, including four new cubs, were “almost daily visitors at Government Camp, to the great enjoyment of thousands of visitors.” As a result of such contact the bears, according to the superintendent, were becoming docile and fearless, thus leading to their destruction by hunters outside the park boundaries. This development led to a successful Park Service effort to have the Oregon state legislature enact legislation in 1925 declaring an eleven-month closed hunting season on bear in Jackson, Josephine, and Klamath counties surrounding the park. [12]
