 Chapter 31 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 31 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 statewide application. During the 10 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 Curituck 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, larks and robins are shot and eaten as game from November 1st to March 1st. 21 counties have local restrictions on the sale of game, but the state at large has only one on quail. The market gunners of Curituck Sound are a scourge and a pest to the wildlife of the Atlantic coast. For their own money profit, they slaughter by wholesale the birds that annually fly through 22 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 Curituck County and the people want the money. Even the members of the sportsmen's clubs can shoot wildfowl in Curituck 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 and 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 Curituck for the passage of the Bane 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 law prohibiting the use of automobiles in 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 wildlife. 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 Putnam County, New York, I have seen them in action. A load of three or four gunners is whirled up to a likely mountainside for roughed 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 penaded 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 Lemicole, should have at least a five year closed 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 closed 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 that the majority of her gunners are so thoroughly selfish about their rights that the game has ruthlessly been swept away according to law. Ohio is a striking example of the deplorable results of legalized slaughter. 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, then the gun won't matter. Today, the visible game supply of Ohio does not amount to anything. And when the last game bird of that state falls before the greedyest 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 wildlife 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 doves on the ground. Great is Ohio in game conservation. Oklahoma. For a state so young, the wildlife 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 be needed gross. And this in a good season for prairie chickens. Oklahoma must stop all spring shooting. Prairie chicken must have a ten-year closed 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 40 head of bison all in good condition. The nucleus herd consisted of 15 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 wildlife. The two propositions can be blended together about as easily as asphalt and water. The individual shooter desires laws that will permit him to shoot when he pleases, where he pleases and what he pleases. If you meet these conditions all over a great state then it is time to bid farewell to the game for surely it is doomed. No, decidedly no, do not attempt to pass game laws that will please everybody. The more the game hogs are displaced 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 99 others? The game of a state belongs to the people as a whole not to the gunners alone. The great, the 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. Here to fore 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 wildlife laws just as New York did last winter. Her game season should be uniform and 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 5 to 10 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 bane law. The use of automatic auto-loading 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 shotguns in hunting. She makes refuges for deer and feeds her quill in winter. And she permits the killing of no female deer or fawns with horns less than 3 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 shorebirds a rest of at least five years for recuperation. She should enact a comprehensive dutcher plumage law to stop the sale of eagles. 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 Rody needs some good small bag limits for now, 1912. She has none. She should enact a bane 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, and secondly, enact a bane law. In the name of mystery, who is there in South Carolina that desires to kill grackles? And why? And where, as the gentleman sportsman, 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's license law, and thus provide adequate funds for game protection. South Carolina bag limits are all 50% too high. 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 bag limits are really no limits at all. They should be reduced about 66% 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 to do is slumber on, and they sure they 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 bane law, because she prohibits at all times the sale or exportation of all wild game. Tennessee In wildlife protection, Tennessee has much to do. She made her start late in life, and what she needs to do is draft with care and enact with cheerful alacrity certain necessary amendments. We notice that there are open seasons for blackbirds, robins, doves, and squirrels. It seems incredible, but it is true. Behold the black bird as a game bird, with a lawful open season from September 1st to January 1st. Consider it 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 it not 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 $50 hunting suit, carrying a $15 gun behind a $7 dog and returning with a glorious bag of 25 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 in foolish little doves as game. Game indeed are those birds, for the lads of seven who do not know better, but not for boys of 12 who have in their veins any inheritance of sporting blood. I am proud of the fact that at 12 years of age, and ever so keen to go hunting, I knew without being told that squirrels and doves were not real 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-licensed system to provide funds for game protection, a salaried hoarding force, a law prohibiting spring-shooting of shorebirds 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-autobahn 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 Captain 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 she still tolerates spring-shooting and has not made adequate clothes seasons for her waterfowl, which is wrong. Today, the people of Texas do not need to be told that 43 species of birds feed on the cotton bull-levil, for they know it. On the whole, and for a southern state, the wildlife laws of Texas are in fairly good shape. On account of the absence of some scourge markets, a bane law is not so imperatively necessary there as in certain other states. All of the game of the state is protected from sale. We do assert, however, that if robins are slaughtered, as F.L. Crow, the former Atlanta inserts, all robin-shooting should be forever stopped, and the penated gross should be given a seven-year close season, and that doves should be taken off as imperpetually 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 clothes seasons for ducks, geese, and other waterfowl, a law prohibiting spring-shooting, and a 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 the doors of Salt Lake City was appalling. At the same time, the law permitted the slaughter of spotted fawns. I saw a huge dry-goods box filled to the top with the flat skins of slaughtered innocents, 260 in number, that a rascal had collected and was offering at 50 cents each. In reply to a question as to their use, he said, I think the sportsmen like him to make vests out of he lived at Rawlins, Wyoming. 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 came afflicted with a terrible epidemic disease, afflicted with a terrible epidemic disease, intestinal caxidiosis, 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 is not yet by any means being 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 the sewage of Salt Lake City. The conditions are said to be terrible. Today, 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 today she is destined to become in the near future a gameless state. In a dry region like this, the wildlife 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. 25 shore birds and waterfowl per day to private parties. Deers should be given a 10 year closed 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 10 year closed 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 20 years. Utah should create a big game preserve at once. If Utah proposes to save even a remnant of her wildlife 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 3 inches long may be killed and that there is a law under which damages by deer to growing crops may be assessed and protected 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 closed seasons of 5 years duration for roughed grouse, quail, woodcock, snipe and all shore birds without a single exception. The grey 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 4 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 13 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 in Chapter 24. Virginia Virginia is far below the position that she should occupy in wildlife conservation. To set her house in order and come up to the level of the states which have been born during the past 20 years she must be stir 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 closed season to grouse and all shorebirds. She should rule out the machine 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 shortcuts and 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 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 sportsman 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 being exterminated 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 cooperation 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. Today the wildlife 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 adorable 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 law covering the entire state uniformly. County legislation is twenty years behind the times. For ten 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 and are killed by the enactment of a bane law complete which will also promote the breeding, killing and sale of domestic game for food purposes. Make a careful investigation of the present status of your sage gross, every other gross, quail and all species of shorebirds and then give a five year closed 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. Revive 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 wildlife 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 in the dove and wood duck are perpetually protected. One fly in the ointment is spring shooting which for ducks, geese and brand continues from September 1st to April 20th. Unfortunately the law enacted in 1875 against spring shooting has been repealed and so has the resident hunting license law. 