 CHAPTER V. THE EXTERMINATION OF SPECIES, STATE BY STATE Early in 1912, I addressed to about 250 persons throughout the United States three questions as follows. 1. What species of birds have become totally extinct in your state? 2. What species of birds and mammals are threatened with early extinction? 3. What species of mammals have been exterminated throughout your state? These queries were addressed to persons whose tastes and observations rendered them especially qualified to furnish the information desired. The interest shown in the inquiry was highly gratifying. The best of the information given is summarized below, but this tabulation also includes much information acquired from other sources. The general summary of the subject will, I am sure, convince all thoughtful persons that the present condition of the best wildlife of the nation is indeed very grave. This list is not submitted as representing prolonged research or absolute perfection, but it is sufficient to point 48 morals. Birds and mammals that have been totally exterminated in various states and provinces. Alabama, Passenger Pigeon, Carolina Parakeet, Puma, Elk, Gray Wolf, Beaver, Arizona, Ridgeway's Quail, Colonus Ridgeway, Arizona Elk, Service Mariami, Bison, Arkansas, Passenger Pigeon, Carolina Parakeet, Whooping Crane, Bison, Elk, Beaver. California. No birds totally extinct, but several nearly so. Grizzly Bear, Elephant Seal. Colorado, Carolina Parakeet, Whooping Crane, Bison. Connecticut, Passenger Pigeon, Eskimo Curleau, Great Ock, Labrador Duck, Upland Plover, Heath Hen, Wild Turkey. Puma, Gray Wolf, Canada Lynx, Black Bear, Elk. Delaware, Wild Turkey, Ruffed Grouse, Passenger Pigeon, Heath Hen, Dick Sissel, Whooping Crane, Carolina Parakeet, White Tailed Deer, Black Bear, Gray Wolf, Beaver, Canada Lynx, Puma, Florida. Flamingo, Rosie at Spoonbill, Scarlett Ibis, Carolina Parakeet, Passenger Pigeon. Georgia, Passenger Pigeon, Carolina Parakeet, Whooping Crane, Trumpeter Swan, Bison, Elk, Beaver, Gray Wolf, Puma. Last three, Craig D. Arnold. Idaho, Wood Duck, Long-Built Curleau, Whooping Crane, Bison, Dr. C. S. Moody. Illinois, Passenger Pigeon, Whooping Crane, Carolina Parakeet, Trumpeter Swan, Snowy Egret, Eskimo Curleau. Bison, Elk, White Tailed Deer, Black Bear, Puma, Canada Lynx. Indiana, Passenger Pigeon, Whooping Crane, Northern Raven, Wild Turkey, Ivory Build Woodpecker, Carolina Parakeet, Trumpeter Swan, Snowy Egret, Eskimo Curleau. Bison, Elk, White Tailed Deer, Black Bear, Canada Lynx, Beaver, Porcupine, Amos W. Butler. Iowa, Wild Turkey, Eskimo Curleau, Whooping Crane, Trumpeter Swan, White Pelican, Passenger Pigeon. Bison, Elk, Antelope, White Tailed Deer, Black Bear, Puma, Canada Lynx, Gray Wolf, Beaver, Porcupine. Kansas, American Scop Duck, Woodcock, Ruffed Grouse, Wild Turkey, Piliated Woodpecker, Parakeet, White Neck Raven, American Raven, All Professor L. L. Dice. Golden Plover, Eskimo Curleau, Hudsonian Curleau, Wood Duck, C. H. Smith, and James Howard, Wichita. Bison, Elk, Mule Deer, White Tailed Deer, Gray Wolf, Beaver, Otter, Lynx, L. L. D. Reports as complete and thorough as these for other localities no doubt would show lists equally long for several other states. W. T. H. Kentucky, Passenger Pigeon, Parakeet, Bison, Elk, Puma, Beaver, Gray Wolf, Louisiana, Passenger Pigeon, Carolina Parakeet, Eskimo Curleau, Flamingo, Scarlet Ibis, Roseat Spoonbill, Bison, Ocelot, Maine, Great Ock, Labrador Duck, Eskimo Curleau, Oystercatcher, Wild Turkey, Heath Hen, Passenger Pigeon, Puma, Gray Wolf, Wolverine, Caribou, All, Arthur H. Norton, Portland, Maryland, Sandhill Crane, Parakeet, Passenger Pigeon, Bison, Elk, Beaver, Gray Wolf, Puma, Porcupine, Massachusetts, Wild Turkey, Passenger Pigeon, Labrador Duck, Whooping Crane, Sandhill Crane, Black Throated Bunting, Great Ock, Eskimo Curleau, William Brewster, W. P. Wharton, Canada Lynx, Gray Wolf, Black Bear, Moose, Elk, Michigan, Passenger Pigeon, Wild Turkey, Sandhill Crane, Whooping Crane, Bison, Elk, Wolverine, Minnesota, Whooping Crane, White Pelican, Trumpeter Swan, Passenger Pigeon, Bison, Elk, Muldear, Antelope. A strange condition exists in Minnesota, as will be seen by reference to the next list of states. A great many species are on the road to speedy extermination, but as yet the number of those that have become totally extinct up to date is small. Mississippi, Parakeet, Passenger Pigeon, Bison, Data Incomplete, Missouri, Parakeet, Ivory Build Woodpecker, Passenger Pigeon, Whooping Crane, Pineated Grouse, Bison, Elk, Beaver, Montana. Although many Montana birds are on the verge of extinction, the only species that we are sure have totally vanished are the Passenger Pigeon and the Whooping Crane. Mammals Extinct, Bison, Nebraska, Curlew, Wild Turkey, Parakeet, Passenger Pigeon, Whooping Crane, and no doubt all the other species that have disappeared from Kansas. Mammals, Bison, Antelope, Elk, and Mule Deer. Nevada. By a rather odd combination of causes and effects, Nevada retains representatives of nearly all her original outfit of bird and mammal species except the Bison and Elk, but several of them will shortly become extinct. New Hampshire, Wild Turkey, Heath Hen, Pigeon, Whooping Crane, Eskimo Curly, Upland Plover, Labrador Duck, Woodland Caraboo, Moose, New Jersey, Heath Hen, Wild Turkey, Pigeon, Parakeet, Eskimo Curloo, Labrador Duck, Snowy Egret, Whooping Crane, Sandhill Crane, Trumpeter Swan, Pilated Woodpecker, Gray Wolf, Black Bear, Beaver, Elk, Porcupine, Puma. New Mexico. Notwithstanding an enormous decrease in the general volume of wildlife in New Mexico, comparatively few species have been totally exterminated. The most important are the Bison and Arizona Elk. New York. Heath Hen, Pigeon, Wild Turkey, Great Ock, Trumpeter Swan, Labrador Duck, Harlequin Duck, Eskimo Curloo, Upland Plover, Golden Plover, Whooping Crane, Sandhill Crane, Purple Martin, Pilated Woodpecker, Moose, Caraboo, Bison, Elk, Puma, Gray Wolf, Wolverine, Martin, Fisher, Beaver, Fox, Squirrel, Harbour Seal, North Carolina, Ivory Build Woodpecker, Parakeet, Pigeon, Roseat Spoonbill, Longbilled Curloo, Nominious Americanus, Eskimo Curloo, Bison, Elk, Gray Wolf, Puma, Beaver, ELU Bank, T. Gilbert Pearson, HH and CS Brimley, North Dakota, Whooping Crane, Longbilled Curloo, Hudsonian Godwit, Passenger Pigeon, Bison, Elk, Mule Deer, Mountain Sheep, WB Bell and Alfred Eastgate, Ohio, Pigeon, Wild Turkey, Pinnaded Grouse, Northern Pilated Woodpecker, Parakeet, Whitetail Deer, Bison, Elk, Black Bear, Puma, Gray Wolf, Beaver, Otter, Puma, Lynx, Oklahoma, Records for Birds Insufficient, Mammals, Bison, Elk, Antelope, Mule Deer, Puma, Black Bear, Oregon. The only species known to have been wholly exterminated during recent times is the California Condor and the Bison, both of which were rare stragglers into Oregon, but a number of species are now close to extinction. Pennsylvania, Heath Hen, Pigeon, Parakeet, Labrador Duck, Bison, Elk, Moose, Puma, Gray Wolf, Canada Lynx, Wolverine, Beaver, Whitmer Stone, Dr. C. B. Penrose and Arthur Chapman, Rhode Island, Heath Hen, Passenger Pigeon, Wild Turkey, Least Turn, Eastern Willet, Eskimo Curlew, Marbled Godwitt, Longbilled Curlew, Harry S. Hathaway, Puma, Black Bear, Gray Wolf, Beaver, Otter, Wolverine, South Carolina, Ivory Build Woodpecker, Carolina Parakeet, Bison, Elk, Puma, Gray Wolf, James H. Rice Jr., South Dakota, Whooping Crane, Trumpeter Swan, Pigeon, Longbilled Curlew, Bison, Elk, Mule Deer, Mountain Sheep, Tennessee, Records Insufficient, Texas, Wild Turkey, Passenger Pigeon, Ivory Build Woodpecker, Flamingo, Rosy at Spoonbill, American Egret, Whooping Crane, Wood Duck, Bison, Elk, Mountain Sheep, Antelope, A Small Dark Deer That Lived 40 Years Ago, Captain M. B. Davis, Utah, Records Insufficient, Virginia, Records Insufficient, Washington, very few species have become totally extinct, but a number are on the verge and will be named in the next state schedule. West Virginia, Pigeon, Parakeet, Bison, Elk, Beaver, Puma, Gray Wolf, Wisconsin, Whooping Crane, Passenger Pigeon, American Egret, Wild Turkey, Carolina Parakeet, Bison, Moose, Elk, Woodland Caribou, Puma, Wolverine, Wyoming, Whooping Crane, Trumpeter Swan, Wood Duck, Mountain Goat, Canada, Alberta, Passenger Pigeon, Whooping Crane, Bison, British Columbia, A. Brian Williams reports do not know of any birds having become extinct. Manitoba, Pigeon, Bison, Antelope, Gray Wolf, New Brunswick, Pigeon, Nova Scotia, Labrador Duck, Eskimo Curlew, Passenger Pigeon, Ontario, Wild Turkey, Pigeon, Eskimo Curlew, Prince Edward Island reported by E.T. Carbonell, Eskimo Curlew, Horne Grebe, Ring Build Gull, Caspian Turn, Passenger Pigeon, Wilson's Petrel, Wood Duck, Barrow's Golden Eye, Whistling Swan, American Eider, White-fronted Goose, Purple Sandpiper, Canada Grouse, Long-eared Owl, Screech Owl, Black-throated Bunting, Pine Warbler, Red-necked Grebe, Purple Martin, and Catbird, Beaver, Black Fox, Silver-Grey Fox, Martin, and Black Bear, Quebec, Pigeon, Saskatchewan, Pigeon, Bison, Birds and Mammals Threatened with Extinction. The second question submitted in my inquiry produced results even more startling than the first. None of the person's