On January 7, 1892, Forest and Stream – the magazine of “true
sportsmen” – featured a photograph of wild mule deer taken by Fred
Baker, a hunter from Wyoming. A doe and her two fawns rest peacefully
in front of a patch of sagebrush, as the midday sun casts a bright light.
“Here, by a piece of good fortune which might not come to a man once
in a lifetime,” the editor George Bird Grinnell explained, “Mr. Baker
discovered the deer, and creeping up to the edge of the ravine focussed
his camera on them without disturbing their siesta.” Grinnell emphasized
to readers the accuracy and details portrayed in the image – the large
mule-like ears of the deer and the black tips of fur that marked their tails.
But he also drew a moral message from this scene of tranquility. “The
flesh of the mule deer is excellent eating,” Grinnell wrote, “far better in
the estimation of some people than that of the Virginia deer; but we think
a man would have to be pretty hungry or quite without soul who would
be willing to disturb the charming family group which is shown in our
illustration. As we grow older we incline more and more to the opinion
that a camera is sometimes a more satisfactory implement to hunt with
than a gun.”