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 reenacted that the resident hunter's license law be reenacted 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 roughed grouse it should be 3 per day as in New York or 12 per season. One wild turkey per day or 3 per season is quite enough for one man. The visible supply will not justify the existing limit of 2 and 6. Wisconsin in spite of the fierce fight made in 1910 to 11 by the saloon element game shooters of Milwaukee for the control of the wildlife situation and the repeal of the best protective laws of the state the army of defense once more deviated 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 steamroller over the enemies of wildlife. Alphabetically Wisconsin may come near the end of the roll call but by downright married and 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 addressed 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 wildlife of America must not be exterminated according to law contrary to law or in the absence of law Wisconsin must take a fresh grip on her game situation where 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 is now 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 they are leading good men astray extend the term of your state warden to four years 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 wildlife and hold the killing of it down to a decent basis this fireback is 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 head by Colonel 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 dugout 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 howl was the only man caught England can protect game in far distant mountains and wildernesses but America cannot or at least we don't with us men living in remote places who find wild game about them say to hell with the law they kill on the sly and the average local jury simply will not convict 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 Alganes where the law permits big game hunting an interesting chapter might be written on game exterminated according to law the deadly defects and 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 where 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 oiling as a whole first of all the killing of mountain sheep should absolutely cease for 10 years a similar 10 year closed season should be accorded moose and prong horned antelope all gross should now be classed with doves and swans no open season and kept there for 10 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 disgrace to Wyoming as they are to other states and should be suppressed and the silencer for use in hunting is in the blacklist end of chapter 31 chapter 32 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 recording by Sarah Jennings our vanishing wildlife by William T. Hornaday chapter 32 need for a federal migratory bird law no sale of game law and others we are assuming that the American people sincerely desire the adequate protection and increase of bird life for reasons that are both sentimental and commercial surely every good citizen dislikes to see millions of dollars worth of national wealth foolishly wasted and he dislikes to pay any unnecessary increased cost of living there must be several millions of Americans who feel that way and who are disposed to demand a complete revolution and bird protection there are four needs of wild bird life and that cannot be ignored any more than a builder can ignore the four cornerstones of his building listed in the order of their importance they are as follows 1. the federal protection of all migratory birds 2. the total suppression of the sale of native wild game 3. the total suppression of spring shooting and of shooting in the breeding season and 4. long closed seasons for all species that are about to be shot out 5. if the gunners of America wish to have a gameless continent all they need to do to secure it is to oppose these principles prevent their translation into law and maintain the status quo if they do this then all our best birds are doomed to swift destruction let no man make a mistake on that point the open seasons and bad limits of the United States today are just as deadly as the 5 million sporting guns now in use of the 5 million annual cartridges it is only the ignorant or the vicious who will seriously dispute this statement the federal protection of migratory birds the bill now before congress for the protection of all migratory birds by the national government is the most important measure ever placed before that body on behalf of wildlife a stranger to this proposition will need to pause for thought in order to grasp its full meaning and its influence the urgent necessity for a law of this nature is due to the inadequacy of the laws that prevail throughout some portions of the United States concerning the slaughter and preservation of birds any law that is not enforced is a poor law there is not one state in the union nor a single province in Canada in which the game birds and other birds criminally shot as game are not being killed far faster than they are breeding and thereby being exterminated several states are financially unable to employ a force of salaried game wardens and wherever that is true the door to universal slaughter is wide open let him who questions this take Virginia as a case in point a loyal Virginian told me only this year that in his state the warden system is an ineffective farce and the game is not protected because the wardens cannot afford to patrol the state for nothing this condition prevails in a number of states north and south especially south it is my belief that throughout nine tenths of the south the Negroes and poor whites are slaughtering birds exactly as they please it is the permanent residence of the haunts of birds and game that are exterminating the wildlife the value of the birds as destroyers of noxious insects has been set forth in Chapter 23 their total value is enormous or it would be if the birds were alive or normal numbers today there are about one tenth as many birds as were alive and working 30 years ago during the past 30 years the destruction of our game birds has been enormous and the insectivorous birds have greatly decreased the damages annually inflicted upon the farm orchard and garden crops of this country are very great when a city is destroyed by earthquake or fire and a hundred million dollars worth of property is swept away we are racked with horror and pity and the cities of America pour out money like water to relieve the resultant distress we are shocked because we can see the flames, the smoke and the ruins and yet we annually endure with perfect equanimity because we cannot see it a loss of nearly 400 million dollars worth of value that is destroyed by insects the damage is inflicted silently insidiously without any scare heads or any type in the newspapers and so we pay the price without protest we know when we stop to think of it that not all this loss falls upon the producer we know that every consumer of bread, cereals, vegetables and fruit pays his share of the loss today millions of people are groaning under the increased cost of living the bill for the federal protection of all migratory birds is directly intended to decrease the cost of living by preventing the waste but of all the persons to whom the needs of that bill are presented how many will take the time to promote its quick passage by direct appeals to their members of congress we shall see the good that would be accomplished annually by the enactment of a law for the federal protection of all migratory birds is beyond computation but it is my belief that within a very few years the increase in bird life would prevent what is now an annual loss of 250 million dollars it is beyond the power of man to protect his crops and fruit and trees as the bird millions would protect them if they were here as they were in 1870 the migratory bird bill is of vast importance because it would throw the strong arm of federal protection around 610 species of birds the power of Uncle Sam is respected and feared in many places where the power of the state is ignored the list of migratory birds includes most of the perching birds all the shorebirds great destroyers of bad insects all the swifts and swallows the goat-suckers whipper-will and night-hawk some of the woodpeckers most of the rails pigeons and doves many of the hawks some of the cranes and herons and all the geese, ducks and swans a movement for the federal protection of migratory game birds was proposed to congress by George Shearer III in 1958th congress introduced a bill to secure that end an excellent brief on that subject by Mr. Shearer's appeared in the printed hearing on the McLean bill held on March 6, 1912, page 18 omitting the bills introduced in the 59th, 60th and 61st sessions mentioned need be only made of the measures under consideration in the present congress one of these is a bill introduced by representative J. W. Weeks of Massachusetts with the bill of representative D. R. Anthony Jr. of Kansas of the same purport finally on April 24, 1912 an adequate and entirely reasonable bill was introduced in the senate by Senator George P. McLean of Connecticut as number 6497 calendar number 606 this bill provides federal protection for all migratory birds and embraces all save a very few of the species that are specially destructive to noxious insects the bill provides national protection to the farmers and fruit growers best friends it is entitled to the enthusiastic support of 90 millions of people native and alien every producer of farm products and every consumer of them owes it to himself to write at once to his member of congress and ask him, one to urge the speedy consideration of the bill for the federal protection of all migratory birds two to vote for it and three to work for it until it is passed it matters not which one of the three bills described finally becomes a law will the American people act rationally about this matter and protect their own interests suppress the sale of all native wild game the deadly effect of the commercial slaughter of game and its sale for food is now becoming well understood by the American people one by one the various state legislatures putting up the bars against the exportation or sale of any game protected by the state the U.S. Department of Agriculture says, through Henry Oldus that free marketing of wild game leads swiftly to extermination and it is literally true up to March 1911 it appears that several states prohibited the sale