CHAPTER XXIXNEW LAWS NEEDED IN THE STATES(Continued)
CHAPTER XXIX
NEW LAWS NEEDED IN THE STATES
(Continued)
Connecticut:The sale of all native wild game, regardless of its source, should be prohibited at all times. Enact at once a five-year close season law on the remnant of ruffed grouse, quail, woodcock, snipe, and all shore birds.Even in the home of the newest and deadliest "autoloading" shotgun, those guns and pump guns should be prohibited in hunting.The enormous bag limits of 35 rail and 50 each per day of plover, snipe and shore birds is a crime! They should be replaced by a ten-year close season law for all of those species.The terms of the game commissioners should be not less than four years.Like so many other states, Connecticut has recklessly wasted her wild-life inheritance. During the fifteen years preceding the year 1898, the bird life of that state had decreased 75 per cent. On March 6, 1912, Senator Geo. P. McLean, of Connecticut stated at the hearing held by his Committee on Forest Reservations and the Protection of Game this fact: "We have more cover than there was thirty or forty years ago, more brush probably, but there is not one partridge [ruffed grouse] today where there were twenty ten years ago!"First of all, Connecticut needs a ten-year close season law to save her remnant of shore birds before it is completely annihilated. Then she needs a Bayne law, and needs it badly. Under such a law, and the tagging system that it provides, the state game wardens would have so strong a grip on the situation that the present unlawful sale of game would be completely stopped. Half-way measures in preventing the sale of game will not answer. Already Connecticut has wasted thousands of dollars in fruitless efforts to restock her desolated woodlands and farms with quail, and to introduce the Hungarian partridge; but even yet shewill notprotect her own native species!Men of Connecticut, save the last remnants of your native game birds before they are all utterly exterminated within your borders! Don't ask the killers of game whattheywill agree to, but make the laws whatyou knowthey should be! If you want a gameless state, let the destruction go on as it now is going, with16,000 licensed gunnersin the field each year, and you will surely have it, right soon.Delaware:Stop all spring shooting, at once; stop killing shore birds for ten years, and protect swans indefinitely.Enact bag-limit laws, in very small figures.Stop the sale of all native wild game, regardless of its use, by enacting a Bayne law.Enact a resident license law, and provide for a force of paid game wardens.Stop the use of machine shot-guns in killing your birds.The state of Delaware is nearly twenty years behind the times. Can it be possible that her Governor and her people are really satisfied with that position? We think not. I dare say they are afflicted with apathy, and game-hogs. The latter can easily back up General Apathy to an extent that spells "no game laws." In one act, and at one bold stroke, Delaware can step out of her position at the rear of the procession of states, and take a place in the front rank. Will she do it? We hope so, for her present status is unworthy of any right-minded, red-blooded state this side of the Philippines.District Of Columbia:The sale of all native wild game, regardless of its source, should be stopped immediately, by the enactment of a complete Bayne law.If game-shooting within the District is continued, on the marshes of the Eastern Branch and on the Potomac River, common decency demands the enactment of bag-limit laws and long close-season laws of the most modern pattern.Just why it is that gross abuses against wild life have so long been tolerated in the territorial center of the American nation, remains to be ascertained. But, whatever the reason the situation is absurd and intolerable, and Congress should terminate it immediately. As late as 1897, and I think for two or three years thereafter, thousands ofrobinswere sold every year in the public markets of Washington as food! As a spectacle for gods and men, behold to-day the sale of quail, ruffed grouse, wild turkeys and other American game, half way between the Capitol and the White House! Look at Center Market as a national "fence" for the sale of game stolen by market gunners from Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas and Pennsylvania.It is time for Congress to bring the District of Columbia sharply into line; for Washington must be made to toe the mark beside New York. The reputation of the national capital demands it, whether the gods of the cafes will consent or not.Florida:Shooting shore birds and waterfowl in late winter and spring should be stopped.The sale of all native wild game should be prohibited.A State Game Commissioner whose term of office should be not less than four years, and a force of salaried game wardens, should be appointed.A general resident license should be required for hunting.The killing of does and fawns should be stopped, and no deer should be killed save bucks with horns at least three