CHAPTER XXXINEW LAWS NEEDED IN THE STATES(Concluded)
CHAPTER XXXI
NEW LAWS NEEDED IN THE STATES
(Concluded)
North Carolina:The game laws of North Carolina form a droll crazy-quilt of local and state measures, effective and ineffective. In 1909, a total of 77 local game laws were enacted, and only two of state-wide application. During the ten years ending in 1910, a total of 316 game laws were enacted! She sedulously endeavors to protect her quail, which do not migrate, but in Currituck County she persistently maintains the bloodiest slaughter-pen for waterfowl that exists anywhere on the Atlantic Coast. There is no bag limit on waterfowl, and unlimited spring shooting. So far as waterfowl are concerned, conditions could hardly be worse, except by the use of punt guns. Doves,larksandrobinsare shot and eaten as "game" from November 1 to March 1! Twenty-one counties have local restrictions on the sale of game, but the state at large has only one,—on quail.The market gunners of Currituck Sound are a scourge and a pest to the wild-fowl life of the Atlantic Coast. For their own money profit, they slaughter by wholesale the birds that annually fly through twenty-two states. It is quite useless to suggest anything to North Carolina in modern game laws. As long as a killable bird remains, she will not stop the slaughter. Her standing reply is "It brings a lot of money into Currituck County; and the people want the money." Even the members of the sportsmen's clubs can shoot wild fowl in Currituck County, quite without limit; and I am told that the privilege often is abused. Quite recently I heard of a member of one of the clubs who shot 164 ducks and geese in two days!Apparently any suggestions made to North Carolina would not be treated seriously, especially if they would tend really to elevate the sport of game shooting, or better protect the game. There is, however, a melancholy interest attached to the framing of good game laws, whether they ever are likely to be adopted or not. Here is the duty of North Carolina:Stop the killing of robins, doves and larks for food, absolutely and forever. This measure is necessary to agriculture and to the good name of the state.Stop the shooting of any game for sale, prohibit the possession of game for sale, and the sale of wild native game.Establish bag limits on all waterfowl, and on all other game birds and mammals.Prepare to protect, at an early date, the wild turkey and quail; for soon they will need it. Moreover, enact a law prohibiting the use of automatic and pump guns in hunting, covering the entire state.Provide a resident-license system and thereby make the game department self-sustaining, and render it possible to employ a salaried State Game Commissioner.It is quite wrong for the people of North Carolina to hold grudges against northern members of the ducking clubs of Currituck for the passage of the Bayne law. They had nothing whatever to do with it, and I can say this because I was in a position which enabled me to know.North Dakota:In 1911, this sovereign state enacted a lawprohibiting the use of automobilesin hunting wild-fowl; also rifles. North Dakota was the first state to recognize officially the fact that the use of automobiles in hunting is a serious menace to some forms of wild life. Beyond all question, the machines do indeed bring an extra number of birds within reach of the gun! They increase the annual slaughter; and it is right and necessary to prohibit by law their use in hunting game of any kind.In Putman County, New York, I have seen them in action. A load of three or four gunners is whirled up to a likely mountain-side for ruffed grouse, and presently the banging begins. After an hour or so spent in combing out the birds, the hunters jump in, whirl away in a dust-cloud to another spot two miles away, and "bang-bang-bang" again. After that, a third locality; and so on, covering six or eight times the territory that a man in a buggy, or on foot, could possibly shoot over in the same time!North Dakota has done well, in the passage of that act. On certain other matters, she is not so sound.For instance:The killing of pinnated grouse should be stopped for ten years; and it should be done immediately.The killing of cranes as "game" should stop, instantly and forever. It is barbarous.Fifty dead birds in possession at one time is fully thirty too many. The game cannot stand such slaughter!All shore birds (Order Limicolae) should have at least a five-year close season, before they are exterminated.The use of machine guns in hunting should be stopped, forever.It is to the credit of the state that antelope are absolutely protected until 1920, and an unlimited close season has been accorded the quail, dove and swan.Ohio:I think that Ohio comes the nearest of all the states to being gameless. With but slight exceptions her laws are about as correct as those of most other states, but the desire to "kill" is so strong, and the majority of her gunners are so thoroughly selfish about their "rights"that the game has ruthlessly been swept awayaccording to law!Ohio is a striking example of the deplorable results oflegalizedslaughter. The spirit of Ohio is like that of North Carolina. Her "sportsmen" will not have an automatic gun law! Oh, no! "Limit the bag, shorten the season, and the gun won't matter!"To-day, the visible game supply of Ohio does not amount to anything; and when the last game bird of that state falls before the greediest shooter, we shall say, "A gameless state is just what you deserve!"It is useless to make any suggestions to Ohio. Her shooting Shylocks want the last pound of flesh from wild life, and I think they will get it very soon. Ohio is in the area of barren states. The seed stock has been too thoroughly destroyed to be recuperated. I think that Ohio's last noteworthy exploit in lawmaking for the preservation (!) of her game was in 1904, when she put all her shore birds into the list of killable game, and bravely prohibited the shooting of doveson the ground!Great is Ohio in game conservation!Oklahoma:For a state so young, the wild-life laws of Oklahoma are in admirable shape; but it is reasonably certain that there, as elsewhere, the game is being killed much faster than it is breeding. The new commonwealth must arouse, and screw up the brakes much tighter.Recently, an observing friend told me that on a trip of 250 miles westward from Lawton and back again, watching sharply for game all the way, he saw only five pinnated grouse! And this in a good season for "prairie chickens."Oklahoma must stop all spring shooting.The prairie chicken must have a ten-year close season, immediately.Next time, her legislature will pass the automatic gun bill that failed last year only because the session