of game sixteen states permitted the sale of all unprotected game and in eight more there was partial prohibition unfortunately however many of these states permitted the sale of imported game now since it happened to be a fact that the vast majority of the states prohibited the export of their game as well as the sale of it a very large quantity of such game as quail, roughed grouse snipe, woodcock and shorebirds was illegally shot for the market exported in defiance both of state laws and the federal lacy act and sold to the detriment of the states that produced it in other words in the laws of each state that merely sought to protect their own game regardless of the game of neighbouring states there was not merely a loophole but there was a gap wide enough to drive through with a coach and four the roughed grouse of Massachusetts and Connecticut often were butchered to make Gotham holidays in joyous contempt of the laws at both ends of the line as a natural result the game of the Atlantic coast was disappearing at a frightful rate in 1911 the no sale of the game law of New York was born out of sheer desperation the army of destruction went up to Albany well organized well provided with money and attorneys with three senators in the senate and two assemblymen in the lower house to wage merciless warfare on the whole wildlife cause the market gunners and game dealers not only proposed to repeal the law against spring shooting but also to defeat all legislation that might be attempted to restrict the sale of game and flag limits on wild fowl the milliner's association proposed to wipe off the books the dutcher law against the use of plumage of wild birds and millinery and an assemblyman was committed to that cause as its special champion then it was that all the friends of wildlife in the empire state resolved upon a death grapple with the destroyers and a fight to an absolute finish the bane bill entirely prohibiting the sale of all native wild game throughout the state of New York was drafted and thrown into the ring and the struggle began at first the no-sale of game bill looked like sheer madness but no sooner was it fairly launched than supporters came flocking in from every side all the organizations of sportsmen and friends of wildlife combined in one mighty army the strength of which was irresistible the real sportsmen of the state quickly realized that the no-sale bill was directly in the interest of legitimate sport the great mass of people who love wildlife and never kill were quick to comprehend the far-reaching importance of the measure and they supported it with money and enthusiasm the members of the legislature received thousands of letters from their constituents asking them to support the bane-blow-velt bill they did so on its passage through the two houses only one vote was recorded against it incidentally every move attempted by the army of destruction was defeated and in the final summing up the defeat amounted to an utter route in 1912 after a tremendous struggle the legislature of Massachusetts passed a counterpart of the bane-law and took her place in the front rank of states that was a great fight the market-gunners of Cape Cod the game-dealers and other interests entered the struggle with men in the lower house of the legislature especially elected to look after their interests just as in New York in 1911 they proposed to repeal the existing laws against spring-shooting and throw the markets wide open to the sale of game from first to last through three long and stormy months the destroyers fought with a degree of determination and persistence worthy of a better cause they contested with the defenders every inch of ground in New York the destroyers were overwhelmed by the tidal wave of defenders but in Massachusetts it was a prolonged hand-to-hand fight on the ramparts five times was a bill to repeal the spring-shooting law introduced and defeated even after the bill had passed both houses by good majorities the governor declared that he could not sign it and then they're poured into the executive offices such a flood of callers, letters, telegrams and telephone calls that he became convinced that the people desired the law and so he signed the bill in deference to the wishes of the majority the principal let the sale of game is wrong and fatal to the existence of a supply of game is as fixed and unassailable as the Rocky Mountains its universal acceptance is only a question of intelligence and common honesty the open states owe it to themselves and each other to enact both the spirit and the letter of the bane law and to do it quickly before it is too late to profit by it let them remember the Heath hen amply protected when entirely too late from extinction it is fairly beyond question that the killing of wild game for the market and its sale in the open season and out of it is responsible for the disappearance of at least 50% of our stock of American feathered game it is the market gunner the game hog who shoots for sport and sells his game and the game dealer who has swept away the wild ducks the roughed grouse the quail and the prairie chickens were abundant on their natural ranges the foolish farmers of the middle west permitted the market hunters of Chicago and the east to slaughter their own legitimate game by the barrel and the carload and ship it east to market today the waters of curatec sound are a wholesale slaughter place for migratory wild fowl with which to supply the markets of baltimore, washington and philadelphia furthermore the market gunners of curatec are robbing the people of 16 states and millions of thousands of wild fowl that legitimately belong to them during the annual autumn flight the accompanying map shows how it is done readers note at this point there is a map captioned map used in the campaign for the bane law the map shows the northeastern portion of the united states there are lines drawn southeast from north dakota south dakota, minnesota wisconsin, michigan and ohio toward caratec sound north carolina and the legend reads migration area of 11 species of ducks that winter on caratec sound then there are lines going south from main new hampshire, bremont new york, massachusetts canada kit, rhodes island new jersey and pennsylvania to caratec sound with the legend reading migration area of 5 species of ducks that winter on caratec sound reading text reads the three great killing grounds 16 species of ducks winter on the three great bays where they can get food these are great south bay barnagat bay and caratec sound on the latter probably 200,000 wild fowl are killed annually for northern markets this map shows how the sale of ducks killed on caratec sound robs the people of 16 states for the benefit of a few stop the sale of game the map is signed william hornaday march 6th 1911 end of readers note today the cash rewards of the market hunter who can reach a large city with his product are dangerously great observe the following wholesale prices that prevailed in new york city in 1910 just prior to the passage of the bane law they were compiled and published by henry oldest of the biological survey domestic grouse $4 per pair foreign grouse $1.75 per pair domestic partridge $4 per pair domestic woodcock $2 per pair golden plover $3.50 per dozen english snipe $3 per dozen canvas back duck $3 per pair redhead duck green wing teal $0.90 per pair broadbill duck $0.75 per pair $1 per dozen $2 per dozen for comparison whole deer venison $0.25 per pound all our feathered game is rapidly slipping away from us are we going to save anything from the wreck? will we so weekly manage the game situation that later on there will be no legitimate bird shooting for our younger sons and grandsons? all laws that permit the killing of game for the market and the sale of it afterward are class legislation of the worst sort they permit 100 men selfishly to slaughter for their own pockets the game that rightfully belongs to 100,000 men and boys who shoot for the legitimate recreation that such field sports afford will any of the sportsmen of america stand for this until the game is all gone? the people who pay big prices for game in the hotels and restaurants of our big cities are not men who need that game as food far from it they can obtain scores of fine meat dishes without destroying the wild flocks in civilized countries wild game is no longer necessary as food to satisfy hunger and ward off starvation in the united states the day of the hungry indian fighting pioneer has gone by and there is an abundance of food everywhere the time to temporize and feel timid over the game situation has gone by the situation is desperate and nothing but strong and vigorous measures will avail anything worthwhile the sale of all wild games should be stopped everywhere and at all seasons throughout all north america and throughout the world today this particular curse is being felt even in india it is the duty of every true sportsman every farmer who owns a gun and every lover of wildlife can obtain for the passage of bills absolutely prohibiting all traffic in wild game no matter what its origin of course the market hunters the game hogs and the game dealers will bitterly oppose them and hire a lobby to attempt to defeat them but the fight for no sale of game is now on and it must not stop short of complete victory reasons why the sale of wild game should cease everywhere one because fully 95% of our legitimate stock of feathered game has already been destroyed two because if market gunning in the sale of game continue 10 years longer all our feathered game will be swept away three because when the sale of game was permitted one dealer was able to sell 1 million game birds per year in new york city so he himself said four because it is a fixed fact that the money making purposes eventually is wiped out of existence even the whales of the sea are no exception five because at least 50% of the decrease in our feathered game is due to market gunning and the sale of game look at the prairie chicken of the Mississippi valley and the roughed grouse of New England six because the laws that permit the commercial slaughter of wild birds for the benefit of less than 5% of the inhabitants of any state are directly against the interest of the 95% of other people to whom that game partly belongs seven because game killed for sale is not intended to satisfy hunger the people who eat game in large cities do not know what hunger is saved by hearsay purchased game is used chiefly in over feeding and as a rule it does far more harm than good eight because the greatest value to be derived from any game bird is in seeing it and photographing it and enjoying its living company and its native haunts who will