inches long.The bag limit of five deer per year should be two deer; of twenty quail, and two turkeys per day should be ten quail and one turkey.The open season on all game birds should end on February 1, for domestic reasons.Protection should be accorded doves, and robins should be removed from the game list.In the destruction of wild life, I think the backwoods population of Florida is the most lawless and defiant that can be found anywhere in the United States. The "plume-hunters" have practically exterminated the plume-bearing egrets, wholly annihilated the roseate spoonbill, the flamingo, and also the Carolina parrakeet. On July 8, 1905, one of them killed an Audubon Association Warden, Guy M. Bradley, whose business it was to enforce the state laws protecting the egret rookeries. The people really to blame for the shooting of Guy Bradley, and the extermination of the egrets by lawless and dangerous men, are the vain and merciless women who wear the "white badges of cruelty" as long as they can be purchased! They have much to answer for!Originally, Florida was alive with bird life. For number of species, abundance of individuals, and general dispersal throughout the whole state, I think no other state in America except possibly California ever possessed a bird fauna quite comparable with it. Once its bird life was one of the wonders of America. But the gunners began early to shoot, and shoot, and shoot. During the fifteen years preceding 1898, the general bird life of Florida decreased in volume 77 per cent. In 1900 it was at a very low point, and it has steadily continued to decrease. The rapidly-growing settlement and cultivation of the state has of course had much to do with the disappearance of wild life generally, and the draining and exploitation of the Everglades will about finish the birds of southern Florida.The brown pelicans' breeding-place on Pelican Island, in Indian River, has been taken in hand by the national government as a bird refuge, and its marvelous spectacle of pelican life is now protected. Nine other islands on the coast of Florida have been taken as national bird refuges, and will render posterity good service.The great private game and bird preserve of Dr. Ray V. Pierce, at Apalachicola, known as St. Vincent Island, containing twenty square miles of wonderful woods and waters, is performing an important function for the state and the nation.The Florida bag limit on quail is entirely too liberal. I know one man who never once exceeded the limit of twenty birds per day, but in the season of 1908-9 he killed865 quail! Can the quail of any state long endure such drains as that?From a zoological point of view, Florida is in bad shape. A great many of her people who shoot are desperately lawless and uncontrollable, and the state is not financially able to support a force of wardens sufficiently strong to enforce the laws, even as they are. It looks as if the slaughter would go on until nothing of bird life remains. At present I can see no hope whatever for saving even a good remnant of the wild life of the state.The present status of wild-life protective laws in Florida was made the subject of an article inForest and Streamof August 10, 1912, by John H. Wallace, Jr., Game Commissioner of the State of Alabama, in an article entitled "The Florida Situation." In view of his record, no onewill question either the value or the honest sincerity of Mr. Wallace's opinions. The following paragraphs are from that article:The enactment of a model and modern game law for the State of Florida is absolutely imperative in order to save many of the most valuable species of birds and game of that State from certain depletion and threatened extinction. The question of the protection of the birds and game in Florida is not a local one, but is national in its scope. Birds know no state lines, and while practically all the States lying to the north of Florida protect migratory birds and waterfowl, yet these are recklessly slaughtered in that state to such an extent as to be appalling to all sportsmen and bird lovers.So alarming has become the decrease of the birds and game of Florida that unless a halt is called on the campaign of reckless annihilation that has been ceaselessly waged in that state, the sport and recreation enjoyed by primeval nimrods will linger only in history and tradition.It is the sincerest hope of all lovers of wild life of the American continent that a strong and invincible sentiment, relative to the imperative necessity of real conservation legislation, be crystallized in the minds of the members elect of the Florida Legislature, to the end that the next Legislature will spread upon the statute books of the State of Florida a model and modern law for the preservation and protection of the birds and game of that State, which when put into practical operation will elicit the thanks of all good citizens, and likewise the gratitude of future generations.Georgia:Prohibit late winter and spring shooting, and provide rational seasons for wild fowl.Reduce the limit on deer to two