closed too soon for its consideration.Oklahoma is wise in giving long protection to her quail, and "wild pigeon," and such protection should be made equally effective in the case of the dove. She is wise in rigidly enforcing her law against the exportation of game.The Wichita National Bison herd, near Cache, now contains forty head of bison, all in good condition. The nucleus herd consisted of fifteen head presented by the New York Zoological Society in 1907.Oregon:The results of the efforts that have been made by Oregon to provide special laws for each individual shooter are painful to contemplate. Like North Carolina, Oregon has attempted the impossible task of pleasing everybody, and at the same time protecting her wild life. The two propositions can be blended together about as easily as asphalt andwater. The individual shooter desires laws that will permit him to shoot—whenhe pleases,wherehe pleases, andwhathe pleases! If you meet those conditions all over a great state, then it is time to bid farewell to the game; for it surely is doomed.No, decidedly no! Do not attempt to pass game laws that will "please everybody." The more the game-hogs aredispleased, the better for the game! The game-hogs form a very small and very insignificant minority of the whole People. Why please one man at the expense of ninety-nine others? The game of a state belongs to The People as a whole, not to the gunners alone. The great, patient,—and sometimes sleepy,—majority has vested rights in it, and it is for it to say how it shall and shall not be killed. Heretofore the gunning minority has been dictating the game laws of America, and the result is—progressive extermination.First of all, Oregon should bury the pernicious idea of individual and local laws.She should enact a concise, clearly cut, and thoroughly effective code of wild life laws, just as New York did last winter.Her game seasons should be uniform in application, all over the state.Every species of bird, mammal or fish that is threatened with extermination should be given a close season of from five to ten years.It is now time to protect the white goose and brant. Squirrels, band-tailed pigeons and doves should be perpetually protected.The State Game Commission should have power to close the shooting seasons on any species of game in any locality, whenever a species is threatened with extinction.The sale of native wild game, from all sources, should be permanently stopped, by a Bayne law.The use of automatic, "autoloading" and pump shot guns in hunting should be perpetually barred.Pennsylvania:As a game protecting state, Pennsylvania is a close second to New York and Massachusetts. She protects all native game from sale;she has the courage to prohibit aliens from owning guns; she bars out automatic shot-guns in hunting; she makes refuges for deer, and feeds her quail in winter, and she permits the killing of no female deer, or fawns with horns less than three inches in length. Her splendid State Game Commission is fighting hard for a hunter's license law, and will win the fight for it at the next session of the legislature (1913).But there are certain things that Pennsylvania should do:She should stop all spring shooting. She must stop killing doves, blackbirds, wild turkeys, sandpipers, and all the squirrels save the red squirrel.She should give all her shore birds a rest of at least five years, for recuperation.She should enact a comprehensive Dutcher plumage law, stopping the sale of aigrettes.She should provide a resident license to furnish her Game Commission with adequate funds to carry on its work and exterminate game-killing vermin.Rhode Island:Little Rhody needs some good, small bag limits; for now (1912) she has none!She should enact a Bayne law, a Pennsylvania law against aliens, and a New Jersey law against the automatic and pump guns.She should stop killing the beautiful wood-duck, and gray squirrel.She should stop all spring shooting of waterfowl.South Carolina:She should save her game while she still has some to save.First of all, stop spring shooting; secondly, enact a Bayne law.In the name of mystery, who is there in South Carolina who desires to kill grackles? And why?And where is the gentleman sportsman who has come down to killing foolish and tame little doves for "sport?" Stop it at once, for the credit of the state.Enact a dollar resident license law and thus provide adequate funds for game protection.South Carolina bag limits are all 50 per cent too high; and they should be reduced.It is strange to see one of the oldest of the states lagging in game protection, far behind such new states as New Mexico and Oklahoma; but South Carolina does lag. It is time for her to consider her position, and reform.South Dakota:South Dakota should stop all spring shooting.Her game-bag limits are really no limits at all! They should be reduced about 66 per cent without a moment's unnecessary delay.The two year term of the State Warden is too short for effective work. It should be extended to four years.Unless South Dakota wishes to repeat the folly of such states as Indiana, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri and Ohio, she needs to be up and doing. If her people want a gameless state, except for migratory waterfowl, all they need do is to slumber on, and they surely will have it. Why wait until greedy sportsmen have killed the last game bird of the state before seriously taking the matter in hand? In one act, all the shortcomings of the present laws can be corrected.South Dakota needs no Bayne law, because she prohibits at all times the sale or exportation of all wild game.Tennessee:In wild life protection, Tennessee has much to do. She made her start late in life, and what she needs to do is to draft with care and enact with cheerful alacrity certain necessary amendments.We notice that there are open seasons forblackbirds, robins, doves and squirrels! It seems incredible; but it is true.Behold the blackbird as a "game" bird, with a lawful open season from September 1 to January 1. Consider its stately carriage, its rapid flight on the wing, its running and hiding powers when attacked. As a test of marksmanship, as the real thing for the expert wing shot, is itnot great? Will not any self-respecting dog be proud to point or retrieve them? And what flesh for the table!Fancy an able-bodied sportsman going out in a fifty-dollar hunting suit, carrying a fifteen-dollar gun behind a seven-dollar dog, and returning with a glorious bag of twenty-five blackbirds! Or robins! Or doves! Proud indeed, would we be to belong (which we don't) to a club of "sportsmen" who go out shooting blackbirds, and robins, and foolish little doves, as "game!" "Game" indeed, are those birds,—for little lads of seven