reporting can be regarded as alarmists, but some of the lists of species approaching extinction are appallingly long. To their observations, I add other notes and observations of interest at this time. Alabama, Wood Duck, Snowy Egret, Woodcock. The worst enemy of wildlife is the Pothunter and Game Hog. These wholesale slaughterers of game resort to any evidence in practice. It matters not how murderous to accomplish the pernicious ends of their nefarious campaigns of relentless extermination of fur and feather. They cannot be controlled by local laws. For these, after having been tried for several generations, have proven consummate failures for the reason that local authorities will not enforce the provisions of game and bird protective statutes. Experience has demonstrated the fact that no one desires to inform voluntarily on his neighbors, and since breaking the game law is not construed to involve moral turpitude, even to an infinitesimal degree, by many of our citizens, the plunderers of nature's storehouse thus goes free. It matters not how great the damage done to the people as a whole. John H. Wallace, Jr., Game Commissioner of Alabama, Alaska. Thanks to geographic and climatic conditions, the Alaskan Game Laws, and $15,000 with which to enforce them, the status of the wildlife of Alaska is fairly satisfactory. I think that, at present, no species is in danger of extinction in the near future. When it was pointed out to Congress in 1902 by Madison Grant, T. S. Palmer, and others that the wildlife of Alaska was seriously threatened, Congress immediately enacted the law that was recommended and now appropriates yearly a fair sum for its enforcement. I regard the Alaskan situation as being for so vast and difficult a region reasonably well in hand, even though open to improvement. There is one fatal defect in our Alaskan Game Law and their perpetual and sweeping license to kill that is bestowed upon natives and prospectors. Under cover of this law, the Indians can slaughter game to any extent they choose, and they are great killers. For example, in 1911, at Sand Point, Kenai Peninsula, Frank E. Kleinschmidt saw 82 caribou tongues in the boat of a native that had been brought in for sale at 50 cents while the carcasses were left where they fell to poison the air of Alaska. Thanks to the Game Law and five wardens, the number of big game animals killed last year in Alaska by sportsmen was reasonably small, just as it should have been. W. T. H. Arizona. During an overland trip made by Dr. McDougal and others in 1907, from Tucson to Senuita on the international boundary, 150 miles and back again, we saw not one antelope or deer. W. T. H. California. Swan, White Heron, Bronze Ibis. California Valley Quail are getting very scarce, and unless adequate protection is afforded them shortly, they will be found hereafter only in remote districts. Ducks also are decreasing rapidly. H. W. Keller, Los Angeles. Sage grouse and Colombian sharp-tailed grouse are so nearly extinct that it may practically be said that they are extinct. Among species likely to be exterminated in the near future are the Woodduck and the band-tailed pigeon. W. P. Taylor, Berkeley. Colorado. Sage grouse and sharp-tailed grouse. Nearly all the shore birds. Connecticut. All the shore birds. Quail. Purple Martin. Delaware. Woodduck. Upland plover. Least turned. Wilson turned. Roseat turned. Black skimmer. Oyster catcher, and numerous other literal species. Pilated woodpeckers, bald eagles, and all the ducks are much more rare than formally. Swan are about gone. Geese scarce. The list of ducks, geese, and shore birds, as well as of turns and gulls that are nearing extinction, is appalling. C. J. Pennick, Wilmington. Woodduck, Woodcock, Turtledove, and Bobwhite. A. R. Spade, Wilmington. Florida. Limkin. Ivory-billed woodpecker. Wild turkey. Georgia. Ruffed grouse. Wild turkey. Idaho. Harlequin duck, mountain plover, dusky grouse, Colombian sharp-tailed grouse, sage grouse. Elk, goats, and grizzly bears are becoming very scarce. Of the smaller animals, I have not seen a fisher for years, and martin are hardly to be found. The same is true of other species. Dr. Charles S. Moody, Sandpoint. Illinois. Pineated grouse, except were rigidly protected. In Vermillion County, by long and persistent protection, Harvey J. Scontz has bred back upon his farm about 400 of these birds. Indiana. Pilated woodpecker. Woodcock. Ruffed grouse. Pigeonhawk. Duckhawk. Amos W. Butler, Indianapolis. In Northern and Northwestern Indiana, a perpetual closed season and their rigid protection have enabled the almost-extinct, pineated grouse to breed, up to a total number now estimated by Game Commissioner Miles and his wardens at 10,000 birds. This is a gratifying illustration of what can be done in bringing back an almost-vanished species. The good example of Indiana should be followed by every state that still possesses a remnant of prairie chickens or other grouse. Iowa. Pineated grouse, wood duck. Notwithstanding an invasion of Jasper County, Iowa, in the winter of 1911 and 12, by hundreds of pineated grouse, such as had not been known in 20 years, this gives no ground to hope that the future of the species is worth a moment's purchase. The winter migration came from the Dakotas and was believed to be due to the extra severe winter and the scarcity of food. Commenting on this unprecedented occurrence, J. L. Sloaniker in the Wilson Bulletin, number 78, says, in the opinion of many, the formerly abundant prairie chicken is doomed to early extinction. Many will testify to their abundance in those years in South Dakota, 1902, when the Great Land Movement was taking place. The influx of hungry settlers, together with an occasional bad season, decimated their ranks. They were eaten by the farmers both in and out of season, driven from pillar to post with no friends and insufficient food. What else then can be expected? Mr. F. C. Pellet of Atlantic Iowa says, unless ways can be devised of rearing these birds in the domestic state, the prairie hen, in my opinion, is doomed to early extinction. The older inhabitants here say that there is not one songbird in summer where they used to be 10. G. H. Nickel in Outdoor Life, March 1912. Kansas. To all of those named in my previous list that are not actually extinct, I might add the prairie hen, the lesser prairie hen, as well as the prairie sharp-tailed grouse and the wood duck. Such water birds as the avocets, godwits, greater yellow legs, long-billed curlew, and Eskimo curlew are becoming very rare. All the water birds that are killed as game birds have been greatly reduced in numbers during the past 25 years. I have not seen a wood duck in five years. The prairie chicken has entirely disappeared from this locality. A few are still seen in the sandhills of western Kansas, and they are still comparatively abundant along the extreme southwestern line and in northern Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle. C. H. Smith, Wichita. Yellow-legged plover, golden plover, Hudsonian, and Eskimo curlew, prairie chicken. James Howard, Wichita. Louisiana. Ivory-billed woodpecker, butterball, buffalo head. The wood duck is greatly diminishing every year, and if not completely protected, 10 years hence no wood duck will be found in Louisiana. Frank M. Miller and G. E. Bayer, New Orleans. Ivory-billed woodpecker, sandhill crane, whooping crane, pinated grouse, American and snowy egret where unprotected. E. A. McEleni, Avery Island. Maine. Wood duck, upland plover, purple martin, house ran, piliated woodpecker, bald eagle, yellow legs, great blue heron, canada goose, redhead and canvas-backed duck. John F. Sprague, Dover. Puffin, leeches petrol, Eider duck, laughing gull, great blue heron, fishhawk and bald eagle. Arthur H. Norton, Portland. Maryland. Curlew, piliated woodpecker, summer duck, snowy heron. No record of sandhill crane for the last 35 years. Greater yellow leg is much scarcer than formerly, also Bartramian sandpiper. The only two birds which show an increase in the past few years are the robin and lesser scop. General protection of the robin has caused its increase. Stopping of spring shooting in the north has probably caused the increase of the latter. As a general proposition, I think I can say that all birds are becoming scarcer in this state, as we have laws that do not protect little enforcement of same, no revenue for bird protection, and too little public interest. We are working to change all this, but it comes slowly. The public fails to respond until the birds are most gone, and we have a pretty good lot of game still left. The members of the order Galani are only holding their own, were privately protected. The members of the plover family, and what are known locally as shorebirds, are still plentiful on the shores of Chinkenteague and Assateague, and although they do not breed there as formerly, so far as I know there are no species exterminated. Talbot den Mead, Baltimore. Massachusetts. Wood duck, hooded mergancer, blue winged teal, upland plover, curlew, perhaps already gone, red-tailed hawk, I have not seen one in Middlesex County for several years, great horned owl, almost