love the forests when they become destitute of wildlife and desolate nine because stopping the sale of game will help bring back the game birds to us in a few years ten because the pace that New York and Massachusetts have said in this matter will render it easier to procure the passage of bane laws in other states eleven because those who legitimately desire game for their tables can be supplied from the game farms and preserves that are now coming into existence when New York's far reaching bane bill became a law the following dead birds lay in cold storage in New York City Wild Duck 98,156 Clover 48,780 Quail 14,227 Snipe 7,825 Woodcock 767 Rail 419 Total 191,376 They represented the last slaughtering of American game for New York Today the remaining Plagues Bots are Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Baltimore, Washington and New Orleans But in New Orleans the breaks have at last 1912 been applied and the market slaughter that formerly prevailed in that state has at least been checked As an instance of persistent market shooting on the greatest ducking waters of the eastern United States I offer this report from a trustworthy agent sent to Curatec Sound, North Carolina in March 1911 I beg to submit the following information relative to the number of wild ducks and geese shipped from this market and killed in the waters of Back Bay and the upper or north end of Curatec Sound from October 20th to March 1st inclusive Approximately there were killed and shipped in the territory named above 130,000 to 135,000 wild ducks and between 1,400 and 1,500 wild geese From Curatec Sound and its tributaries there were shipped approximately 200,000 wild ducks You will see from the above figures that each year the market shooter exacts a tremendous toll from the wild water fowl in these waters and it is only a question of a short time when the wild duck will be exterminated unless we can stop the ruthless slaughter The last few years I have noted a great decrease in the number of wild ducks some of the species are practically extinct I have secured the above information from a most reliable source and the figures given approximately cannot be questioned The effect of the passage of the Bane Law closing the greatest American market against the sale of game was an immediate decrease of fully 50% in the number of ducks and geese slaughtered in Curatec Sound The dealers refused to buy the birds and when half the killers were compelled to hang up their guns and go to work The ducks slaughterers felt very much enraged by the passage of the law and at first were inclined to blame the northern members of Curatec ducking clubs for the passage of the measure But as a matter of fact not one of the most important parts of the Bane Law is the fact that it is the most important part whatever in the campaign for the new law The unfairness of spring shooting The shooting of game birds in late winter and spring is to be mentioned only to be condemned It is grossly unfair to the birds outrageous in principle and most unsportsmen like no matter whether the law permits it or not Why it is that any state like Iowa for example doesn't listen for it in Iowa but the only real reason is the boys want the birds I think we have at last reached the point where it may truthfully be said that now no gentleman shoots birds in spring If the plea is made that if we don't shoot ducks in the spring we can't shoot them at all then the answer is if you can't shoot game like high-minded red-blooded sportsmen don't shoot at all A gentleman cannot afford to barter for a few ducks shot in the spring when the birds are going north to lay their eggs and the man who insists on shooting in spring may just as well go right on and do various other things that are beyond the pale such as shoot quail on the ground, shoot doze and fawns and fish for trout with gang hooks There are no longer two sides to what once was the spring shooting question Even among savages the breeding period of the wild creatures is under taboo Then if ever may the beasts and birds cry King's excuse It has been positively stated in print that high-class foxhounds have been known to refuse to chase a pregnant fox even when in full view End of Chapter 32 CHAPTER 33 OF OUR VANISHING WILD LIFE This is a LibriVox recording while 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 33 Bringing Back the Vanished Birds and Game The most charming trait of wildlife character is the alacrity and confidence with which wild birds and mammals respond to the friendly advances of human friends Those who are not very familiar with the mental traits of our wild neighbors may at first find it difficult to comprehend the marvelous celerity with which both birds and mammals recognize friendly overtures from man who respond to them At the present juncture, this state of the wild animal mind becomes a factor of great importance in determining what we can do to prevent the extermination of species and to promote the increase in return of wildlife I think there is not a single wild animal or bird species now living that cannot or does not quickly recognize protection and take advantage of it The most conspicuous of all familiar examples are the wild animals of the Yellowstone Park They embrace the elk antelope, mule deer, the black bear and even the grizzly No one can say precisely how long those several species were in ascertaining that it was safe to trust themselves within easy rifle shot of man but I think it was about five years Birds recognize protection far more quickly than mammals. In a comparatively short time the naturally wild and wary big game of the Yellowstone Park became about as tame as range cattle It was at least 15 years ago that the mule deer began to frequent the grey ground at the Mammoth Hot Springs military post and receive there their rations of hay Whenever you see a beautiful photograph of a large band of bighorn sheep or mule deer taken at short range amid rocky mountain scenery you are safe in labeling it as having come from the Yellowstone Park The prong horned antelope herd is so tame that it is difficult to keep it out of the streets of Gardner on the Montana side of the line but the bears who has not heard the story of the bears of the Yellowstone Park have been grizzlies stalk out of the woods every day to the garbage dumping ground how black bears actually have come into the hotels for food without breaking the truce and how the grizzlies boldly raid the grub wagons and cook tents of the campers taking just what they please because they know that no man dares to shoot them Indeed these raiding bears long ago became a public nuisance and many of them have been caught in steel box traps and shipped to zoological gardens in order to get them out of the way outside the park boundaries everywhere the bears are as wary and wild as the wildest the arrogance of the bears that couldn't be shot once led to a droll and also exciting episode during the period when Mr. C.J. Jones Buffalo Jones was superintendent of the wild animals of the park the indignities inflicted upon tourist campers by certain grizzly bears quite abraded his nerves he obtained from major pitcher authority to punish and reform a certain grizzly and went about the manner in a thoroughly buffalo-jonesian manner he procured a strong lariat and a bean-pull seven feet long and repaired to the camp that was troubled by too much grizzly the particular offender was a full-grown male grizzly who had become a notorious raider at the psychological moment Jones lassoed him in short order giving a firm hold on the bears left hind leg quickly the end of the rope was thrown over a limb of the nearest tree and in a trice Ephraim found himself swinging head downward between the heavens and the earth and then his punishment began Buffalo Jones thrashed him soundly with the bean-pull the outraged bear swung to and fro world round and round clawing and snapping at the empty air roaring and bawling with rage scourged in flesh and insulted in spirit as he swung the bean-pull searched out the different parts of his anatomy with a wonderful degree of neatness and precision between rage and indignation the grizzly nearly exploded a moving picture camera was there and since that day that truly moving scene has amazed and thrilled countless thousands of people when it was over Mr. Jones boldly turned the bear loose although it's rage was as boundless as the glories of the Yellowstone Park it paused not to rend any of those present but headed for the tall timber and with many an indignant it plunged in and disappeared it was two or three years before that locality was again troubled by impudent grizzly bears and what is the mental attitude of every Rocky Mountain Black or grizzly bear outside of the Yellowstone Park it is colossal suspicion of man perpetual fear and a clean pair of heels the moment man sent or man sight proclaims the proximity of the arch enemy of wild creatures and yet there are one or two men who tell the American public that wild animals do not think that they do not reason and are governed only by instinct a little knowledge is a dangerous thing taming wild birds as incontestable proof of the receptive faculties of birds I will cite the taming of wild birds in the open by friendly advances there are hundreds, I thousands of men, women, boys and girls who could give interesting and valuable personal testimony on this point my friend J. Alden Loring one of the naturalists of the Roosevelt African expedition is an ardent lover of wild birds and mammals the taming of wild creatures in the open last times and his results serve well to illustrate the marvelous readiness of our wild neighbors to become close friends with man when protected I will quote from one of Mr. Loring's letters on this subject taming wild birds is a new field in nature study and one can never tell what success he will have until he has experimented with different species some birds tame much more easily than others on three or four occasions I have enticed a chickadee to my hand at the first attempt while in other cases it was taken from fifteen minutes to a whole day chipping sparrows that frequent my doorway I have tamed in two days a nut hatch required three hours before it would fly to my hand although it took food from my stick the first time it was offered when you find a bird on her nest it is of course much easier to tame that individual than if you had to follow it about in the open and wait for it to come within reach of a stick by exercising extreme caution to the yellow-throated Virio and at the first attempt handed the bird a mealworm with my fingers at one time I had two house wrens a yellow-throated Virio a chipping sparrow and a flock