bucks a season, with horns not less than three inches long.Protect the meadow lark and stop forever the killing of doves and wood-ducks.Prohibit the use of automatic and pump shot-guns in hunting.Extend the term of the game commissioner to four years.We are glad to report that Georgia has already begun to take up the white man's burden. The protection of wild life is now a gentleman's proposition, and in it every real man with red blood in his veins has a duty to perform. The state of Georgia has recently awakened, and under the comprehensive law of 1911 has resolutely undertaken to do her whole duty in this matter.Idaho:The imperative duties of Idaho are as follows:Stop all hunting of mountain sheep, mountain goat and elk.Give the sage grouse and sharp-tail ten-year close seasons, at once, to forestall their extermination.Stop the killing of doves as "game."Stop the killing of female deer, and of bucks with horns less than three inches long.Enact the model law to protect non-game birds.Prohibit the use of machine shot-guns in hunting.Extend the State Warden's term to four years.Like Montana, Wyoming and Colorado, the state of Idaho has wasted her stock of game, and it is to be feared that several species are now about to disappear from that state. I am told that the sage grouse is almost "gone"; and I think that the antelope, caribou, and mountain sheep are in the same condition of scarcity.If the people of Idaho wish to save their wild fauna, they must be up and doing. The time to temporize, theorize, be conservative and easy-going has gone by. It is that fatal policy that causes men to slumber until it is too late to act; and we will watch with keen interest to see whether the real men of Idaho are big enough to do their whole duty in time to benefit their state.In 1910, Dr. T.S. Palmer credited Idaho with the possession of about five hundred moose and two hundred antelope.There is one feature of the Idaho game law that may well stand unchanged. The open season on "ibex," of which one per year may be killed, may as well be continued. One myth per year is not an extravagant bag for any intelligent hunter; and it seems that the "ibex" will not down. Being officially recognized by Idaho, its place in our fauna now seems assured.Illinois:Enact a Bayne law, and stop the sale of all native wild game, regardless of source, and regardless of the gay revelers of Chicago.In Illinois the bag limits on birds are nearly all at least 50 per cent too high. They should be as follows: No squirrels, doves or shore birds; six quail, five woodcock, ten coots, ten rail, ten ducks, three geese and three brant, with a total limit of ten waterfowl per day.Doves should be removed from the game list.All tree squirrels and chipmunks should be perpetually protected, as companions to man, unfit for food.The sale of aigrettes should be stopped, and Chicago placed in the same class as Boston, New York, New Orleans and San Francisco.The use of all machine shotguns in hunting should be prohibited.The chief plague-spots for the grinding up of American game are Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Orleans and San Francisco. St. Louis cleared her record in 1909. New York thoroughly cleaned her Augean stable in 1911, and Massachusetts won her Bayne law by a desperate battle in 1912. In 1913, Pennsylvania probably will enact a Bayne law.Fancy a city in the center of the United States sending to Norway for 1,500 ptarmigan, to eat, as Chicago did in 1911; and that was only one order.For forty years the marshes, prairies, farms and streams of the whole upper Mississippi Valley have been combed year after year by the guns of the market shooters. Often the migratory game was located by telegraphic reports. Game birds were slain by the wagon-load, boat-load, barrel, and car-load, "for the Chicago market." And the fool farmers of the Middle West stolidly plowed their fields and fed their hogs, and permitted the slaughter to go on. To-day the sons of those farmers go to the museums and zoological parks of the cities to see specimens of pinnated grouse, crane, woodcock, ducks and other species that the market shooters have "wiped out"; and their fathers wax eloquent in telling of the flocks ofpigeons that "darkened the sky," and the big droves of prairie chickens that used to rise out of the corn-fields "with a roar like a coming storm."To-day, Chicago stands half-way reformed. Her markets are open to only one-half the game killable in Illinois, but they are wide open to all "legallykilled game imported from other states, from Oct. 1 to Feb. 1." Through that hole in her game laws any game-dealer can drive a moving-van! Of course, any game offered in Chicago has been "legally killed in some other state!" Who can prove otherwise?In addition to the imported game illegally killed in other states, the starving population of Chicago may also buy for cash, and consume with their champagne in November and December, all the Illinois doves that can be combed out by the market-gunners.After the awful Iroquois Theatre fire in Chicago, in 