gone in my county, Middlesex. House Wren. The eave swallows and purple martins are fast deserting eastern Massachusetts, and the barn swallows steadily diminishing in numbers. The bald eagle should perhaps be included here. I seldom see or hear of it now. William Brewster, Cambridge. Upland plover, woodcock, wood duck, recent complete protection is helping these somewhat. Heath hen, piping plover, golden plover, a good many song and insectivorous birds are apparently decreasing rather rapidly. For instance, the eave swallow. William P. Wharton of Grotton. Michigan. Wood duck, limickle lay, woodcock, sandhill crane. The great whooping crane is not a wild bird, but I think it is now practically extinct. Many of our warblers and songbirds are now exceedingly rare. Roughed grouse greatly decreased during the past 10 years. W. B. Mershin, Saginaw. Minnesota. The sandhill crane has been killed by sportsmen. I have not seen one in three years. Where there were, a few years ago, thousands of blue herons, egrets, wood ducks, red birds, and Baltimore Orioles, all those birds are now almost extinct in this state. They are being killed by Austrians and Italians who slaughter everything that flies or moves. Robins, too, will be a rarity if more severe penalties are not imposed. I have seized 22 Robins, one pigeonhawk, one crested logcock, four woodpeckers, and one grouse beak in one camp at the Latournia Mine, all being prepared for eating. I have also caught them preparing and eating seagulls, turns, blue herons, egret, and even the bittern. I have secured 128 convictions since the first of last September. George E. Wood, Game Warden, Hibbing, Minnesota. From Robert Page Lincoln, Minneapolis. Partridge are waning fast, quail gradually becoming extinct, prairie chickens almost extinct. Duck shooting is rare. The gray squirrel is fast becoming extinct in Minnesota. Mink are going fast, and fur-bearing animals generally are becoming extinct. The game is passing so very rapidly that it will soon be a thing of the forgotten past. The quail are suffering most. The falling off is amazing and inconceivable to one who has not looked it up. Duck shooting is rare. The clubs are idle for want of birds. What ducks come down fly high, being harassed coming down from the north. I consider the southern Minnesota country practically cleaned out. Missouri. The birds threatened with extermination are the American woodcock, wood duck, snowy egret, pinated grouse, wild turkey, roughed grouse, golden eagle, bald eagle, piliated woodpecker. Montana. Blue grouse. Henry Avar, Helena. Sage grouse. Prairie and Colombian sharp-tailed grouse. Trumpeter swan. Canada goose. In fact, most of the waterfowl. The sickle-billed curlew, of which there were many a few years ago, is becoming scarce. There are no more golden or black-bellied plover in these parts. Harry P. Stanford, Kalispell. Curlew, Franklin Grouse, Fulhan, and Sage grouse. W.R. Felton, Miles City. Sage grouse. L.A. Huffman, Miles City. Tarmigan, wood duck, sharp-tailed grouse, Sage grouse, Fulhan, and plover. All game birds are becoming scarce as the country becomes settled and they are confined to uninhabited regions. Professor M. J. Elrod, Missoula. Nebraska. Grouse, Prairie Chicken, and Quail. H. N. Miller, Lincoln. Whistling swan. Dr. S. G. Town, Omaha. New Hampshire. Wood duck and upland plover. New York. Quail, Woodcock, upland plover. Golden plover. Black-bellied plover. Willett. Dowercher. Red-breasted sandpiper. Long-billed curlew. Wood duck. Purple Martin. Red-headed woodpecker. Morning dove. Gray squirrel. Otter. New Jersey. Ruffed grouse. Teal. Canvas back. Red-head duck. Widgen. And all species of shorebirds. The most noticeable being black-bellied plover. Dowercher. Golden plover. Kill-deer. Sickle-billed curlew. Upland plover. And English snipe. Also the morning dove. James M. Stratton and Ernest Napier. Trenton. Upland plover. Apparently kill-deer. Igret. Wood duck. Woodcock. And probably others. B. S. Bodish. Demerist. North Carolina. Forrester's Turn. Oystercatcher. Eagret and Snowy Eagret. T. Gilbert Pearson. Secretary National Association Audubon Societies. Ruffed grouse. Rapidly disappearing. Bob White becoming scarce. ELU Bank. Hendersonville. Perhaps American and Snowy Eagret. If long-billed curlew is not extinct, it seems due to become so. No definite reliable record of it later than 1885. H. H. Brimley. Raleigh. North Dakota. Wood duck. Prairie hen. Upland plover. Sharp-billed grouse. Canvas back. Pinaded and roughed grouse. Double-crested cormorant. Blue heron. Long-billed curlew. Whooping crane and white pelican. W. B. Bell. Agricultural College. Upland plover. Marbled godwit. Baird sparrow. Chestnut-collared longspur. Alfred Eastgate. Tolna. Ohio. White heron. Pilated woodpecker, if not already extinct. White heron reported a number of times last year. Occurrences in Sandusky, Huron, Ashtabula, and several other counties during 1911. These birds would doubtless rapidly recruit under a proper federal law. Paul North Cleveland. Turtledove. Quail. Redbird. Wren. Hummingbird. Wild Canary. Goldfinch. And Bluebird. Walter C. Staley. Dayton. Oklahoma. Pinaded grouse. J. C. Clark. Otter. Kit Fox. Blackfooted ferret. G. W. Stevens. Oregon. American egret. Snowy egret. W. L. Finley. Portland. Pennsylvania. Virginia Partridge and Woodcock. Arthur Chapman. Woodduck. Leastbitterne. Fallarope. Woodcock. Duckhawk and Barnswallow. Dr. Charles B. Penrose. Wild turkey. Also various transient and straggling water birds. Whitmerstone. Rhode Island. Woodduck. Knot. Greater yellow legs. Upland plover. Golden plover. Piping plover. Great horned owl. Harry S. Hathaway. South Auburn. South Carolina. Woodduck. Abundant six years ago. Now almost gone. Wild turkey. Abundant up to 1898. Woodcock. Upland plover. Hudsonian curlew. Carolina rail. Virginia rail. Clapper rail. Coot. Black bear verging on extinction. Possum dwindling rapidly. James H. Rice Jr. Somerville. South Dakota. Prairie chicken and quail are most likely to become extinct in the near future. W. F. Bancroft. Watertown. Texas. Wild turkey and prairie chickens. J. D. Cox. Austin. Plover. All species. Curlew. Cardinal. Roadrunner. Woodcock. Woodduck. Canvasback. Cranes. All the herons. Wild turkey. Quail. All varieties. Prairie chicken and Texas guan. Captain M. B. Davis. Waco. Curlew. Very rare. Plover. Very rare. Antelope. Answer applies to the panhandle of Texas. Charles Goodnight. Everything is threatened with extinction. Save the dove, which is a migrating bird. Antelope nearly all gone. Colonel O. C. Vissaz. San Antonio. Utah. Our wild birds are well protected and there are none that are threatened with extinction. They are increasing. Fred W. Chambers. State Game Warden. Salt Lake City. Vermont. If all states afforded as good protection as does Vermont, none. But migrating birds like Woodcock are now threatened. John W. Tilcombe. State Game Warden. Lindenville. Virginia. Pheasants. Roughed grouse. Wild turkey and other game birds are nearly extinct. A few bears remain and deer in small numbers in remote sections. In fact, all animals show great reduction in numbers owing to cutting down forests and constant gunning. L. T. Christian. Richmond. West Virginia. Woodduck. Wild turkey. Northern Raven. Dick Sissel. Reverend Earl A. Brooks. Weston. Wild turkeys are very scarce. Also ducks. Doves, once numerous, now almost nil. Eagles accept a few in remote fastnesses. Many native songbirds are retreating before the English sparrow. William Perry Brown. Glenville. Woodduck and Wild turkey. J. A. Vazquezny. Bellington. Wisconsin. Double-crested cormorant. Upland plover. White pelican. Long-billed curlew. Lesser snow goose. Hudsonian curlew. Sandhill crane. Golden plover. Woodcock. Dowager. And long-billed duck. Spruce grouse. Knot. Prairie shark-tailed grouse. Marbled godwit. And bald eagle. All these, formally abundant, must now be called rare in Wisconsin. Professor George E. Wagner, Madison. Common turn. Knot. American white pelican. Hudsonian godwit. Trumpeter swan. Long-billed curlew. Snowy heron. Hudsonian curlew. American avocet. Prairie shark-tailed grouse. Dowager. Passenger pigeon. Long-billed dowager. And northern hairy woodpecker. Henry L. Ward. Milwaukee public museum. Woodduck. Ruddy duck. Black mallard. Grebe or helldiver. Turn and woodcock. Fred Gernhardt, Madison. Wyoming. Sage grouse and shark-tailed grouse are becoming extinct, both in Wyoming and North Dakota. Sheridan and Johnson counties, Wyoming, have sage grouse protected until 1915. The miners, mostly foreigners, are out after rabbits at all seasons. To them, everything that flies, walks, or swims, large enough to be seen, is a rabbit. They are even worse than the average sheep herder, as he will seldom kill a bird brooding her young. But to one of those men, a wren or creeper looks like a turkey. Antelope, mountain sheep, and grizzly bears are going fast. The moose season opens in 1915 for a 30-days open season, then close season until 1920. Howard Eaton, wolf. Sage grouse, blue grouse, curlew, sandhill crane, porcupine practically extinct, wolverine, and pine martin nearly all gone. S. N. Leek, Jackson's