who do not know better; but not for boys of twelve who have in their veins any inheritance of sporting blood. (I am proud of the fact that at twelve years of age,—and ever so keen to "go hunting,"—I knew without being told that squirrels and doves were notreal"game" for real boys.)The killers of doves, squirrels, blackbirds and robins belong in the same class as the sparrow-and-linnet-killing Italians of Venice, Milan and Turin, and in that company we will leave them.Tennessee needs:A resident license system to provide funds for game protection.A salaried warden force.A law prohibiting spring shooting of shore birds and waterfowl.A law protecting robins, doves and other non-game birds not covered by the present statute.Texas:I remember well when the great battle was fought in Texas by the gallant men and women of the State Audubon Society, to compel the people of Texas to learn the economic value to agriculture and cotton of the insectivorous birds. The name of the splendid Brigadier-General who led the Army of the Defense was Capt. M.B. Davis. That was in 1903.Since that great fight was won, Texas has been a partly reformed state, at times quite jealous of her bird life; but still she tolerates spring shooting and has not made adequate close seasons for her waterfowl; which is wrong. To-day, the people of Texas do not need to be told that forty-three species of birds feed on the cotton boll weevil; for they know it.On the whole, and for a southern state, the wild-life laws of Texas are in fairly good shape. On account of the absence of game-scourge markets, a Bayne law is not so imperatively necessary there as in certain other states. All the game of the state is protected from sale.We do assert, however, that if robins are slaughtered as F.L. Crow, the former Atlantan asserts, all robin shooting should be forever stopped; that the pinnated grouse should be given a seven-year close season, and that doves should be taken off the list of game birds and perpetually protected, both for economic and sentimental reasons, and also because the too weak and confiding dove is not a "game" bird for red-blooded men.Texas should enact without delay a law providing close seasons for ducks, geese and other waterfowl;A law prohibiting spring shooting, andA provision reducing the limit on deer to two bucks a season.Utah:The laws of Utah are far from being up to the requirements of the present hour. One strange thing has happened in Utah.When I spent a week in Salt Lake City in 1888, and devoted some time to inquiring into game conditions, the laws of the state were very bad. At the mouth of Bear River, ducks were being slaughtered for the markets by the tens of thousands. The cold-blooded, wide open and utterly shameless way in which it was being done, right at the doors of Salt Lake City, was appalling.At the same time, the law permitted the slaughter ofspotted fawns. I saw a huge drygoods box filled to the top with the flat skins of slaughtered innocents,260 in number, that a rascal had collected and was offering at fifty cents each. In reply to a question as to their use, he said: "I tink de sportsmen like 'em for to make vests oud of." He lived at Rawlins, Wyo.After a long and somnolent period, during which hundreds of thousands of ducks, geese, brant and other birds had been slaughtered for market at the Bear River shambles and elsewhere, the state awoke sufficiently to abate a portion of the disgrace by passing a bag-limit law (1897).And then came Nature's punishment upon Utah for that duck slaughter. The ducks of Great Salt Lake became afflicted with a terrible epidemic disease (intestinal coccidiosis) which swept off thousands, and stopped the use of Utah ducks as food! It was a "duck plague," no less. It has prevailed for three years, and has not yet by any means been stamped out. It seems to be due to the fact that countless thousands of ducks have been feeding on the exposed alluvial flats at the mouth of the creek that drains off thesewage of Salt Lake City. The conditions are said to be terrible.To-day, Utah is so nearly destitute of big game that the subject is hardly worthy of mention. Of her upland game birds, only a fraction remains, and as her laws stand to-day, she is destined to become in the near future a gameless state. In a dry region like this, the wild life always hangs on by a slender thread, and it is easy to exterminate it!Utah should instantly stop the sale of game that she now legally provides for,—twenty-five shore birds and waterfowl per day to private parties!Deer should be given a ten-year close season, at once. All bag limits should instantly be reduced one-half. The sage grouse, quail, swans, woodcock, dove, and all shore birds should be given a ten-year close season,—and rigidly protected,—before the stock is all gone.The model law for the protection of non-game birds should be enacted at once.The absolute protection of elk, antelope and sheep (until 1913) should be extended for twenty years.Utah should create a big-game preserve, at once.If Utah proposes to save even a remnant of her wild life for posterity, she must be up and doing.Vermont:In view of all conditions, it must be stated that the game laws of Vermont are, with but slight exceptions, in good condition. It is a pleasure to see that there is no spring shooting; that there is no "open" season of slaughter for the moose, caribou, wood-duck, swan, upland plover, dove or rail; that no buck deer with antlers less than three inches long may be killed; and that there is a law under which damages by deer to growing crops may be assessed and paid for by the county in which they occur. Moreover, if there is to be any killing of game, her bag limits are not extravagant. All the game protected by the state is immune from sale for food purposes, but preserve-reared game may legally be sold. We recommend the following new measures:Absolute close seasons of five-years' duration for ruffed grouse, quail, woodcock, snipe and all shore birds without a single exception.The gray squirrel should be perpetually protected,—because he is too beautiful, too companionable and too unfit for food to be killed. Even the hungry savages of the East Indies do not eat squirrels.Pass an automatic pump-gun law.Extend the term of the Fish and Game Commissioner to four years.Vermont's great success in introducing and colonizing deer is both interesting and valuable. Fifty years ago, she had no wild deer, because the species had been practically exterminated. In 1875, thirteen deer were imported from the Adirondacks and set free in the mountains. The increase has been enormous. In 1909 the number of deer killed for the year was about 5,311, which was possible without adversely affecting the herds. It is a