of chickadees that would come to my hand it would be possible and also delightful to fill a volume with citations of evidence to illustrate the quick acceptance of man's protection by wild birds and mammals let me draw a few illustrations from my own wild neighbors unlike Agassiz in the New York Zoological Park within 500 feet of my office in the administration building a pair of wild wood ducks made their nest last spring and have just finished rearing nine fine healthy young birds whenever you see a wood duck rise and fly in our park you may know that it is a wild bird during the summer of 1912 a small flock of wild wood ducks came every night to our wild fowl pond and spent the night there a year ago a covey of 11 quail appeared in the park and have persistently remained ever since last fall and winter they came at least 20 times to a spot within 40 feet of the rear window of my office in order to feed upon the wheat screenings that we placed there for them when we first occupied the zoological park grounds in 1899 there was not one wild rabbit in the whole 264 acres presently the species appeared and the rabbits began to hop about confidently all over the place in 1906 we estimated that there were about 80 individuals then the marauding cats began to come in and they killed off the rabbits until not one was to be seen thereupon we addressed ourselves to those cats in more serious earnest than ever before now the cats have disappeared and one day last spring as I left my office at six o'clock, everyone else having previously gone, I almost stepped upon two half grown bunnies that had been visiting on the front door mat when we were mechatomizing the yards around the elephant house with a throng of workmen all about every day a robin made its nest on the heavy channel iron frame of one of the large elephant gates that swung to and fro nearly every day in 1900 we planted a young pine tree in front of our temporary office building within six feet of a main walk and at once a pair of robins nested in it and we were young there up in Putnam County where for five years deer have been protected the exhibitions that are given each year of the supreme confidence of protected deer literally astonished the natives they are almost unafraid of man and his vehicles horses but of course they are unwilling to be handled strangers are astonished but people who know something about the mental attitude of wild animals under protection know that it is the natural and inevitable result of real protection at Mr. Frank Siemens summer home in the Catskills the Phoebe birds nest on the beams under the roof of the porch at my summer home in the Berkshires no sooner was our garage completed than a Phoebe built her nest on the edge of the lintel over the side door and another built on a drain pipe over the kitchen door near Port Jervis last year a wild rough grouse nested and reared a large brood in the garden of Mr. W. I. Mitchell within two feet of the foundation of the house on the Bull River in the wilds of British Columbia two trappers of my acquaintance Mac Norbeau and Charlie Smith once formed a friendship with a wild weasel in a very few visits the weasel found that it was among friends and the trappers log cabin became its home a photograph of it taken while it posed on the door sill the trappers said that often when returning at nightfall from their traplines the weasel would meet them a hundred yards away on the trail and follow them back to the cabin old Ben the big sea lion who often landed on the wharf at Avalon Santa Catalina to be fed on fish was personally known to thousands of people an object lesson in protection a remarkable object lesson in the recognition of protection by Wild Ducks came under my notice in the pages of recreation magazine in June 1903 when the publication was edited by G. O. Shields the article was entitled A Haven of Refuge and the place described well deserved the name it is impossible for me to impress upon the readers of this volume with sufficient force and clearness the splendid success that is easily attainable in encouraging the return of the birds the story of the Mosca Haven of Refuge was so well told by Mr. Charles C. Townsend the publication referred to above that I take pleasure in reproducing it entire one mile north of the little village of Mosca, Colorado and San Luis Valley lives the family of J. C. Gray on the gray ranch there is an artesian well which empties into a small pond about 100 feet square this pond is never entirely frozen over and the water emptying therein is warm even during the coldest winter some five years ago Mr. Gray secured a few wild duck eggs and hatched them beforehand the little ducks were reared and fed on the little pond the following spring they left the place to return in the fall bringing with them broods of young also bringing other ducks to the home where protection was afforded them and plenty of good feed was provided each year since the ducks have scattered in the spring to mate and rear their families returning again with greatly increased numbers in the fall and again bringing strangers to the Haven of Refuge I drove out to the ranch November 24th 1902 and found the little pond almost black with the birds and was fortunate enough to secure a picture of a part of the pond while the ducks were thickly gathered therein ice had formed around the edges and this ice was covered with ducks the water was also alive with others which paid not the least attention to the party of strangers on the shore for Mr. Gray I learned that there were some 600 ducks of various kinds on the pond at that time though it was then early for them to seek winter quarters later in the year they assured me there would be between 2000 and 3000 teal, mallards canvas backs, red heads and other varieties all perfectly at home and fearless of danger the family have habitually approached the pond from the house which stands on the south side and should any person appear on the north side of the pond the ducks immediately take fright and flight wheat was strewn on the ground and in the water and the ducks waddled around us within a few inches of our feet to feed paying not the least attention to us the house dog which walked near six miles east of the ranch is San Luis lake to which these ducks travel almost daily while the lake is open when they are at the lake it is impossible to approach within gunshot of the then timid birds some unsympathetic boys and men have learned the habit of the birds and placed themselves in hiding along the course of flight to and from the lake many ducks are shot in this way but woe to the person caught firing a gun on or near the home pond when away from the home the birds are seen by those other wild ducks and fail to recognize any members of the gray family while at home they follow the boys around the barnyard squawking for feed like so many tame ducks this is the greatest sight I have ever witnessed and one that I could not believe existed until I had seen it certainly it is worth traveling many miles to see and no one after seeing it would care to shoot birds that when kindly treated make such charming pets since the above was published the protected flocks of tame wild ducks become one of the most interesting sites of Florida at Palm Beach the tameness of the wild ducks when within their protected area and their wildness outside of it has been witnessed by thousands of visitors the saving of the snowy egret in the United States the time was when very many persons believed that the devastations of the plume hunters of Florida and the Gulf Coast would be so long continued and so persistently followed up to the logical conclusion that both species of plume furnishing egrets would disappear from the ava fauna of the United States this expectation gave rise to feelings of resentment indignation and despair it happened however that almost at the last moment a solitary individual set on foot an enterprise calculated to preserve the snowy egret which is the smaller of the two species involved from final extermination the splendid success that has attended the efforts of Mr. Edward A. McKillanee of Avery Island, Louisiana is entitled not only to admiration and praise but also to the higher tribute of practical imitation Mr. McKillanee is first of all a lover of birds and a humanitarian he has traveled wildly through the continent of North America and elsewhere and has seen much of wildlife and man's influence upon it today his highest ambition is to create for the benefit of the present and as a heritage to posterity a mid-continental chain of great bird refuges in which migrating wildfowl and birds of all other species may find resting places and refuges during their migration and protected feeding grounds in winter in this grand enterprise the consummation of which is now in progress Mr. McKillanee is associated with Mr. Charles Willis Ward joint donor of the splendid Ward McKillanee bird preserve of 13,000 acres which recently was presented to the state of Louisiana by its former owners the egret inherent preserve however is Mr. McKillanee's individual enterprise and really furnished the motif of the larger movement of its inception and development he has kindly furnished me the following account accompanied by many beautiful photographs of egrets breeding and sanctuary one of which appears on page 27 in some recent publications I have seen statements to the effect that you believe the egrets were nearing extinction allowing to the persecution of plume hunters so I know that you will be interested in the enclosed photographs which were taken in my heron rookery situated within 100 yards of my factory and I am now sitting dictating this letter this rookery was started by me in 1896 because I saw at the time that the herons of Louisiana were being rapidly exterminated by plume hunters my thought was that the way to preserve them would be to start an artificial rookery of them where they could be thoroughly protected with this end in view I built a small pond taking in a wet space that contained a few willows and other shrubs which grow in wet places in a large cage in this pond with snowy herons after keeping the birds in confinement for something over six months I turned them loose hoping that they would come back the next season as they were perfectly tame and were used to seeing people I was rewarded the next season by four of the birds returning and nesting in the willows in the pond this was the start of a rookery that now covers 35 acres and contains more than 20,000 pairs of nesting birds embracing not only the egrets but all the species of herons found in Louisiana besides many other water birds with a view to carrying on the preservation of