Hole. Canada. Alberta. Swainson's buzzard and sandhill crane are now practically extinct. Elk and antelope will soon be as extinct as the buffalo. Arthur G. Woolly Dodd, Calgary. British Columbia. Wild fowl are in the greatest danger in the southern part of the province, especially the wood duck. Otherwise, birds are increasing rather than otherwise, especially the small non-game birds. The sea otter is almost extinct. A. Brian Williams, Provincial Game Warden, Vancouver. Manitoba. Whooping crane, wood duck, and golden plover. Other species begin to show a marked increase due to our stringent protective measures. For example, the pinated grouse and sharp-tailed grouse are more plentiful than in fifteen years. Pronghorned antelope and wolf are threatened with extinction. J. P. Turner, Winnipeg. The game birds indigenous to this province are fairly plentiful, though the prairie chicken was very scarce some few years ago. These birds have become very plentiful again, owing to the strict enforcement of our present game act. The elk are in danger of becoming extinct if they are not stringently guarded. Beaver and otter were almost extinct some few years ago, but are now in the increase, owing to a strict enforcement of the game act. Charles Barber, Winnipeg. New Brunswick. Partridge, plover, and woodcock. Moose and deer are getting more plentiful every year. W. W. Gerard, St. John. Nova Scotia. The Canada grouse may possibly become extinct in Nova Scotia, unless the protection it now enjoys can save it. The American golden plover, which formally came in immense flocks, is now very rare. Snow flakes are very much less common than formerly, but I think this is because our winters are now usually much less severe. The caribou is almost extinct on the mainland of Nova Scotia, but is still found in North Cape Breton Island. The wolf has become excessively rare, but as it is found in New Brunswick, it may occur here at any time again. The beaver has been threatened with extinction, but since being protected it has multiplied and is now on a fairly safe footing again. Curator of Museum Halifax. Ontario. Quail are getting scarce. E. Tinsley, Toronto. Wood duck, Bob White, Woodcock, Golden Plover, Hysonian Curlew, Knot, and Dowager are threatened with extinction. C. W. Nash, Toronto. Prince Edward Island. The species threatened with extinction are the Golden Plover, American Woodcock, Pied-billed Grebe, Red-throated Loon, Red-throated Loon, City Shearwater, Gadwall, Ruddy Duck, Black-crowned Knight Heron, Hysonian Godwit, Killdeer, Northern Pileated Woodpecker, Chimney Swift, Yellow-bellied Flycatcher, Red-winged Blackbird, Pinefinch, Magnolia Warbler, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, E. T. Carbonell, Charlottetown. In closing the notes of this survey, I repeat my assurance that they are not offered on a basis of infallibility. It would require years of work to obtain answers from 48 states to the three questions that I have asked and could be offered as absolutely exact. All these reports are submitted on the well-recognized court testimony basis to the best of our knowledge and belief. Gathered as they have been from persons whose knowledge is good, these opinions are therefore valuable, and they furnish excellent indices of wildlife conditions as they exist in 1912 in the various states and provinces of North America, North of Mexico. In order to cure any disease, the surgeon must make of it a correct diagnosis. It is useless to try to prescribe remedies without a thorough understanding of the trouble. That the best and most interesting wildlife of America is disappearing at a rapid rate, we all know only too well. That proposition is entirely beyond the domain of argument. The fact that a species or a group of species has made a little gain here and there or is stationary does not sensibly diminish the force of the descending blow. The wildlife situation is full of surprises. For example, in 1902 I was astounded by the extent to which birdlife had decreased over the 130 miles between Miles City, Montana and the Missouri River since 1886, for there was no reason to expect anything of the kind. Even the jackrabbits and coyotes had almost totally disappeared. The duties of the present hour that fairly thrust themselves into our faces and will not be put aside are these. First, to save valuable species from extermination. Second, to preserve a satisfactory representation of our once rich fauna to hand down to posterity. Third, to protect the farmer and fruit grower from the enormous losses that the destruction of our insectivorous and rodent eating birds is now inflicting upon both the producer and consumer. Fourth, to protect our forest by protecting the birds that keep down the myriads of insects that are destructive to trees and shrubs. Fifth, to preserve to the future sportsmen of America enough game and fish that they may have at least a taste of the legitimate pursuit of game in the open that has made life so interesting to the sportsmen of today. For any civilized nation to exterminate valuable and interesting species of wild animals, birds or fishes is more than a disgrace. It is a crime. We have no right, legal, moral or commercial to exterminate any valuable or interesting species because none of them belong to us to exterminate or not as we please. For the people of any civilized nation to permit the slaughter of the wild birds that protect its crops, its fruits and its forest from the insect hordes is worse than folly. It is sheer orneriness and idiocy. People who are either so lazy or asinine as to permit the slaughter of their best friends deserve to have their crops destroyed and their forests ravaged. They deserve to pay twenty cents a pound for their cotton when the bull weevil has cut down the normal supply. It is very desirable that we should now take an inventory of the forces that have been and today are active in the destruction of our wild birds, mammals and game fishes. During the past 10 years a sufficient quantity of facts and figures has become available to enable us to secure a reasonably full and accurate view of the whole situation. As we pause on our hilltop and survey the field of carnage we find that we are reviewing the army of destruction. It is indeed a motley array. We see troops, sportsmen beside ordinary gunners, game hogs and meat hunters. Handsome setter dogs are mixed up with the coyotes, cats, foxes and skunks. And well gowned women and ladies-maids are jostled by half-naked, poor white and black negro plume hunters. Verily the destruction of wildlife makes strange companions. Let us briefly review the several army corps that together make up the army of the destroyers. Space in this volume forbids an extended notice of each. Unfortunately it is impossible to segregate some of these classes and number each one, for they merge together too closely for that. But we can at least describe the several classes that form the great mass of destroyers. The gentlemen sportsmen. These men are the very bond of sinew of wildlife preservation. These are the men who have red blood in their veins, who annually hear the red gods calling, who love the earth, the mountains, the woods, the waters and the sky. These are the men to whom the bag is a matter of small importance, and to whom the bag limit has only academic interest. Because in nine cases out of ten they do not care to kill all that the law allows. The tenth and exceptional time is when bag limit is won. A gentleman sportsman is a man who protects gang, stops shooting when he has enough, without reference to the legal bag limit. And whenever a species is threatened with extinction he conscientiously refrains from shooting it. The true sportsmen of the world are the men who once were keen in the stubble or on the trail, but who have been haunted by the general slaughter and the awful decrease of gang. Many of them, long before a hair has turned gray, have hung up their guns forever and turned to the camera. These are the men who are willing to hand out checks or to leave their mirth in their employment and to go to the firing line at their state capitals, to lock horns with the bullheaded killers of wildlife who recognize no check or limit save the law. These are the men who have done the most to put upon our statute books the laws that thus far have saved some of our American gang from total annihilation. And who, so we firmly believe, will be chiefly instrumental in tightening the lines of protection around the remnant. These are the men who are making and stocking game preserves, public and private, great and small. If you wish to know some of these men I will tell you where to find a goodly number of them, and when you find them you will also find that they are men you would enjoy camping with. Look in the membership list of the Boone and Crockett Club, Campfire Club of America, the Lewis and Clark Club of Pittsburgh, the New York State League, the Shiker Club of London, the Society for the Preservation of the Wild Fauna of the British Empire, the Massachusetts Fish and Game Protective Association, the Springfield Sportsmen Association, the Campfire Clubs of Detroit and Chicago, and