striking object-lesson in restoring the white-tailed deer to its own, and it will be found more fully described inchapter XXIV.Virginia:Virginia is far below the position that she should occupy in wild-life conservation. To set her house in order, and come up to the level of the states that have been born during the past twenty years, she must bestir herself in these ways:She must provide for a resident hunting license, a State Game Commissioner and a force of salaried wardens.She must prohibit spring shooting.She must impose small bag limits on game-slaughter.She must resolutely stop the sale of all wild game.She must stop the killing of female deer, and of bucks with horns under three inches long.She must stop killing gray squirrels and doves as "game."She should not permit the beautiful wood-duck to be killed as "game."She should accord a five-year close season to grouse, and all shore birds.She should rule out the machine shot-guns which gentlemen can no longer use in hunting.She should adopt at once a comprehensive code of game laws, and clean her house in one siege, instead of fiddling and fussing with all these matters one by one, through a series of ten long, weary years. The time for puttering with game protection has gone by. It is now time to make short cuts to comprehensive results, and save the game before it is too late.Washington:The state of Washington still flatters herself that she has all kinds of big game to kill,—moose, antelope, goat, sheep, caribou and deer. Evidently this is on the theory that so long as a species is not extinct, it is "legal" and right to pursue it with rifles during a specified "open season."The people of Washington need to be told that conditions have greatly changed, and it is now high time to put on the brakes. It is time for them to realize that if they wait any longer for the sportsmen to take the initiative in securing the enactment of really adequate preservation laws, all their big game will be dead before those laws are born! Every man shrinks from cutting off his own pet privilege.Some of the game laws of Washington are up to date; and her big-game laws look all right to the unaided eye, but are not. Her bird laws are a chaotic jumble of local exceptions and special privileges. As a net result of all her shortcomings, the remnant of a once fine fauna of big game and feathered game is surely beingexterminated according to law.A few local exceptions will not disprove the general truthfulness of this assertion.Ten years ago a few men in Seattle resented the idea of outside co-operation in the protection of Washington game. They said they were abundantly able to take care of it; but the march of events has proven that they overestimated their capacity. To-day the wild-life laws of that state are only half baked. Come what may to me, I shall set down without malice the things that the great and admirable State of Washington should do to set her house in order. It is not good for the resourceful and progressive men of the Great Northwest to be clear behind the times in these matters.Stop local game legislation, and enact a code of laws covering the entire state, uniformly. County legislation is twenty years behind the times!For ten (10) full years, stop the killing of elk, mountain sheep, mountain goat, caribou, moose, and antelope. Regarding deer, I am in doubt.Prohibit the sale of all wild game, no matter where killed, by the enactment of a Bayne law, complete, which will alsoPromote the breeding, killing and sale of domestic game for food purposes.Make a careful investigation of the present status of your sage grouse, every other grouse, quail, and all species of shore birds, then give a five-year close season, all over the state, to every species that is "becoming scarce." This will embrace certainly one-half of the whole number, if not two-thirds.Provide two bird refuges in the eastern portion of the state, where they are very greatly needed to supplement the good effects of the State Game Preserve established on Puget Sound in 1911.Bar the use in hunting of the odious automatic and pump shotguns that are now so generally in use all over the United States to the great detriment of the game and the people.West Virginia:Considering the fact that West Virginia contains no plague-spot city for the consumption of commercial wild game, that the sale of all game is prohibited at all times, and the game of the state may not be exported for sale elsewhere, the wild life of West Virginia is reasonably secure from the market gunner,—if an adequate salaried warden force is provided. Without such a force her game must continue to be destroyed in the future as in the past to supply the markets of Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington. The deer law is excellent, and the non-game birds, and the dove and wood-duck are perpetually protected.One fly in the ointment is—spring shooting; which for ducks, geese and brant continues from September 1 to April 20. Unfortunately the law enacted in 1875 against spring shooting has beenrepealed,and so has the resident hunting license law (1911).In view of the impossibility of imagining a good reason for the repeal of a good law, we recommend:That the law against spring shooting be re-enacted.That the resident hunter's license law be re-enacted, and the proceeds specifically devoted to the preservation and increase of game.That a force of regular salaried wardens be provided to enforce the laws.That the bag limit on quail should be 10 per day or 40 per season, instead of 12 and 96; and on ruffed grouse it should be 3 per day (as in New York) or 12 per season. One wild turkey per day, or three per season is quite enough for one man. The visible supply will not justify the existing limit of two and six.Wisconsin:In spite of the fierce fight made in 1910-11 by the saloon-element game-shooters of Milwaukee for the control of the wild-life situation, and the repeal of the best protective laws of the state, the Army of Defense once more defeated the Allied Destroyers, and drove them off the field. Once more it was proven that when The People are aroused, they are abundantly able to send the steam roller over the enemies of wild life.Alphabetically, Wisconsin may come near the end of the roll-call; but by downright merit in protection, she comes mighty close to the head of the list of states. Her slate of "Work to be done" is particularly clean; and she has our most distinguished admiration. Her force of game wardens is not a political-machine force. It amounts to something. The men who get within it undergo successfully a civil service examination that certainly separates the sheep from the goats. For particulars address Dr. T.S. Palmer, Department of Agriculture, Washington.According