our birds on a larger scale Mr. Charles W. Ward and I have recently donated to the state of Louisiana 13,000 acres of what I consider to be the finest wild fowl feeding ground on the Louisiana coast as it contains the only gravel beach for 50 miles and all of the geese within the place come daily to this beach for gravel this territory also produces a great amount of natural food for geese and ducks saving the gulls and terns but for the vigorous and long-continued efforts of the Audubon societies I think our coasts would by this time have been swept clean of all the gulls and terns that now adorn it twenty years ago the milleners were determined to have them all the fight for them was long and hotly contested but the Audubon societies won it was a great victory and has yielded results of great value to the country at large and yet it was only a small number of persons who furnished the money to the fight which in order to the benefit of the millions of American people hereafter whenever you see an American gull or tern remind yourself that it was saved to the nation by the Audubon people in times of grave emergency such as fire, war, or scarcity of food the wild creatures forget their fear of man and many times actually surrender themselves to his mercy and protection at such times hard is the heart and lo is the code of manly honor that does not respond in a manner of inferior species the most pathetic wild animal situation ever seen in the United States on a large scale is that which for six winters in succession forced several thousand starving elk into the settlement of Jackson Hole Wyoming in quest of food at the hands of their natural enemies the elk lost all fear partly because they were not attacked and they surrounded the log-enclosed haystacks, barns, and houses mutely begging for food previous to the winter of 1911 animals of wheat calves and cows perished around the haystacks Mr. SN Leaks wonderful pictures tell a thrilling but very sad story to the everlasting honor of the people of Jackson Hole be it recorded that they rose like men to the occasion that confronted them in 1909 they gave to the elk herds all the hay that their domestic stock could spare not pausing to ascertain whether they ever would be reimbursed for it they just handed it out the famishing animals literally mob the haywagons today the national government has the situation in hand in times of peace and plenty the people of Jackson Hole take their toll of the elk herds but their example during starvation periods is to be commended to all men a slaughter of restored game the case of the shammy in Switzerland teaches the world a valuable lesson in how not to slaughter game that has come back to its haunts through protected breeding a few years ago one of the provinces of Switzerland took note of the fact that its once abundant stock of shammy was almost extinct and enacted a law by which the remnant was absolutely protected for a long period during those years of protection the animals bred and multiplied until finally the original number was almost restored then as always in such cases there arose a strong demand for an open season and eventually the government yielded to the pressure of the hunters and fixed a date whereupon an open season should begin during the period preceding that fatal date the living shammy grown half tamed by years of immunity from the guns were all carefully located and marked down by those who intended to hunt them at daybreak on the fatal day the onset began guns and hunters were everywhere and the mountains resounded with the fusillade hundreds of shammy were slain by hundreds of hunters and by the close of that fatal open season the species was more nearly exterminated throughout that region than ever before once more those mountains were nice and barren of game let that bloody and disgraceful episode serve as a warning to Americans who are tempted to demand an open season on game that has bred back from the verge of extinction particularly do we commend it to the notice of the people of Colorado who even now are demanding an open season on the preserved mountain sheep of that state the granting of such an open season would be a brutal outrage those sheep are now so tame and unsuspicious that the killing of them would be cold blooded murder the logical conclusion within reasonable limits any partly destroyed wild species can be increased and brought back by giving absolute protection from harassment and slaughter when a species is struggling to recuperate it deserves to be left entirely unmolested until it is once more on safe ground every breeding wild animal craves seclusion an entire immunity from excitement in all forms of molestation nature simply demands this as her unassailable right it is my firm belief that any wild species will breed in captivity whenever its members are given a degree of seclusion that they deem satisfactory with species that have not been shot down to a point entirely too low adequate protection generously long in duration will bring back their numbers if the people of the united states so willed it we could have wild white tail deer in every state and in every county save city counties between the atlantic and the rocky mountains we could easily have one thousand bob white quail for everyone now living we could have squirrels in every grove and songbirds by the million merely by protecting them from slaughter and molestation from Ohio to the great plains the penaded grouse could be made far more common than crows and blackbirds in as much as all this is true and no one with information will dispute it for a moment is it not folly to seek to supplant our own splendid native species of game birds that we never yet have decently protected with foreign species let the American people answer this question with yes or no the methods by which our non game birds can be encouraged and brought back are very simple protect them put up shelters for them give them nest boxes in abundance protect them from cats, dogs and all other forms of destruction and feed those that need to be fed I should think that every boy living in the country would find keen pleasure in making and erecting nest boxes for martins, wrens and squirrels and putting up straw teepees in winter for the quail in feeding the quail and in nailing to the trees chunks of suet and fat pork every winter for the birds, nut hatches and other winter residents will any person now on this earth live long enough to see the present all pervading and devilish spirit of slaughter so replaced by the love of wild creatures and the true spirit of conservation that it will be as rare as it is now common but let no one think for a moment that any vanishing species can at any time be brought back for that would be a grave error the point is always reached by every such species that the survivors are too few to cope and recovery is impossible the heath hen could not be brought back neither could the passenger pigeon the whooping crane, the sage grouse the trumpeter swan, the wild turkey and the upland plover never will come back to us and nothing that we can do ever will bring them back circumstances are against those species and I fear against many others also thanks to the fact that the American bison breeds well in captivity we have saved that species from complete extinction but our antelope seems to be doomed it is because of the alarming condition of our best wildlife that quick action and strong action is vitally necessary we are sleeping on our possibilities End of Chapter 33 Chapter 34 of Our Vanishing Wildlife This is a Librebox recording All Librebox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit Librebox.org Our Vanishing Wildlife by William T. Hornaday Chapter 34 Introduced Species That Have Been Beneficial Man has made numerous experiments in the transplantation of wild species of mammals and birds from one country or a continent to another about one half of these efforts have been beneficial and the other half have resulted disasterously The transplantation of any wild animal species is a leap in the dark on general principles it is dangerous to meddle with the laws of nature and attempt to improve upon the code of the wilderness Our best wisdom in such matters may easily prove to be short-sighted folly The trouble lies in the fact that concerning transplantation it is impossible for us to know beforehand all the conditions that will affect it or that it will affect and how it will work out in its own home a species may seem not only harmless but actually beneficial to man we do not know and we cannot know all the influences that keep it in check and that mold its character we do not know and we cannot know without a trial how new environment will affect it and what new traits of character it will develop under radically different conditions The gentle dove of Europe may become the tyrant dove of Cathay The repressed rabbit of the old world becomes in Australia the uncontrollable rabbit a devastator and a pest of pests No wild species should be transplanted and set free in a wild state to stock new regions without consulting men of wisdom and following their advice It is now against the laws of the United States to introduce and acclimatize in a wild state anywhere in the United States any wild bird species without the approval of the Department of Agriculture The law is a wise one Furthermore the same principle should apply to birds that it is proposed to transplant from one portion of the United States into another especially when the two are widely separated On this point I once learned a valuable lesson which may well point my present moral Incidentally also it was a narrow escape for me A gentleman of my acquaintance who admires the European magpie and is well aware of its accepted residents in various countries in Europe once requested my cooperation in securing and acclimatizing at his country a state a number of birds of that species As in duty bound I laid the matter before our Department of Agriculture and asked for an opinion The department replied in effect why import a foreign magpie when we have in the west a species of our own quite as handsome and which could be more easily transplanted The point seemed well taken Now I had seen much of the American magpie in its wild home the Rocky Mountains and the western border of the Great Plains and I thought I was acquainted with it I knew that a few complaints against it had been made but they seemed to me to be very trivial to me our magpie seemed to have a generally unobjectionable record Fortunately for me I wrote to Mr. Hershey assistant curator of ornithology in the Colorado State Museum for assistance in procuring fifty birds for transplantation to the