the North American Fish and Game Protective Association. There are other bodies of sportsmen that I would like to name, where space available, but to sit down here a complete list is quite impossible. The best in the most of the game protective laws now enforced in the United States and Canada were brought into existence through the initiative and efforts of the real sportsmen of those two nations. But for their activity, exerted on the right side, the settled portion of North America would today be an utterly gameless land. Even though the sportsmen have taken their toll of the wilds, they have made the laws that have saved a remnant of the game until 1912. For all that however, every man who still shoots game is a soldier in the army of destruction. There is no blinking that fact. Such men do not stand on the summit with the men who now protect the game and do not shoot at all. The millions of men who do not shoot and who also do nothing to protect or preserve wildlife do not count. In this warfare they are merely ciphers in front of the real figures. The Gunners Who Kill to the Limit Out of the enormous mass of men who annually take up arms against the remnant of wildlife and are called sportsmen. I believe that only one out of every five hundred conscientiously stops shooting when the game becomes scarce and extinction is impending. All of the others feel that it is right and proper to kill all the game that they can kill up to the legal bag limit. It is the reasoning of Shylock. Justice demands it and the law doth give it. Especially is this true of the men who pay their one dollar per year for a resident hunting license and feel that in doing so they have done a great big thing. This is a very deadly frame of mind. Ethically it is entirely wrong and at least two million men and boys who shoot American game must be shown that it is wrong. This is the spirit of extermination clothed in the robes of law and justice. Whenever and wherever game birds are so scarce that a good shot who hunts hard during a day in the fields find only three or four birds, he should stop shooting at once and devote his mind and energies to the problem of bringing back the game. It is strange that conditions do not make this duty clear to every conscientious citizen. The Shylock spirit which prompts a man to kill all that the law allows is a terrible scourge to the wildlife of America and to the world at large. It is the spirit of extermination according to law. Even the killing of game for the market is not so great a scourge is this. For this spirit searches out the game in every nook and cranny of the world and spares not. In effect it says, if the law is defective it is right for me to take every advantage of it. I do not need to have any conscience in the matter outside the letter of the law. The extent to which this amazing spirit prevails is positively awful. You will find it among pseudo game protectors to a paralyzing extent. It is the great gunner's paradox and it pervades this country from corner to corner. No, there is no use in trying to educate the mass of the hunters of America out of it as a means of saving the game. For positively it cannot be done. Do not waste time trying it. If you rely upon it you will be doing a great wrong to wildlife and promoting extermination. The only remedy is sweeping laws for long closed seasons for a great many species. Forget the paltry dollar a year license money. The license fees never represent more than a tenth part of the value of the game that is killed under licenses. The savage desire to kill all that the law allows often is manifested in men in whom we naturally expect to find a very different spirit. By way of illumination I offer three cases out of the many that I could state. Case number one, the duck breeder. A gentleman of my acquaintance has spent several years and much money in breeding wild ducks. From my relations with him I had acquired the belief that he was a great lover of ducks and at least wished all species well. One whizzing cold day in winter he called upon me and stated that he had been duck hunting, which surprised me. He added, I have just spent two days on Great South Bay and I made a great killing. In the two days I got ninety-four ducks. I said, how could you do it? Caring for wild ducks as you do. Well, I had hunted ducks twice before on Great South Bay and didn't have very good luck. But this time the cold weather drove the ducks in and I got square with them. Case number two, the ornithologist. A short time ago the news was published in Forest and String that a well-known ornithologist had distinguished himself in one of the Midwestern states by the skill he had displayed in bagging thirty-four ducks in one day, greatly to the envy of the natives. And if this shoe fits any American naturalist he is welcome to put it on and wear it. Case number three, the sportsman. A friend of mine in the South is the owner of a game preserve in which wild ducks are at times very numerous. Once upon a time he was visited by a northern sportsman who takes a deep and abiding interest in the preservation of game. The sportsman was invited to go out duck shooting, ducks being then in season there. He said, yes I will go and I want you to put me in a place where I can kill a hundred ducks in a day. I never have done that yet and I would like to do it once. All right, said my friend, I can put you in such a place and if you can shoot well enough you can kill a hundred ducks in a day. The effort was made in all earnestness. There was much shooting, but few were the ducks that fell before it. In concluding this story my friend remarked in a tone of disgust. All the game preserving sportsmen that come to me are just like that. They want to kill all they can kill. There is a blood test by which to separate the conscientious sportsman from the mere gunners. Here it is. A sportsman stops shooting when game becomes scarce and he does not object to long closed season laws. But a gunner believes in killing all that the law allows and he objects to long closed seasons. I warrant that whenever and wherever this test is applied it will separate the sheep from the goats. It applies in all America, all Asia and Africa, and in Greenland with equal force. The game hog. This term was coined by G.O. Shields in 1897 when he was editor and owner of Recreation Magazine and it has come into general use. It has been recognized by a judge on the bench as being an appropriate term to apply to all men who selfishly slaughtered wild game beyond the limits of decency. Although it is a harsh term and was mercilessly used by Mr. Shields in his fierce war on the men who slaughtered game for sport, it has jarred at least 100,000 men into their first realization of the fact that today there is a difference between decency and indecency in the pursuit of game. The use of the term has done very great good. But strange to say, it has made for Mr. Shields a great many enemies outside the ranks of the game hogs themselves. For this one might fairly suppose that there is such a thing as a sympathetic game hog. One thing at least is certain. During a period of about six years, while his war with the game hogs was on, from Maine to California, Mr. Shields name became a genuine terror to excessive killers of game, and it is reasonably certain that his war saved a great number of game birds from the slaughter that otherwise would have overtaken them. The number of armed men and boys who annually take the field in the United States in the pursuit of birds and quadrupeds is enormous. People who do not shoot have no conception of it, and neither do they comprehend the mechanical perfection and fearful deadlines of the weapons used. This feature of the situation can hardly be realized until some aspect of it is actually seen. I have been at some pains to collect the latest figures showing the number of hunting licenses issued in 1911, but the total is incomplete. In some states the figures are not obtainable, and in some states there are no hunter's license laws. The figures of hunting licenses issued in 1911 that I have obtained from official sources are set forth below. The United States Army of Distraction, hunting licenses issued in 1911, Alabama, 5,090, California, 138,689, Colorado, 41058, Connecticut, 19,635, Idaho, 50,342, Illinois, 192,244, Indiana, 54,813, Iowa, 91,000, Kansas, 44,069, Louisiana, 76,000, Maine, 2,552, Massachusetts, 45,039, Michigan, 22,323, Missouri, 66,662, Montana, 59,291, Nebraska, 39,402, New Hampshire, 33,542, New Jersey, 61,920, New Mexico, 7000, New York, 150,222, Rhode Island, 6,541, South Dakota, 31,054, Utah, 27,800, Vermont, 31,762, Washington, about 40,000, Wisconsin, 138,457, Wyoming, 9,721, total number of regularly licensed gunners, 1,486,228. The average for the 27 states that issued licenses as shown above is 55,046 for each state. Now the 21 states issuing no licenses or not reporting produced in 1911 fully as many gunners per capita as did the other 27 states. Computed fairly on existing averages, they must have turned out a total of 1,155,966 gunners making for all the United States 2,642,194 armed men and boys warring