to the standards that have been dragging along previous to this moment, Wisconsin has a good series of game laws. But the hour for a Reformation of ideas and principles has struck. We heard it first in April, 1911. The wild life of America must not be exterminated accordingto law, contrary to law, or in the absence of law! Wisconsin must take a fresh grip on her game situation, or it will get away from her, after all.Not another prairie chicken or woodcock should be killed in Wisconsin between 1912 and 1922. When any small bird becomes so scarce that the bag limit needs to be cut down to five, as it now is for the above in Wisconsin, it is time to stop for ten years, before it is too late.Wisconsin should immediately busy herself about the creation of bird and game preserves.For goodness sake, Wisconsin, stop killing squirrels as "game!" You ought to know better—and you do! Leave that form of barbarism for the Benighted States.And pass a law shutting out the machine guns. They are a disgrace to our country, and a scourge to our game. Continually are they leading good men astray.Extend the term of your State Warden to four years.Wyoming:The State of Wyoming once had a magnificent heritage of game. It embraced the Rocky Mountain species, and also those of the great plains. First and last, the state has worked hard to protect her wild life, and hold the killing of it down to a decent basis.As far back as 1889, I met on the Shoshone River a very wide-awake warden, actually "on his job," who was maintained by a body of private citizens headed by Col. Pickett and known as the Northern Wyoming Game Protective Association. And even then we saw that the laws were too liberal for the game. In one man's cold-storage dug-out we saw enough sheep, deer and elk meat to subsist a company of hungry dragoons, all killed and possessed according to law.In the protection of her mountain game, Wyoming has had a hard task. In the Yellowstone Park between 1889 and 1894, the poachers for the taxidermists of Livingston and elsewhere slaughtered 270 bison out of 300; and Howell was the only man caught. England can protect game in far-distant mountains and wildernesses; but America can not,—or at leastwe don't!With us, men living in remote places who find wild game about them say "To h--- with the law!" They kill on the sly, in season and out of season, females and males; and the average local jury simplywill notconvict the average settler who is accused of such a trifling indiscretion as killing game out of season when he "needs the meat."And so, with laws in full force protecting females, the volume of big game steadily disappears,everywhere west of the Alleghanies where the law permits big-game hunting!An interesting chapter might be written on game exterminated according to law.The deadly defects in the protection of western big game are:Structural weakness in the enforcement of the laws;Collusion between offenders for the suppression of evidence;Perjury on the witness stand;Dishonesty and disloyalty on the part of local jurors when friends, are on trial;Sympathy of judges for "the poor man" who wants to eat the game to save his cattle and sheep.From Farmers' Bulletin No. 510, U-S. Dept. of AgricultureSTATES AND PROVINCES WHICH REQUIRE RESIDENTS TO OBTAIN HUNTING LICENSES, 1912In Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma and Rhode Island an additional fee of 10 to 20 cents is charged for issuing the license.Inclosed names indicate States which permit residents to hunt on their own land without license. Nova Scotia has a $5 resident license and exempts landowners.Note that many of the States adopt the French method of exempting landowners, while some, particularly in the West follow the English method of requiring everyone who hunts to obtain a license.Elsewhere there appears a statement regarding the elk of Jackson Hole, and the efforts made and being made to save them. At this point we are interested in the game of Wyoming as a whole.First of all, the killing of mountain sheep should absolutely cease, for ten years.A similar ten-year close season should be accorded moose and prong-horned antelope.All grouse should now be classed with doves and swans (no open season), and kept there for ten years.Spring shooting is wrong in principle and vicious in practice; and it should be stopped in Wyoming, as elsewhere.The automatic and pump shotguns when used in hunting are a disgrace to Wyoming, as they are to other states, and should be suppressed; and the silencer for use in hunting is in the black list.
The game laws of North Carolina form a droll crazy-quilt of local and state measures, effective and ineffective. In 1909, a total of 77 local game laws were enacted, and only two of state-wide application. During the ten years ending in 1910, a total of 316 game laws were enacted! She sedulously endeavors to protect her quail, which do not migrate, but in Currituck County she persistently maintains the bloodiest slaughter-pen for waterfowl that exists anywhere on the Atlantic Coast. There is no bag limit on waterfowl, and unlimited spring shooting. So far as waterfowl are concerned, conditions could hardly be worse, except by the use of punt guns. Doves,larksandrobinsare shot and eaten as "game" from November 1 to March 1! Twenty-one counties have local restrictions on the sale of game, but the state at large has only one,—on quail.
The market gunners of Currituck Sound are a scourge and a pest to the wild-fowl life of the Atlantic Coast. For their own money profit, they slaughter by wholesale the birds that annually fly through twenty-two states. It is quite useless to suggest anything to North Carolina in modern game laws. As long as a killable bird remains, she will not stop the slaughter. Her standing reply is "It brings a lot of money into Currituck County; and the people want the money." Even the members of the sportsmen's clubs can shoot wild fowl in Currituck County, quite without limit; and I am told that the privilege often is abused. Quite recently I heard of a member of one of the clubs who shot 164 ducks and geese in two days!
Apparently any suggestions made to North Carolina would not be treated seriously, especially if they would tend really to elevate the sport of game shooting, or better protect the game. There is, however, a melancholy interest attached to the framing of good game laws, whether they ever are likely to be adopted or not. Here is the duty of North Carolina:
It is quite wrong for the people of North Carolina to hold grudges against northern members of the ducking clubs of Currituck for the passage of the Bayne law. They had nothing whatever to do with it, and I can say this because I was in a position which enabled me to know.