1903, the game dealers reported a heavy falling off in the consumption of game! The tragedy caused the temporary closing of the theaters, and the falling off in after-theater suppers may be said to have taken away the appetites of thousands of erstwhile consumers of game. Incidentally it showed who consumes purchased game.The people of Illinois should now enact a full-fledged Bayne law, without changing a single word, and bring Chicago up to the level of New York, St. Louis and Boston.The present bag limits on Illinois game birds are fatally high. As they stand, with 190,000 licensed gunners in the field each year, what else do they mean than extermination? The men of Illinois have just two alternatives between which to choose: drastic and immediate preservation, or a gameless state. Which shall it be?Indiana:Indiana should hasten to stop spring shooting.She should enact a law, prohibiting the sale for millinery purposes of the plumage of all wild birds save ducks killed in their open season.A Bayne law, absolutely prohibiting the sale of all native wild game, should be enacted at once.The killing of squirrels should be prohibited; because they are not white men's game.Ruffed grouse and quail should have five year close seasons.The use of pump and autoloading guns in hunting should be prohibited.In Indiana the white-tailed deer is extinct. This means very close hunting, and a bad outlook for all other game larger than the sparrow. On October 2, 1912, eleven heads of greater bird of paradise, with plumes attached, were offered for sale within one hundred feet of the headquarters of the Fourth National Conservation Congress. The prices ranged from $35 to $47.50; and while we looked, two ladies came up, one of whom pointed to a bird-of-paradise corpse and said: "There! I want one o' them, an' I'm a-goin' tohaveit, too!"Iowa:Spring shooting should be stopped, at once and forever.The killing of all tree squirrels and chipmunks should cease.All shore birds that visit Iowa deserve a five-year close season.Especially is the shooting of plover, sandpiper, marsh and beach birds, rail, duck, geese and brant from September 1, to April 15, an outrage.Iowa should prohibit the use of the machine guns, and it is to be hoped that she will awaken sufficiently to do so.It is said that the Indian word "Iowa" means "the drowsy, or sleepy ones." Politically, and educationally, Iowa is all right, but in the protection of wild life she is ten years behind the times, in almost everything save the prohibition of the sale of game.Iowa knows better than to pursue the course that she does! She boasts about her corn and hogs, but she is deaf to the appeals of the states surrounding her on the subject of spring shooting. For years Minnesota has set her a good example; but nothing moves her to step up where she belongs in the phalanx of intelligent game-protecting states.The foregoing may sound harsh, but in view of what other states have endured from Iowa's stubbornness regarding migratory game, the time for silent treatment of her case has gone by. She is to-day in the same class as North Carolina, South Carolina and Maryland,—at the tail end of the procession of states. She cares everything for corn and hogs, but little for wild life.Kansas:Spring shooting should be stopped, at once: with apologies for not having done so long ago.The continued shooting of prairie chickens when the species is near extermination is outrageous, and should be prohibited for ten years.Doves should be removed permanently from the game list, partly as a measure of self respect.Kansas should treat herself to a force of salaried game wardens rendering real service.She should bar out the machine guns as unfit for use in a well-regulated State.Kansas has calmly witnessed the extermination of her bison, elk, deer, antelope, wild turkeys, sage grouse, whooping cranes, and the beginning of the end of her pinnated grouse, without a pang. What is wild game in comparison with fat hogs, and seventy-bushels-to-the-acre!Draw a line around the hog-and-corn area of the United States, and within it you will find more spring shooting, more sale of game and more extermination of species than in any other area in the United States. I refer to Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. In not one of these states except Missouri is there any big game hunting, and in the majority of them spring shooting is lawful!In the Island of Mauritius, it was swine that exterminated the dodo. In the United States, hogs and game extermination still go hand in hand. Since the days of the dodo, however, a new species of swine has been developed. It is now widely known as the "game-hog," and it has been officially recognized by both bench and bar.Kentucky:Nearly everything that a state should maintain in the line of wild life protectionKentucky lacks! It is easier to tell what she has than to recite what she should have. Kentuckypermits spring shooting; she hasno bag limits, and she haslong open seasonson everything save introduced pheasants; She protects from sale only quail, grouse