upon the remnant of game in 1911. We are not counting the large number of lawless hunters who never take out licenses. Now is Mr. Beard's picture a truthful representation or not? New York with only deer, roughed grouse, shorebirds, ducks, and a very few woodcock to shoot annually puts into the field 150,222 armed men. In 1909 they killed about 9,000 deer. New Jersey spending $30,000 in 1912 in efforts to restock recovers with games. And with a population of 2,537,167 sent out in 1911 a total army of 61,920 well armed gunners. How can any of her games survive? New Hampshire with only 430,572 population has 33,542 licensed hunters equal to 33 regiments of full strength. Vermont with 355,956 people sends out annually an army of 31,762 men who hunt according to law and in 1910 they killed 3,649 deer. Utah with only 373,351 population had 27,800 men in the field after her very small remnant of game. How can any wild thing of Utah escape? Montana population 376,053 had in 1911 an army of 59,291 well armed men warring chiefly upon the big game and swiftly exterminating it. How long can any of the big game stand before the army of two and one half million well armed men eager and keen to kill and out to get an equivalent for their annual expenditure in guns ammunition and other expenses. In addition to the hunters themselves they are assisted by thousands of expert guides, thousands of horses, thousands of dogs, hundreds of automobiles and hundreds of thousands of tents. Each big game hunter has an experienced guide who knows the haunts and habits of the game, the best feeding grounds, the best trails and everything else that will aid the hunter in taking the game at a disadvantage and destroying it. The big game rifles are of the highest power, the longest range, the greatest accuracy and the best repeating mechanism that modern inventive genius can produce. It is said that in Wyoming the maximum silencer is now being used. England has produced a weapon of new type called the scatter rifle which is intended for use on ducks. The best binoculars are used in searching out the game and horses carry the hunters and guides as near as possible to the game. For bears, baits are freely used and in the pursuit of pumas dogs are employed to the limit of the available supply. The deadlines of the automobile in hunting already is so apparent that North Dakota has wisely and justly forbidden their use. 1911. The swift machine enables city gunmen to penetrate game regions that they could not reach with horses and hunt through from four to six localities per day instead of only one as formally. The use of automobiles in hunting should be everywhere prohibited. Every appliance and assistance that money can buy, the modern sportsman secures to help him against the game. The game is beset during its breeding season by various wild enemies, foxes, cats, wolves, pumas, lynxes, eagles, and many other predatory species. The only help that it receives is in the form of an annual close season, which thus far has saved in America only a few local moose, white-tailed deer, and a few game birds from steady and sure extermination. The bag limits on which vast reliance is placed to preserve the wild game are a fraud, a delusion, and a snare. The few local exceptions only prove the generality of the rule. In every state without one single exception, the bag limits are far too high, and the laws are of deadly liberality. In many states the bag limit laws on birds are an absolute dead letter. Fancy the 125 wardens of New York enforcing the bag limit laws on 150,000 gunners. It is this horrible condition that is enabling the licensed army of destruction to get in its deadly work on the game all over the world. In America, the over-liberality of the laws are to blame for two-thirds of the carnival of slaughter, and the successful evasions of the law are responsible for the other third. The only remedy for the present extermination of game according to law that so rapidly and so furiously is proceeding all over the United States, Canada, Alaska, and Africa is 10-year closed seasons on all the species threatened with extinction and immensely reduced open seasons and bag limits on all the others. Will the people who still have wild game take heed now and clamp down the breaks, hard and fast before it is too late, or will they have their game exterminated? Shall we have five-year closed seasons or closed seasons of 500 years? We must take our choice. Shall we hand down to our children a gameless continent, with all the shame that such a calamity will entail? We have got to answer these questions like men, or they will soon be answered for us by the extermination of the wildlife. For twenty-five years we have been smarting under the disgrace of the extermination of our bison millions. Let us not repeat the dose through the destruction of other species. End of Chapter 6 Chapter 7 of our vanishing wildlife This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Our vanishing wildlife by William T. Hornaday. Chapter 7. The Gorillas of Destruction We have now to deal with the Gorillas of Destruction. In warfare, a gorilla, or bushwhacker, is an armed man who recognizes none of the rules of civilized warfare, and very often has no commander. In France he is called a front-terrure, or free-shooter. The gorilla goes out to live on the country, to skulk, to war on the weak, and never attacks save from ambush, or when the odds clearly are on his side. His military status is barely one removed from that of the spy. The meat shooters who harry the game and other wildlife in order to use it as a staple food supply. The Italians, Negroes, and others who shoot songbirds as food. The plume hunters and the hide and tusk hunters all over the world are the gorillas of the army of destruction. Let us consider some of these grand divisions in detail. Here is an inexorable law of nature, to which there are no exceptions. No wild species of bird, mammal, reptile, or fish can withstand exploitation for commercial purposes. The men who pursue wild creatures for the money or value there is in them never give up. They work at slaughter when other men are enjoying life or are asleep. If they are persistent, no species on which they fix the evil eye escapes extermination at their hands. Does anyone question this statement? If so, let him turn backward and look at the list of dead and dying species. The division of meat shooters contains all men who sordidly shoot for the frying pan to save bacon and beef at the expense of the public or for the markets. There are a few wilderness regions so remote and so difficult of access that the transportation of meat into them is a matter of much difficulty and expense. There are a very few men in North America who are justified in living off the country for short periods. The genuine prospectors always have been counted in this class. But all miners who are fully located, all lumbermen and railway builders certainly are not in the prospectors class. They are abundantly able to maintain continuous lines of communication for the transit of beef and mutton. Of all the meat shooters, the market gunners who prey on wildfowl and ground game birds for the big city markets are the most deadly to wildlife. Enough geese, ducks, brant, quail, roughed grouse, prairie chickens, heath hens, and wild pigeons have been butchered by gunners and netters for the market to have stocked the whole world. No section containing a good supply of game has escaped. In the United States the great slaughtering grounds have been Cape Cod, Great South Bay, New York, Kurituck Sound, North Carolina, Marsh Island, Louisiana, the southwest corner of Louisiana, the sunk lands of Arkansas, the Lake Regions of Minnesota, the prairies of the whole Middle West, Great Salt Lake, the Klemeth Lake Region, Oregon, and Southern California. The output of this systematic bird slaughter has supplied the greedy game markets of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore, Chicago, New Orleans, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle. The history of this industry, its methods, its carnage, its profits, and its losses would make a volume. But we cannot enter upon it here. Beyond reasonable doubt, this awful traffic in dead game is responsible for at least three-fourths of the slaughter that has reduced our game birds to a mere remnant of their former abundance. There is no influence so deadly to wildlife as that of the market gunner who works six days a week. From sunrise until sunset, hunting down and killing every game bird that he can reach with a choke-bore gun. During the past five years several of the once great killing grounds have been so thoroughly shot out that they have ceased to hold their former rank. This is the case with the Minnesota Lakes, the sun clans of Arkansas, the Klemeth Lakes of Oregon, and I think it is also true of Southern California. The Klemeth Lakes have been taken over by the government as a bird refuge. Kurra-Tuck Sound at the northeastern corner of North Carolina has been so bottled up by the bane law of New York State that Kurra-Tuck's greatest market has been cut off. Last year only one half