state of New York Mr. Hershey replied that if I really wished the birds for acclimatization he would gladly procure them for me but he said that in the thickly settled farming communities of Colorado the magpie is now regarded as a pest it devours the eggs and nestlings of other wild birds and not only that it destroys so many eggs of domestic poultry that many farmers are compelled to keep their egg laying hens shut up in wire enclosures Now this condition happened to be entirely unknown to me because I never had seen the American magpie in action in a farming community Of course the proposed experiment was promptly abandoned but it is embarrassing to think how near I came to making a mistake Even if the magpies had been transplanted and had become a nuisance in this state they could easily have been exterminated by shooting but the memory of the error would have been humiliating to the party of the first part The Old World Pheasants in America In 1881 the first Chinese ring-necked pheasants were introduced into the United States 12 miles below Portland, Oregon 12 males and three females The next year Oregon gave pheasants a five-year closed season A little later the golden and silver pheasants of China were introduced and all three species throw mildly on the Pacific Coast in Oregon, Washington and western British Columbia In 1900 the sportsmen of Portland and Vancouver were shooting caught golden pheasants according to the law The success of Chinese and Japanese pheasants on the Pacific Coast soon led to experiments in the more progressive states at state expense State pheasant hatcheries have been established in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa and California In many localities the Old World pheasants have come to stay The rise and progress of the ring-neck in western New York has already been noted It came about merely through protection That protection was protection in fact not the false protection that shoots on the sly It is the irony of faith that full protection should be accorded a foreign bird in order that it may multiply and possess the land while the same kind of protection is refused the native Bob White and it is now almost a dead species so far as this state is concerned In looking about for grievances against the ring-neck and English pheasant some persons have claimed that in winter these birds are butters which means that they harmfully strip trees and bushes of the buds that those bushes will surely need in their spring opening On that point Dr. Joseph Kalbfuss secretary of the Pennsylvania Game Commission sent out a circular letter of inquiry in response to which he received many statements With but one exception all the testimony received was to the effect that pheasants are not bud-eaters and that generally the charge is unfounded The introduction of old world pheasants and the attempted introduction of the Hungarian Partridge are effects designed first of all to furnish sportsmen something to shoot and incidentally to provide a new food supply for the table The people of this country are not starving nor are they even very hungry for the meat of strange birds but as a food producer the pheasant is all right It disgusts me to the core however to see states that wantonly and wickedly through sheer apathy and lack of business enterprise have allowed the quail, the heath hen the pinneted grouse and the ruffled grouse to become almost exterminated by extravagant and foolish shooters now putting forth wonderfully diligent efforts in spending money without end in introducing foreign species Many men actually take the ground that our game can't live in its own country any longer but only the ignorant and the unthinking will say so Give our gamebirds decent, sensible, actual protection stop their being slaughtered far faster than they breed and they will live anywhere in their own native hots But where is there one species of upland gamebird in America that has been sensibly and adequately protected? From Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon there is not one, not a single locality in which protection from shooting has been sensible or just or adequate We have universally given our American upland gamebirds an unfair deal and now we are adding insult to slaughter by bringing in foreign gamebirds to replace them because our birds can't live before 5 million gunshots Our American gamebirds can live anywhere in the haunts where nature placed them that are not today actually occupied by cities and towns Give me the making of the laws and I will make the prairie chicken and quail as numerous throughout the northern states of the Great Plains as domestic chickens are outside the regular poultry farms There is only one reason why there are not 10 million quail in the state of New York today one for each human inhabitant and that reason is the infernal greed and selfishness of the men who have almost exterminated our quail by overshooting Don't talk to me about the hard winters killing off our quail It is the hard cheek of the men who shoot them when they ought to let them alone The state of Iowa could support 500,000 prairie chickens and never miss the waste grain that they would glean in the fields But now the prairie chicken is practically extinct in Iowa only a few scattered specimens remaining as last survivors in some of the northern counties The migration of those birds that unexpectedly came down from the north last winter was like the fall of a meteor only the birds promptly faded away again Why should New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts terminate the Heathhen and coddle the ring-necked pheasant in the Hungarian Partridge? The introduction of the Old World pheasants interests me very little Every one that I see is a painful reminder of our slaughtered quail and grouse the birds that never have had a square deal from the American people Thus far the introduction of the Hungarian Partridge has not been successful anywhere Connecticut, Missouri, New Jersey and I think other states have tried this and failed The failure of that species brings no sorrow to me I prefer our own game birds and if the American people will not conserve those properly and decently, they deserve to have no game birds The European Red Deer in New Zealand Occasionally a gameless land makes a ten strike by introducing a foreign game animal that does no harm and becomes of great value The greatest success ever made in the transplantation of game animals has been in New Zealand Originally New Zealand possessed no large animals and no big game When nature passed around the deer, antelopes, sheep, goats, wild cattle and bears New Zealand failed to receive her share For centuries her splendid forests her grand mountains and picturesque valleys remained untentaded by big game In 1864 the Prince Consort of England cost seven head of European Red Deer to be taken from the Royal Park at Windsor and sent to Christchurch, New Zealand Only three of the animals survived the long voyage a buck and two does For several weeks the two were kept in a barn in Christchurch where they served no good purpose and were not likely to live long or be happy Finally someone said let's set them free in the mountains The idea was adopted The three animals were hauled an uncertain number of miles into the interior mountains and set free They promptly settled down in their new home They began to breed and now on the North Island there are probably 5,000 European Red Deer every one of which has descended directly from the famous three and here is the strangest part of the story The Red Deer of the North Island represent the greatest case of inbreeding of wild animals on record According to the experience of the world and the breeding of domestic cattle not horses we should expect physical deterioration the development of diseases and disaster On the contrary the usual evil results of inbreeding and domestic cattle have been totally absent The Red Deer of New Zealand are today physically larger and more robust animals with longer and heavier antlers and longer hair than any of the Red Deer of Europe west of Germany Red Deer have been introduced practically all over New Zealand and the total number now in the islands must be somewhere near 40,000 The sportsmen of that country have grand sport and take many splendid trophies The transplantation has been a very great success Incidentally, the case of the inbreed deer of the North Island taken along with other cases of which we know establishes a new and important principle in evolution It is this When healthy wild animals are established in a state of nature either absolutely free or confined in preserves so large that they roam at will seek the food of nature and take care of themselves in and inbreeding produces no ill effects and ceases to be a factor The animals develop in physical perfection according to the climate and their food supply and the introduction of new blood is not necessary The Fallow Deer on the Island of Lambe In the Irish Sea a few miles from the southeast coast of Ireland is the Island of Lambe owned by Cecil Bering Esquire The island is precisely one square mile in area and some of its sea frontage terminates in perpendicular cliffs In many ways the island is of unusual interest to zoologists and its fauna has been well set forth by Mr. Bering In the year 1893 three Fallow Deer, Dama vulgaris a buck and two does were transplanted from a park on the Irish mainland to Lambe and there set free From that slender stalk has sprung a large herd which but for the many deer that have been purposefully shot and the really considerable number that have been killed by going over the cliffs in stormy weather the progeny of the original three would today number several hundred head No new blood has been introduced and no deer have died of disease Even counting out the losses by the rifle and by accidental death the herd today numbers more than one hundred head Mr. Bering declares that neither he nor his gamekeeper have ever been able to discover any deterioration in the deer of Lambe either in size, weight, size of antlers fertility or a general physical stamina The deterioration through disease especially tuberculosis that is always dreaded and often observed in closely inbred domestic cattle has been totally absent In looking about for wild species that have been transplanted and that have thriven and become beneficial to man there seems to be mighty little game in sight The vast majority belong in the next chapter We will venture to mention the Bob White quail that was introduced into Utah in 1871 into Idaho in 1875 and the California Valley quail in Washington in 1857 Wherever these efforts have succeeded the results have been beneficial