and wild turkeykilled within her own borders. This means that her markets are practically wide open.Until recently the people of Kentucky have been very indifferent to the value of her wild-life; but with the new law enacted this year providing for a game commission and a game protection fund, surely every member of the Army of the Defense will wish God-speed to her efforts in game conservation, and stand ready to lend a helping hand whenever help can be utilized.Kentucky should at one grand coupstop spring shooting and all sale of wild game, accord long close seasons to all species that are verging on extinction, protect doves, establish moderate bag limits and stop the use of machine guns. If she takes up these measures at the rate of only one at each legislative session, by the time her laws are perfectall her game will be gone!Louisiana:On more counts than one, Louisiana is in the list of Great Delinquents; for behold the things that she needs to do:Protect deer for five years.Instantly take the robin, red-winged black-bird, dove, grosbeak, wood-duck and gull off the list of birds that may be killed as "game."Stop all late winter and spring shooting.Stop the sale of all native game, and the possession and transportation of game sold or intended for sale. In short,Enact a Bayne law.Re-establish a game warden system.In legally permitting the slaughter of the robin, red-winged blackbird, dove, grosbeak, wood-duck and gull the state of Louisiana is very culpable.For good reasons, forty states of the American Union strictly prohibit the killing of song and insectivorous birds. The duty of every state to protect those birds is not a debatable proposition. I put this question to the people of Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee and other states where the robin is treated as a game bird: Is it fair of you to kill and eat robins when that species is carefully protected by forty other states of our country for grave economic reasons? What would you say of the people of the North if they slaughtered your mockingbirdto eat!Remember this proportion:The Robin : The North :: The Mockingbird : The South.
Like so many other states, Connecticut has recklessly wasted her wild-life inheritance. During the fifteen years preceding the year 1898, the bird life of that state had decreased 75 per cent. On March 6, 1912, Senator Geo. P. McLean, of Connecticut stated at the hearing held by his Committee on Forest Reservations and the Protection of Game this fact: "We have more cover than there was thirty or forty years ago, more brush probably, but there is not one partridge [ruffed grouse] today where there were twenty ten years ago!"
First of all, Connecticut needs a ten-year close season law to save her remnant of shore birds before it is completely annihilated. Then she needs a Bayne law, and needs it badly. Under such a law, and the tagging system that it provides, the state game wardens would have so strong a grip on the situation that the present unlawful sale of game would be completely stopped. Half-way measures in preventing the sale of game will not answer. Already Connecticut has wasted thousands of dollars in fruitless efforts to restock her desolated woodlands and farms with quail, and to introduce the Hungarian partridge; but even yet shewill notprotect her own native species!
Men of Connecticut, save the last remnants of your native game birds before they are all utterly exterminated within your borders! Don't ask the killers of game whattheywill agree to, but make the laws whatyou knowthey should be! If you want a gameless state, let the destruction go on as it now is going, with16,000 licensed gunnersin the field each year, and you will surely have it, right soon.
The state of Delaware is nearly twenty years behind the times. Can it be possible that her Governor and her people are really satisfied with that position? We think not. I dare say they are afflicted with apathy, and game-hogs. The latter can easily back up General Apathy to an extent that spells "no game laws." In one act, and at one bold stroke, Delaware can step out of her position at the rear of the procession of states, and take a place in the front rank. Will she do it? We hope so, for her present status is unworthy of any right-minded, red-blooded state this side of the Philippines.
Just why it is that gross abuses against wild life have so long been tolerated in the territorial center of the American nation, remains to be ascertained. But, whatever the reason the situation is absurd and intolerable, and Congress should terminate it immediately. As late as 1897, and I think for two or three years thereafter, thousands ofrobinswere sold every year in the public markets of Washington as food! As a spectacle for gods and men, behold to-day the sale of quail, ruffed grouse, wild turkeys and other American game, half way between the Capitol and the White House! Look at Center Market as a national "fence" for the sale of game stolen by market gunners from Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas and Pennsylvania.