In 1911, this sovereign state enacted a lawprohibiting the use of automobilesin hunting wild-fowl; also rifles. North Dakota was the first state to recognize officially the fact that the use of automobiles in hunting is a serious menace to some forms of wild life. Beyond all question, the machines do indeed bring an extra number of birds within reach of the gun! They increase the annual slaughter; and it is right and necessary to prohibit by law their use in hunting game of any kind.
In Putman County, New York, I have seen them in action. A load of three or four gunners is whirled up to a likely mountain-side for ruffed grouse, and presently the banging begins. After an hour or so spent in combing out the birds, the hunters jump in, whirl away in a dust-cloud to another spot two miles away, and "bang-bang-bang" again. After that, a third locality; and so on, covering six or eight times the territory that a man in a buggy, or on foot, could possibly shoot over in the same time!
North Dakota has done well, in the passage of that act. On certain other matters, she is not so sound.
For instance:
It is to the credit of the state that antelope are absolutely protected until 1920, and an unlimited close season has been accorded the quail, dove and swan.
I think that Ohio comes the nearest of all the states to being gameless. With but slight exceptions her laws are about as correct as those of most other states, but the desire to "kill" is so strong, and the majority of her gunners are so thoroughly selfish about their "rights"that the game has ruthlessly been swept awayaccording to law!Ohio is a striking example of the deplorable results oflegalizedslaughter. The spirit of Ohio is like that of North Carolina. Her "sportsmen" will not have an automatic gun law! Oh, no! "Limit the bag, shorten the season, and the gun won't matter!"
To-day, the visible game supply of Ohio does not amount to anything; and when the last game bird of that state falls before the greediest shooter, we shall say, "A gameless state is just what you deserve!"
It is useless to make any suggestions to Ohio. Her shooting Shylocks want the last pound of flesh from wild life, and I think they will get it very soon. Ohio is in the area of barren states. The seed stock has been too thoroughly destroyed to be recuperated. I think that Ohio's last noteworthy exploit in lawmaking for the preservation (!) of her game was in 1904, when she put all her shore birds into the list of killable game, and bravely prohibited the shooting of doveson the ground!Great is Ohio in game conservation!
For a state so young, the wild-life laws of Oklahoma are in admirable shape; but it is reasonably certain that there, as elsewhere, the game is being killed much faster than it is breeding. The new commonwealth must arouse, and screw up the brakes much tighter.
Recently, an observing friend told me that on a trip of 250 miles westward from Lawton and back again, watching sharply for game all the way, he saw only five pinnated grouse! And this in a good season for "prairie chickens."
Oklahoma is wise in giving long protection to her quail, and "wild pigeon," and such protection should be made equally effective in the case of the dove. She is wise in rigidly enforcing her law against the exportation of game.
The Wichita National Bison herd, near Cache, now contains forty head of bison, all in good condition. The nucleus herd consisted of fifteen head presented by the New York Zoological Society in 1907.
The results of the efforts that have been made by Oregon to provide special laws for each individual shooter are painful to contemplate. Like North Carolina, Oregon has attempted the impossible task of pleasing everybody, and at the same time protecting her wild life. The two propositions can be blended together about as easily as asphalt andwater. The individual shooter desires laws that will permit him to shoot—whenhe pleases,wherehe pleases, andwhathe pleases! If you meet those conditions all over a great state, then it is time to bid farewell to the game; for it surely is doomed.
No, decidedly no! Do not attempt to pass game laws that will "please everybody." The more the game-hogs aredispleased, the better for the game! The game-hogs form a very small and very insignificant minority of the whole People. Why please one man at the expense of ninety-nine others? The game of a state belongs to The People as a whole, not to the gunners alone. The great, patient,—and sometimes sleepy,—majority has vested rights in it, and it is for it to say how it shall and shall not be killed. Heretofore the gunning minority has been dictating the game laws of America, and the result is—progressive extermination.
As a game protecting state, Pennsylvania is a close second to New York and Massachusetts. She protects all native game from sale;she has the courage to prohibit aliens from owning guns; she bars out automatic shot-guns in hunting; she makes refuges for deer, and feeds her quail in winter, and she permits the killing of no female deer, or fawns with horns less than three inches in length. Her splendid State Game Commission is fighting hard for a hunter's license law, and will win the fight for it at the next session of the legislature (1913).
But there are certain things that Pennsylvania should do:
It is strange to see one of the oldest of the states lagging in game protection, far behind such new states as New Mexico and Oklahoma; but South Carolina does lag. It is time for her to consider her position, and reform.
Unless South Dakota wishes to repeat the folly of such states as Indiana, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri and Ohio, she needs to be up and doing. If her people want a gameless state, except for migratory waterfowl, all they need do is to slumber on, and they surely will have it. Why wait until greedy sportsmen have killed the last game bird of the state before seriously taking the matter in hand? In one act, all the shortcomings of the present laws can be corrected.
South Dakota needs no Bayne law, because she prohibits at all times the sale or exportation of all wild game.
In wild life protection, Tennessee has much to do. She made her start late in life, and what she needs to do is to draft with care and enact with cheerful alacrity certain necessary amendments.
We notice that there are open seasons forblackbirds, robins, doves and squirrels! It seems incredible; but it is true.