the usual number of ducks and geese were killed, and already many professional duck and branch shooters have abandoned the business because the commission merchants no longer will buy dead birds. Very many enormous bags of game have been made in a day by market gunners, but rarely have they published any of their records. The greatest kill of which I have ever heard occurred under the auspices of the Glen County Club in Southern California on February 5, 1906. Two men armed with automatic shotguns fired five shots apiece and got ten geese out of one flock. In one hour they killed two hundred and eighteen geese, and their bag for the day was four hundred and fifty geese. The shooter who wrote the story for publication on February 12 at Willows Glen County California said, It being warm weather the birds had to be shipped at once in order to keep them from spoiling. A photograph was made of the one hour slaughter of two hundred and eighteen geese, and it was published in a western magazine with CHB's story, nearly all of which will be found in Chapter 15. The reasons why market shooting is so deadly destructive to wildlife are not obscure. The true sportsman hunts during a very few days only each year. The market gunners shoot early and late, six days a week, month after month. When game is abundant the price is low, and a great quantity must be killed in order to make it pay well. When game is scarce the market prices are high, and the shooter makes the utmost exertions to find the last of the game in order to secure the big money. When game is protected by law thousands of people with money desire it for their tables, just the same, and are willing to pay fabulous prices for what they want, when they want it. Many a dealer is quite willing to run the risk of fines, because fines don't really hurt. They are only annoying. The dealer wishes to make the big profit and retain his customers. And besides, he reasons, if I don't supply him, someone else will. So what is the difference? When game is scarce, price is high, and the consumer's money ready, there are a hundred tricks to which shooters and dealers willingly resort to ship and receive unlawful game without detection. It takes the very best kind of game wardens, genuine detectives, in fact, to ferret out these cunning, illegal practices, and catch lawbreakers with the goods on them so that they can be punished. Mind you, convictions cannot be secured at both ends of the line, saved by the most extraordinary good fortune. And usually, the shooter and shipper escape, even when the dealer is apprehended and fined. Here are some of the methods that have been practiced in the past in getting illegal game into the New York market. Ruffed grouse and quail have both been shipped in butter-furkins, marked butter. And laterally, butter has actually been packed solidly on top of the birds. Ruffed grouse and quail very often have been shipped in egg crates, marked eggs. They have been shipped in trunks and suitcases. A very common method for illegal game birds, all over the United States. In Oklahoma, when a man refuses to open his trunk for a game warden, the warden jealously gets out his brace and bit, and bores an owl into the lower story of the trunk. If dead birds are there, the telltale auger quickly reveals them. Three years ago, I was told that certain milk wagons on Long Island made daily collections of dead ducks intended for the New York market, and the drivers kindly shipped them by express from the end of the route. Once upon a time, a New York man gave notice that on a certain date he would be in a certain town in St. Lawrence County, New York, with a palace horse car, to buy horses. Car and man appeared there as advertised. Very ostentatiously, he bought one horse, and had it taken aboard the car before the gaze of the admiring populace. At night, when the AP had gone to bed, many men appeared, and into the horseless end of the car, they loaded thousands of roughed grouse. The game warden, who described the incident to me, said, That man pulled out for New York with one horse and half a car load of roughed grouse. Whenever a good market exists for the sale of game, as sure as the world, that market will be supplied. Twenty-six states forbid by law the sale of their own protected game, but twenty of them do not expressly prohibit the sale of game stolen from neighboring states. That is a very, very weak point in the laws of all those states. A child can see how it works. Take Pittsburgh as a case in point. In the winter and spring of 1912, the State Game Commission of Pennsylvania found that quail and roughed grouse were being sold in Pittsburgh, in large quantities. The state laws were well enforced, and it was believed that the birds were not being killed in Pennsylvania. Some other state was being robbed. The Game Commission went to work, and in a very short time certain game dealers of Pittsburgh were arrested. At first they tried to bluff their way out of their difficulty, and even went as far as to bring charges against the game warden, whom the Commission had instructed to buy some of their illegal game, and pay for it. But the net of the law tightened upon them so quickly and so tightly that they threw up their hands and begged for mercy. It was found that those Pittsburgh game dealers were selling quail and grouse that had been stolen in thousands from the state of Kentucky. Between the state game laws, working in lovely harmony with the Lacey Federal Law that prohibits the shipment of game illegally killed or sold, the whole bad business was laid bare, and signed confessions were promptly obtained from the shippers in Kentucky. At that very time a good bill for the better protection of her game was before the Kentucky legislature, and a certain member was vigorously opposing it, as he had successfully done in previous years. He was told that the state was being robbed, but refused to believe it. Then a signed confession was laid before him, bearing the name of the man who was instigating his opposition. His friend, who confessed that he had illegally bound and shipped to Pittsburgh, over five thousand birds. The objector literally threw up his hands and said, I have been wrong, let the bill go through, and it went. Before the passage of the Bane Law, New York City was offence for the sale of grouse illegally killed in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and I know not how many other states. The Bane Law stopped all that business, abruptly and forever, and if the roughed grouse, quail, and ducks of the eastern states are offered for sale in Chicago, Cincinnati, Baltimore, and Washington, the people of New York and Massachusetts can at least be assured that they are not to blame. Those two states now maintain no fences for the sale of game that has been stolen from other states. They have both set their houses in order, and set two examples for forty other states to follow. The remedy for all this miserable game stealing, law-breaking business, is simple and easily obtained. Let each state of the United States and each province and Canada enact a Bane Law, absolutely prohibiting the sale of all wild native game, and the thing is done. But nothing short of that will be really effective. It will not do at all to let state laws rest with merely forbidding the sale of game protected by the state. For that law is full of loopholes. It does much good service, yes, but what earthly objection can there be in any state to the enactment of a law that is sweepingly effective, and which cannot be evaded, save through the criminal connivance of officers of the law? By way of illustration, to show what the sale of wild game means to the remnant of our game, and the wicked slaughter of non-game birds to which it leads, consider these figures. Dead Birds found in one cold storage house in New York in 1902. Snowbuntings, 8,058. Sandpipers, 7,607. Plover, 5,218. Snipe, 7,003. Yellowlegs, 788. Grouse, 7,560. Quail, 4,385. Ducks, 1,756. Babelinks, 288. Woodcock, 96. The fines for this lot, if imposed, would have amounted to $1,168,315. Shortly after that seizure, American quail became so scarce that in effect they totally disappeared from the banquet tables of New York. I cannot recall having been served with one since 1903, but the little Egyptian quail can be legally imported and sold when officially tagged. Few persons away from the firing line realize the far-reaching effects of the sale of wild game. Here are a few flashes from the searchlight. At Hankow, China, Mr. C. William Beebe found that during his visit in 1911, over 46,000 pheasants of various species were shipped from that port on one cold storage steamer to the London market. And this when English pheasants were selling in the Covent Garden market at from two to three shillings each for fresh birds. In 1910, 1200 Tarmigan from Norway, bound for the Chicago market, passed through the port of New York. Not by any means for the first or last shipment of the kind. The epicures of Chicago are being permitted to comb the game out of Norway. In 1910, 70,000 dozen Egyptian quail were shipped to Europe from Alexandria, Egypt. Just why that species has