It is time for Congress to bring the District of Columbia sharply into line; for Washington must be made to toe the mark beside New York. The reputation of the national capital demands it, whether the gods of the cafes will consent or not.
In the destruction of wild life, I think the backwoods population of Florida is the most lawless and defiant that can be found anywhere in the United States. The "plume-hunters" have practically exterminated the plume-bearing egrets, wholly annihilated the roseate spoonbill, the flamingo, and also the Carolina parrakeet. On July 8, 1905, one of them killed an Audubon Association Warden, Guy M. Bradley, whose business it was to enforce the state laws protecting the egret rookeries. The people really to blame for the shooting of Guy Bradley, and the extermination of the egrets by lawless and dangerous men, are the vain and merciless women who wear the "white badges of cruelty" as long as they can be purchased! They have much to answer for!
Originally, Florida was alive with bird life. For number of species, abundance of individuals, and general dispersal throughout the whole state, I think no other state in America except possibly California ever possessed a bird fauna quite comparable with it. Once its bird life was one of the wonders of America. But the gunners began early to shoot, and shoot, and shoot. During the fifteen years preceding 1898, the general bird life of Florida decreased in volume 77 per cent. In 1900 it was at a very low point, and it has steadily continued to decrease. The rapidly-growing settlement and cultivation of the state has of course had much to do with the disappearance of wild life generally, and the draining and exploitation of the Everglades will about finish the birds of southern Florida.
The brown pelicans' breeding-place on Pelican Island, in Indian River, has been taken in hand by the national government as a bird refuge, and its marvelous spectacle of pelican life is now protected. Nine other islands on the coast of Florida have been taken as national bird refuges, and will render posterity good service.
The great private game and bird preserve of Dr. Ray V. Pierce, at Apalachicola, known as St. Vincent Island, containing twenty square miles of wonderful woods and waters, is performing an important function for the state and the nation.
The Florida bag limit on quail is entirely too liberal. I know one man who never once exceeded the limit of twenty birds per day, but in the season of 1908-9 he killed865 quail! Can the quail of any state long endure such drains as that?
From a zoological point of view, Florida is in bad shape. A great many of her people who shoot are desperately lawless and uncontrollable, and the state is not financially able to support a force of wardens sufficiently strong to enforce the laws, even as they are. It looks as if the slaughter would go on until nothing of bird life remains. At present I can see no hope whatever for saving even a good remnant of the wild life of the state.
The present status of wild-life protective laws in Florida was made the subject of an article inForest and Streamof August 10, 1912, by John H. Wallace, Jr., Game Commissioner of the State of Alabama, in an article entitled "The Florida Situation." In view of his record, no onewill question either the value or the honest sincerity of Mr. Wallace's opinions. The following paragraphs are from that article:
The enactment of a model and modern game law for the State of Florida is absolutely imperative in order to save many of the most valuable species of birds and game of that State from certain depletion and threatened extinction. The question of the protection of the birds and game in Florida is not a local one, but is national in its scope. Birds know no state lines, and while practically all the States lying to the north of Florida protect migratory birds and waterfowl, yet these are recklessly slaughtered in that state to such an extent as to be appalling to all sportsmen and bird lovers.So alarming has become the decrease of the birds and game of Florida that unless a halt is called on the campaign of reckless annihilation that has been ceaselessly waged in that state, the sport and recreation enjoyed by primeval nimrods will linger only in history and tradition.It is the sincerest hope of all lovers of wild life of the American continent that a strong and invincible sentiment, relative to the imperative necessity of real conservation legislation, be crystallized in the minds of the members elect of the Florida Legislature, to the end that the next Legislature will spread upon the statute books of the State of Florida a model and modern law for the preservation and protection of the birds and game of that State, which when put into practical operation will elicit the thanks of all good citizens, and likewise the gratitude of future generations.
The enactment of a model and modern game law for the State of Florida is absolutely imperative in order to save many of the most valuable species of birds and game of that State from certain depletion and threatened extinction. The question of the protection of the birds and game in Florida is not a local one, but is national in its scope. Birds know no state lines, and while practically all the States lying to the north of Florida protect migratory birds and waterfowl, yet these are recklessly slaughtered in that state to such an extent as to be appalling to all sportsmen and bird lovers.