Behold the blackbird as a "game" bird, with a lawful open season from September 1 to January 1. Consider its stately carriage, its rapid flight on the wing, its running and hiding powers when attacked. As a test of marksmanship, as the real thing for the expert wing shot, is itnot great? Will not any self-respecting dog be proud to point or retrieve them? And what flesh for the table!
Fancy an able-bodied sportsman going out in a fifty-dollar hunting suit, carrying a fifteen-dollar gun behind a seven-dollar dog, and returning with a glorious bag of twenty-five blackbirds! Or robins! Or doves! Proud indeed, would we be to belong (which we don't) to a club of "sportsmen" who go out shooting blackbirds, and robins, and foolish little doves, as "game!" "Game" indeed, are those birds,—for little lads of seven who do not know better; but not for boys of twelve who have in their veins any inheritance of sporting blood. (I am proud of the fact that at twelve years of age,—and ever so keen to "go hunting,"—I knew without being told that squirrels and doves were notreal"game" for real boys.)
The killers of doves, squirrels, blackbirds and robins belong in the same class as the sparrow-and-linnet-killing Italians of Venice, Milan and Turin, and in that company we will leave them.
Tennessee needs:
I remember well when the great battle was fought in Texas by the gallant men and women of the State Audubon Society, to compel the people of Texas to learn the economic value to agriculture and cotton of the insectivorous birds. The name of the splendid Brigadier-General who led the Army of the Defense was Capt. M.B. Davis. That was in 1903.
Since that great fight was won, Texas has been a partly reformed state, at times quite jealous of her bird life; but still she tolerates spring shooting and has not made adequate close seasons for her waterfowl; which is wrong. To-day, the people of Texas do not need to be told that forty-three species of birds feed on the cotton boll weevil; for they know it.
On the whole, and for a southern state, the wild-life laws of Texas are in fairly good shape. On account of the absence of game-scourge markets, a Bayne law is not so imperatively necessary there as in certain other states. All the game of the state is protected from sale.
We do assert, however, that if robins are slaughtered as F.L. Crow, the former Atlantan asserts, all robin shooting should be forever stopped; that the pinnated grouse should be given a seven-year close season, and that doves should be taken off the list of game birds and perpetually protected, both for economic and sentimental reasons, and also because the too weak and confiding dove is not a "game" bird for red-blooded men.
The laws of Utah are far from being up to the requirements of the present hour. One strange thing has happened in Utah.
When I spent a week in Salt Lake City in 1888, and devoted some time to inquiring into game conditions, the laws of the state were very bad. At the mouth of Bear River, ducks were being slaughtered for the markets by the tens of thousands. The cold-blooded, wide open and utterly shameless way in which it was being done, right at the doors of Salt Lake City, was appalling.
At the same time, the law permitted the slaughter ofspotted fawns. I saw a huge drygoods box filled to the top with the flat skins of slaughtered innocents,260 in number, that a rascal had collected and was offering at fifty cents each. In reply to a question as to their use, he said: "I tink de sportsmen like 'em for to make vests oud of." He lived at Rawlins, Wyo.
After a long and somnolent period, during which hundreds of thousands of ducks, geese, brant and other birds had been slaughtered for market at the Bear River shambles and elsewhere, the state awoke sufficiently to abate a portion of the disgrace by passing a bag-limit law (1897).
And then came Nature's punishment upon Utah for that duck slaughter. The ducks of Great Salt Lake became afflicted with a terrible epidemic disease (intestinal coccidiosis) which swept off thousands, and stopped the use of Utah ducks as food! It was a "duck plague," no less. It has prevailed for three years, and has not yet by any means been stamped out. It seems to be due to the fact that countless thousands of ducks have been feeding on the exposed alluvial flats at the mouth of the creek that drains off thesewage of Salt Lake City. The conditions are said to be terrible.
To-day, Utah is so nearly destitute of big game that the subject is hardly worthy of mention. Of her upland game birds, only a fraction remains, and as her laws stand to-day, she is destined to become in the near future a gameless state. In a dry region like this, the wild life always hangs on by a slender thread, and it is easy to exterminate it!
If Utah proposes to save even a remnant of her wild life for posterity, she must be up and doing.
In view of all conditions, it must be stated that the game laws of Vermont are, with but slight exceptions, in good condition. It is a pleasure to see that there is no spring shooting; that there is no "open" season of slaughter for the moose, caribou, wood-duck, swan, upland plover, dove or rail; that no buck deer with antlers less than three inches long may be killed; and that there is a law under which damages by deer to growing crops may be assessed and paid for by the county in which they occur. Moreover, if there is to be any killing of game, her bag limits are not extravagant. All the game protected by the state is immune from sale for food purposes, but preserve-reared game may legally be sold. We recommend the following new measures:
Vermont's great success in introducing and colonizing deer is both interesting and valuable. Fifty years ago, she had no wild deer, because the species had been practically exterminated. In 1875, thirteen deer were imported from the Adirondacks and set free in the mountains. The increase has been enormous. In 1909 the number of deer killed for the year was about 5,311, which was possible without adversely affecting the herds. It is a striking object-lesson in restoring the white-tailed deer to its own, and it will be found more fully described inchapter XXIV.
Virginia is far below the position that she should occupy in wild-life conservation. To set her house in order, and come up to the level of the states that have been born during the past twenty years, she must bestir herself in these ways:
She should adopt at once a comprehensive code of game laws, and clean her house in one siege, instead of fiddling and fussing with all these matters one by one, through a series of ten long, weary years. The time for puttering with game protection has gone by. It is now time to make short cuts to comprehensive results, and save the game before it is too late.
