Charles Kay, Brian Patton and Cliff White penned an inciteful treatise titled: HISTORICAL WILDLIFE OBSERVATIONS IN THE CANADIAN ROCKIES: IMPLICATIONS FOR ECOLOGICAL INTEGRITY .............The first hand accounts of wildlife in this region between 1790-1880 suggests that contrary to popular belief, deer, elk and bighorn sheep populations were not abundant.......... They were not limited in numbers due to food shortages..............Instead, wolf, cougar, bear and other carnivore predation in combination with Indian hunting kept prey species at modest levels..................Kay, Patton and White surmise that the larger ungulate populations that exist in this region today have compromised the ecological integrity of the region and in fact do not represent the system that existed in the Canadian Rockies prior to European impact on the land

click below for a full and fascinating read of the ecology (predator and prey) of the Canadian Rockies circa 1790-1880

http://www.scribd.com/full/52621875?access_key=key-1dti3zcxcfp36q7oo6py