So alarming has become the decrease of the birds and game of Florida that unless a halt is called on the campaign of reckless annihilation that has been ceaselessly waged in that state, the sport and recreation enjoyed by primeval nimrods will linger only in history and tradition.
It is the sincerest hope of all lovers of wild life of the American continent that a strong and invincible sentiment, relative to the imperative necessity of real conservation legislation, be crystallized in the minds of the members elect of the Florida Legislature, to the end that the next Legislature will spread upon the statute books of the State of Florida a model and modern law for the preservation and protection of the birds and game of that State, which when put into practical operation will elicit the thanks of all good citizens, and likewise the gratitude of future generations.
We are glad to report that Georgia has already begun to take up the white man's burden. The protection of wild life is now a gentleman's proposition, and in it every real man with red blood in his veins has a duty to perform. The state of Georgia has recently awakened, and under the comprehensive law of 1911 has resolutely undertaken to do her whole duty in this matter.
The imperative duties of Idaho are as follows:
Like Montana, Wyoming and Colorado, the state of Idaho has wasted her stock of game, and it is to be feared that several species are now about to disappear from that state. I am told that the sage grouse is almost "gone"; and I think that the antelope, caribou, and mountain sheep are in the same condition of scarcity.
If the people of Idaho wish to save their wild fauna, they must be up and doing. The time to temporize, theorize, be conservative and easy-going has gone by. It is that fatal policy that causes men to slumber until it is too late to act; and we will watch with keen interest to see whether the real men of Idaho are big enough to do their whole duty in time to benefit their state.
In 1910, Dr. T.S. Palmer credited Idaho with the possession of about five hundred moose and two hundred antelope.
There is one feature of the Idaho game law that may well stand unchanged. The open season on "ibex," of which one per year may be killed, may as well be continued. One myth per year is not an extravagant bag for any intelligent hunter; and it seems that the "ibex" will not down. Being officially recognized by Idaho, its place in our fauna now seems assured.
The chief plague-spots for the grinding up of American game are Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Orleans and San Francisco. St. Louis cleared her record in 1909. New York thoroughly cleaned her Augean stable in 1911, and Massachusetts won her Bayne law by a desperate battle in 1912. In 1913, Pennsylvania probably will enact a Bayne law.
Fancy a city in the center of the United States sending to Norway for 1,500 ptarmigan, to eat, as Chicago did in 1911; and that was only one order.
For forty years the marshes, prairies, farms and streams of the whole upper Mississippi Valley have been combed year after year by the guns of the market shooters. Often the migratory game was located by telegraphic reports. Game birds were slain by the wagon-load, boat-load, barrel, and car-load, "for the Chicago market." And the fool farmers of the Middle West stolidly plowed their fields and fed their hogs, and permitted the slaughter to go on. To-day the sons of those farmers go to the museums and zoological parks of the cities to see specimens of pinnated grouse, crane, woodcock, ducks and other species that the market shooters have "wiped out"; and their fathers wax eloquent in telling of the flocks ofpigeons that "darkened the sky," and the big droves of prairie chickens that used to rise out of the corn-fields "with a roar like a coming storm."
To-day, Chicago stands half-way reformed. Her markets are open to only one-half the game killable in Illinois, but they are wide open to all "legallykilled game imported from other states, from Oct. 1 to Feb. 1." Through that hole in her game laws any game-dealer can drive a moving-van! Of course, any game offered in Chicago has been "legally killed in some other state!" Who can prove otherwise?
In addition to the imported game illegally killed in other states, the starving population of Chicago may also buy for cash, and consume with their champagne in November and December, all the Illinois doves that can be combed out by the market-gunners.
After the awful Iroquois Theatre fire in Chicago, in 1903, the game dealers reported a heavy falling off in the consumption of game! The tragedy caused the temporary closing of the theaters, and the falling off in after-theater suppers may be said to have taken away the appetites of thousands of erstwhile consumers of game. Incidentally it showed who consumes purchased game.