not already been exterminated is a zoological mystery. But extermination surely will come someday, and I think it will be in the near future. The cost of China has been raked and scraped for wild ducks to ship to New York. Prior to the passage of the Bane Law, I have forgotten the figures that once were given me, but they were an astonishing number of thousands for the year. The Division of Negroes and Poor Whites will kill song and other birds indiscriminately will be found in a separate chapter. The Division of Resident Game Butchers This refers to the men who live in the haunts of Big Game, where wardens are the most of the time totally absent, and where bucks, doves, and fawns of hoofed Big Game may be killed in season and out of season with impunity. It includes guides, ranchmen, sheepherders, cowboys, miners, lumbermen, and floaters generally. In times past, certain taxidermists of Montana promoted the slaughter of wild bison in the Yellowstone Park, and it was a pair of rascally taxidermists who killed or caused to be killed in Lost Park in 1897, the very last bison of Colorado. It seems to be natural for the minds of men who live in America in the haunts of Big Game to drift into the idea that the wild game around them is all theirs. Very few of them recognize the fact that every other man, woman, and child in a given state or province has vested rights in its wild game. It is natural for a Frontiersman to feel that because he is in the wilds he has a God-given right to live off the country. But today that idea is totally wrong. If some way cannot be found to curb that all-pervading propensity among our Frontiersmen, then we may as well bid our open-field Big Game a long farewell, for the deadly residents surely will exterminate it outside the game preserves. The residents are in my opinion about ten times more destructive than the sportsmen. A sportsman in quest of large game is in the field only from ten to thirty days. All his movements are known, and all his trophies are seen and counted. His killing is limited by law, and upon him the law is actually enforced. Often a resident hunts the whole twelve months of the year, for food, for amusement, and for trophies to sell. Rarely does a game warden reach his cabin, because the wardens are few, the distance is great, and the Frontier cabins are widely scattered. Mr. Carl Pickhart told me of a guide in Newfoundland who had a shed in the woods hanging full of bodies of caribou, and who admitted to him that while the law allowed him five caribou each year, he killed each year about twenty-five. Mr. J. M. Phillips knows of a mountain in British Columbia, once well stocked with goats, on which the goats have been completely exterminated by one man who lives within easy striking distance of them, and who finds goat meat to his liking. I have been reliably informed that in 1911, at Ha Ha Lake near Grand Bay, Saguenay District, P.Q., one family of six persons killed thirty-four woodland caribou and six moose. This meant the waste of about fourteen thousand pounds of good meat and the death of several female animals. In 1886 I knew a man named Owens who lived on the head of Sunday Creek, Montana, who told me that in 1884 to 1885 he killed thirty-five mule deer for himself and family. The family ate as much as possible, the dogs ate all they could, and in the spring the remainder spoiled. Now there is not a deer, an antelope, or a sage-grouse within fifty miles of that lifeless waste. Here is a Montana object lesson on the frame of mind of the resident hunter, copied from Outdoor Life Magazine, Denver, for February 1912. It is from a letter to the editor written by C.B. Davis. November 27th, 28th, 29th, and 30th, 1911, will remain a red letter day with a half thousand men for years to come. These half thousand men gathered along the border of the Yellowstone National Park near Gardiner, Montana, at a point known as Buffalo Flats to exterminate elk. The snow had driven the elk down to the foothills, and Buffalo Flats is on the border of the park and outside the park. The elk entered this little valley for food, like hungry wolves, shooters, not hunters, gathered along the border waiting to catch an elk off the reservation and kill it. On November 27th, about fifteen hundred elk crossed the line, and the slaughter began. I have not the data of the number killed this day, but it was hundreds. On the 28th, twenty-two stepped over and were promptly executed, like Custer's band, not one escaped. On the evening of the twenty-eighth, six hundred were sighted just over the line, and the army of one hundred twenty-five brave men entrenched themselves for the battle, which was expected to open next morning. Before daylight of the twenty-ninth, the battle began. The elk were over the line, feeding on Buffalo Flats. One hundred and twenty-five men poured bullets into this band of six hundred elk till the ground was red with blood and strong with carcasses, and in their madness they shot each other. One man was shot through the ear, a close call. Another received a bullet through his coat sleeve, and another was shot through the bowels, and can't live. My informer told me he participated in the slaughter, and while he would not take fifty dollars for what he saw and the experience he went through, yet he would not go through it again for one thousand dollars. When my informer got back to Gardner that day there were four slay loads of elk, each load containing from twenty to thirty-five elk. Besides thirty-two mules and horses carrying one to two each. This was only a part of the slaughter. Hundreds more were carried to other points, and this was only one day's work. Hundreds of wounded elk wandered back into the park to die, and others died outside the park. The station at Livingston, Montana, for a week, looked like a packing house. Carcasses were piled up on the trunks and depot platform. The baggage cars were loaded with elk going to points east and west of Livingston. Maybe this is all right. Maybe the government can't stop the elk from crossing the line. Maybe the elk were helped over. But it strikes me there is something wrong somewhere. The Division of Hired Laborers The scourge of lumber camps in big game territory, the mining camps, and the railroad builders is a long story, and if told in detail it would make several chapters. Their awful destructiveness is well known. It is a common thing for the boss to hire a hunter to kill big game to supply the hungry outfit and save beef and pork. The abuses arising from this source easily could be checked and finally suppressed. A ten-line law would do the business, forbidding any person employed in any camp of sheepmen, cattlemen, lumbermen, miners, railway laborers, or excavators to own or use a rifle in hunting wild game, and forbidding any employer of labor to feed these laborers or permit them to be fed on the flesh of wild game mammals or birds. Camp laborers are not pioneers, not by a long shot. They are soldiers of commerce and makers of money. A Mountain Sheep Case in Colorado The State of Colorado sincerely desires to protect and perpetuate its slender remnant of Mountain Sheep, but as usual the lawless misgrant is abroad to thwart the efforts of the guardians of the game. Every state that strives to protect its big game has such doings as this to contend with. In the winter of 1911 to 1912 a resident poacher brought into Grant, Colorado a lot of Mountain Sheep meat for sale, and he actually sold it to residents of that town. The price was six cents per pound. A lot of it was purchased by the railway station agent. I have no doubt that the same man who did that job, which was made possible only by the cooperation of the citizens of Grant, will try the same poaching and selling game next winter, unless the State Game Commissioner is able to bring him to book. A Wyoming Case in Point As a fair sample of what game wardens and the general public are sometimes compelled to endure through the improper decisions of judges, I will cite this case. In the Shoshone Mountains of northern Wyoming, about 50 miles or so from the town of Cody, in the winter of 1911 to 1912 a man was engaged in trapping coyotes. It was currently reported that he had been driven out of Montana and Idaho. He had scores of traps. He baited his traps with the flesh of deer, elk calves, and grouse. All illegally killed and illegally used for that purpose. A man of my acquaintance saw some of this game meat actually used as described. The man was a notorious character and cruel in the extreme. Finally a game warden caught him red-handed, arrested him, and took him to Cody for trial. It happened that the judge on the bench had once trapped with him, and therefore he set the game killer free while the game warden was roasted. The wolf trapper once took into the mountains a horse to kill and use his bear bait. The animal was blind in one eye, and because it would not graze precisely where the wolf or desired it to remain, he deliberately destroyed the side of its good eye and left it for days without the ability to find water. Think of the fate of any wild animal that unkind fate places at the mercy of such a man.