The state of Washington still flatters herself that she has all kinds of big game to kill,—moose, antelope, goat, sheep, caribou and deer. Evidently this is on the theory that so long as a species is not extinct, it is "legal" and right to pursue it with rifles during a specified "open season."
The people of Washington need to be told that conditions have greatly changed, and it is now high time to put on the brakes. It is time for them to realize that if they wait any longer for the sportsmen to take the initiative in securing the enactment of really adequate preservation laws, all their big game will be dead before those laws are born! Every man shrinks from cutting off his own pet privilege.
Some of the game laws of Washington are up to date; and her big-game laws look all right to the unaided eye, but are not. Her bird laws are a chaotic jumble of local exceptions and special privileges. As a net result of all her shortcomings, the remnant of a once fine fauna of big game and feathered game is surely beingexterminated according to law.A few local exceptions will not disprove the general truthfulness of this assertion.
Ten years ago a few men in Seattle resented the idea of outside co-operation in the protection of Washington game. They said they were abundantly able to take care of it; but the march of events has proven that they overestimated their capacity. To-day the wild-life laws of that state are only half baked. Come what may to me, I shall set down without malice the things that the great and admirable State of Washington should do to set her house in order. It is not good for the resourceful and progressive men of the Great Northwest to be clear behind the times in these matters.
Stop local game legislation, and enact a code of laws covering the entire state, uniformly. County legislation is twenty years behind the times!
Considering the fact that West Virginia contains no plague-spot city for the consumption of commercial wild game, that the sale of all game is prohibited at all times, and the game of the state may not be exported for sale elsewhere, the wild life of West Virginia is reasonably secure from the market gunner,—if an adequate salaried warden force is provided. Without such a force her game must continue to be destroyed in the future as in the past to supply the markets of Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington. The deer law is excellent, and the non-game birds, and the dove and wood-duck are perpetually protected.
One fly in the ointment is—spring shooting; which for ducks, geese and brant continues from September 1 to April 20. Unfortunately the law enacted in 1875 against spring shooting has beenrepealed,and so has the resident hunting license law (1911).
In view of the impossibility of imagining a good reason for the repeal of a good law, we recommend:
In spite of the fierce fight made in 1910-11 by the saloon-element game-shooters of Milwaukee for the control of the wild-life situation, and the repeal of the best protective laws of the state, the Army of Defense once more defeated the Allied Destroyers, and drove them off the field. Once more it was proven that when The People are aroused, they are abundantly able to send the steam roller over the enemies of wild life.
Alphabetically, Wisconsin may come near the end of the roll-call; but by downright merit in protection, she comes mighty close to the head of the list of states. Her slate of "Work to be done" is particularly clean; and she has our most distinguished admiration. Her force of game wardens is not a political-machine force. It amounts to something. The men who get within it undergo successfully a civil service examination that certainly separates the sheep from the goats. For particulars address Dr. T.S. Palmer, Department of Agriculture, Washington.
According to the standards that have been dragging along previous to this moment, Wisconsin has a good series of game laws. But the hour for a Reformation of ideas and principles has struck. We heard it first in April, 1911. The wild life of America must not be exterminated accordingto law, contrary to law, or in the absence of law! Wisconsin must take a fresh grip on her game situation, or it will get away from her, after all.
The State of Wyoming once had a magnificent heritage of game. It embraced the Rocky Mountain species, and also those of the great plains. First and last, the state has worked hard to protect her wild life, and hold the killing of it down to a decent basis.
As far back as 1889, I met on the Shoshone River a very wide-awake warden, actually "on his job," who was maintained by a body of private citizens headed by Col. Pickett and known as the Northern Wyoming Game Protective Association. And even then we saw that the laws were too liberal for the game. In one man's cold-storage dug-out we saw enough sheep, deer and elk meat to subsist a company of hungry dragoons, all killed and possessed according to law.
In the protection of her mountain game, Wyoming has had a hard task. In the Yellowstone Park between 1889 and 1894, the poachers for the taxidermists of Livingston and elsewhere slaughtered 270 bison out of 300; and Howell was the only man caught. England can protect game in far-distant mountains and wildernesses; but America can not,—or at leastwe don't!With us, men living in remote places who find wild game about them say "To h--- with the law!" They kill on the sly, in season and out of season, females and males; and the average local jury simplywill notconvict the average settler who is accused of such a trifling indiscretion as killing game out of season when he "needs the meat."
And so, with laws in full force protecting females, the volume of big game steadily disappears,everywhere west of the Alleghanies where the law permits big-game hunting!An interesting chapter might be written on game exterminated according to law.
The deadly defects in the protection of western big game are:
From Farmers' Bulletin No. 510, U-S. Dept. of Agriculture
STATES AND PROVINCES WHICH REQUIRE RESIDENTS TO OBTAIN HUNTING LICENSES, 1912
In Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma and Rhode Island an additional fee of 10 to 20 cents is charged for issuing the license.
Inclosed names indicate States which permit residents to hunt on their own land without license. Nova Scotia has a $5 resident license and exempts landowners.
Note that many of the States adopt the French method of exempting landowners, while some, particularly in the West follow the English method of requiring everyone who hunts to obtain a license.
Elsewhere there appears a statement regarding the elk of Jackson Hole, and the efforts made and being made to save them. At this point we are interested in the game of Wyoming as a whole.