The people of Illinois should now enact a full-fledged Bayne law, without changing a single word, and bring Chicago up to the level of New York, St. Louis and Boston.
The present bag limits on Illinois game birds are fatally high. As they stand, with 190,000 licensed gunners in the field each year, what else do they mean than extermination? The men of Illinois have just two alternatives between which to choose: drastic and immediate preservation, or a gameless state. Which shall it be?
In Indiana the white-tailed deer is extinct. This means very close hunting, and a bad outlook for all other game larger than the sparrow. On October 2, 1912, eleven heads of greater bird of paradise, with plumes attached, were offered for sale within one hundred feet of the headquarters of the Fourth National Conservation Congress. The prices ranged from $35 to $47.50; and while we looked, two ladies came up, one of whom pointed to a bird-of-paradise corpse and said: "There! I want one o' them, an' I'm a-goin' tohaveit, too!"
It is said that the Indian word "Iowa" means "the drowsy, or sleepy ones." Politically, and educationally, Iowa is all right, but in the protection of wild life she is ten years behind the times, in almost everything save the prohibition of the sale of game.Iowa knows better than to pursue the course that she does! She boasts about her corn and hogs, but she is deaf to the appeals of the states surrounding her on the subject of spring shooting. For years Minnesota has set her a good example; but nothing moves her to step up where she belongs in the phalanx of intelligent game-protecting states.
The foregoing may sound harsh, but in view of what other states have endured from Iowa's stubbornness regarding migratory game, the time for silent treatment of her case has gone by. She is to-day in the same class as North Carolina, South Carolina and Maryland,—at the tail end of the procession of states. She cares everything for corn and hogs, but little for wild life.
Kansas has calmly witnessed the extermination of her bison, elk, deer, antelope, wild turkeys, sage grouse, whooping cranes, and the beginning of the end of her pinnated grouse, without a pang. What is wild game in comparison with fat hogs, and seventy-bushels-to-the-acre!
Draw a line around the hog-and-corn area of the United States, and within it you will find more spring shooting, more sale of game and more extermination of species than in any other area in the United States. I refer to Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. In not one of these states except Missouri is there any big game hunting, and in the majority of them spring shooting is lawful!
In the Island of Mauritius, it was swine that exterminated the dodo. In the United States, hogs and game extermination still go hand in hand. Since the days of the dodo, however, a new species of swine has been developed. It is now widely known as the "game-hog," and it has been officially recognized by both bench and bar.
Nearly everything that a state should maintain in the line of wild life protectionKentucky lacks! It is easier to tell what she has than to recite what she should have. Kentuckypermits spring shooting; she hasno bag limits, and she haslong open seasonson everything save introduced pheasants; She protects from sale only quail, grouse and wild turkeykilled within her own borders. This means that her markets are practically wide open.
Until recently the people of Kentucky have been very indifferent to the value of her wild-life; but with the new law enacted this year providing for a game commission and a game protection fund, surely every member of the Army of the Defense will wish God-speed to her efforts in game conservation, and stand ready to lend a helping hand whenever help can be utilized.
Kentucky should at one grand coupstop spring shooting and all sale of wild game, accord long close seasons to all species that are verging on extinction, protect doves, establish moderate bag limits and stop the use of machine guns. If she takes up these measures at the rate of only one at each legislative session, by the time her laws are perfectall her game will be gone!
On more counts than one, Louisiana is in the list of Great Delinquents; for behold the things that she needs to do:
In legally permitting the slaughter of the robin, red-winged blackbird, dove, grosbeak, wood-duck and gull the state of Louisiana is very culpable.
For good reasons, forty states of the American Union strictly prohibit the killing of song and insectivorous birds. The duty of every state to protect those birds is not a debatable proposition. I put this question to the people of Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee and other states where the robin is treated as a game bird: Is it fair of you to kill and eat robins when that species is carefully protected by forty other states of our country for grave economic reasons? What would you say of the people of the North if they slaughtered your mockingbirdto eat!
Remember this proportion:
The Robin : The North :: The Mockingbird : The South.