to man In 1879 a well organized effort was made to introduce European quail into several of the New England and middle states to take the place of the Bob White we may suppose, the bird that can't stand the winters about three thousand birds were distributed and set free and went down and out just as might have been expected During the past twenty years it is safe to say that not less than five hundred thousand dollars have been expended in the northern states and particularly in the northeastern states in importing live quail from Kansas, the Indian territory Oklahoma, Texas, the Carolinas and other southern states for restocking areas from which the northern Bob White had been exterminated by foolish overshooting I think that fully nine tenths of these efforts have ended in total failure the quail could not survive in their strange environment I cannot recall a single instance in which restocking northern covers with southern quail has been a success There is no royal road to the restoration of an exterminated bird species where the native seed still exists by long labor and travail through protection and a mighty long close season it can be encouraged to breed back in return but it is an evolution that cannot be hurried in the least protect mother nature and leave the rest to her with mammals the case is different it is possible to restock depleted areas provided time is recognized as a dominant factor I can cite two interesting cases by way of illustration but this subject will form another chapter In the transplantation of fishes conditions are widely different and many notable successes have been achieved One of the greatest hits ever made by the United States Bureau of Fisheries in the planting of fish in new localities was the introduction of the striped bass or rockfish, raucous lineatus of our Atlantic coast into the coast waters of California In 1879 135 live fish were deposited in Carquins St. at Martinez and in 1832 300 more were planted in Cistern Bay near the first locality chosen 12 years after the first planting in San Francisco Bay the markets of San Francisco handled 149,997 pounds of striped bass At that time the average weight for a whole year was 11 pounds and the average price was 10 cents per pound Fish weighing as high as 49 pounds have been taken and there are reasons for the belief that eventually the fish of California will attain great weight as those of the Atlantic and the Gulf The San Francisco markets now sell annually about one and one-half million pounds of striped bass This fish has taken its place among anglers as one of the game fishes of the California coast and affords fine sport Strange to say however it has not yet spread beyond the shores of California Regarding this species the records of the United States Bureau of Fisheries are of interest In 1979 the California markets handled 2,949,642 pounds worth 225,527 dollars American natural history Nowhere else in the world we venture to say were such extensive costly and persistent efforts put forth in the transplantation of any wild foreign species as the old US Fish Commission under Professor Spencer F. Baird put forth in the introduction German carp into the freshwater ponds lakes and rivers of the United States It was held that because the carp would live and thrive in waters bottomed with mud that species would be a boon to all inland regions where bodies of water or streams were scarce and dear Although the carp is not the best fish in the world for the table it seemed that the dwellers in the prairie and great plains regions would find it far better than bullheads or no fish at all which are about the same thing By means of special fist cars sent literally all over the United States at a great total expense live carp hatched in the ponds near the Washington Monument were distributed to all applicants The German carp spreads far and wide but today I think the fish has about as many enemies as friends In some places strong objections have been filed to the manner in which the carp stir up the mud at the bottom of ponds and small lakes to the detriment of all the native fishes found therein End of Chapter 34 Chapter 35 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 35 Introduced species that have become pests The man who successfully transplants or introduces into a new habitat any persistent species of living thing assumes a very grave responsibility Every introduced species is a doubtful gravel until panned out The enormous losses that have been inflicted upon the world through the perpetuation of follies with wild vertebrates and insects would if added together be enough to purchase a principality The most aggravating feature of all these follies in transplantation is that never yet have they been made severely punishable We are just as careless and easy going on this point as we were about the government of the Yellowstone Park in the days when Howell and other poachers destroyed our first national bison herd and when caught red handed as Howell was, skinning seven park bison cows could not be punished for it because there was no penalty prescribed by any law Today there is a way in which any person could inflict enormous damage upon the entire south at no cost to himself involve those states in enormous losses and the expenditure of vast sums of money yet go absolutely unpunished The Gypsy Moth is a case in point This winged calamity was imported at Maiden, Massachusetts, near Boston by a French entomologist Mr. Leopold Truvullo in 1868 or 69 History records the fact that the man of science did not purposefully set free the pest He was endeavoring with live specimens to find a moth that would produce a cocoon of commercial value to America and a sudden gust of wind blew out of his study through an open window his living and breeding specimens of the Gypsy Moth The moth itself is not bad to look at but its larvae is a great overgrown brute with an appetite like a hob Immediately Mr. Truvullo sought to recover his specimens and when he failed to find them all like a man of real honor he notified the state authorities of the accident Every effort was made to recover all the specimens but enough escape to produce a progeny that soon became a scourge to the trees of Massachusetts The method of the big nasty looking model brown caterpillar was very simple It devoured the entire foliage of every tree that grew in its sphere of influence The Gypsy Moth spread rapidly in persistence In the course of time the state authorities of Massachusetts were forced to begin a relentless war upon it by poisonous sprays and by fire It was awful Up to this date, 1912 the New England states and the United States government service have expended in fighting this pest about $7,680,000 The spread of this pest has been retarded but the Gypsy Moth never will be wholly stamped out Today it exists in Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Hampshire and it is due to reach New York at an early date It is steadily spreading in three directions from Boston its original point of departure and when it strikes the state of New York we too will begin to pay dearly for the Trouble-O experiment It is said that General S. C. Lawrence of Medford, Massachusetts has spent $75,000 in trying to protect his trees from the ravages of this scourge The rabbit plague in Australia and New Zealand The rabbit curse upon Australia and New Zealand is so well known as to require little comment In this case the introduction was deliberate In the days when the sheep industry was most prosperous a patriotic gentleman conceived the idea that the introduction of the rabbit and its establishment as a wild animal would be a good thing He reasoned that it would furnish a good food supply that it would furnish sport and being unable to harm any other creature in the flesh and blood it was therefore harmless Accordingly three pairs of rabbits were imported and set free In a short time the immense number of rabbits that began to overrun the country furnished food for reflection as well as for the table A very simple calculation brought out the startling information that under perfectly favorable conditions a single pair of rabbits could in three years time individuals Ever since that time in discussing the rabbits of Australia it has been necessary to speak in millions The inhabitants of the colony says Dr. Richard Lydiker soon found that the rabbits were a plague for they devoured the grass which was needed for the sheep the bark of trees and every kind of fruit and vegetable until the prospects of the colony became a very serious matter and ruin seemed inevitable In New South Wales 15 million rabbit skins have been exported in a single year while in 13 years ending with 1889 no less than 39 million were accounted for in Victoria alone To prevent the increase of these rodents the introduction of weasels, stoats, mongooses, etc. has been tried but it has been found that those carnivores neglected the rabbits and took to feeding on poultry and thus became as great a nuisance as the animals they were intended to destroy the attempt to kill them off by the introduction of an epidemic disease has also failed in order to protect such portions of the country as are still free from rabbits fences of wire netting have been erected one of those fences erected by the government of Victoria extending for a distance of upwards of 150 geographical miles in New Zealand where the rabbit has been introduced a little more than 20 years its increase has been so enormous and the destruction it inflicts so great that in some districts it has actually been a question whether the colonists should not vacate the country rather than attempt to fight against the plague the average number of rabbit skins exported from New Zealand is now 12 million Royal natural history the fox pest in Australia and now unfortunate Australia has a new pest also acquired by importation of an alien species it is the European fox vulpis vulpis the only redeeming feature about this fresh calamity is found in the fact that the species was not deliberately introduced into Australia for the benefit of the local fauna Mr. O. W. Rosenheim of Melbourne informs me 1912 that about 30 years ago the hunt club brought to Australia about 20 foxes for the promotion of the noble sport of fox hunting in some untoward manner the most of these animals escaped have survived, multiplied, and have provided New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia with a fox pest of the first rank the destruction of wild bird life and poultry has become so serious that Australia is now making vigorous efforts to exterminate the pest the government pays 10 shillings bounty on fox scalps besides which each prime fox skin is worth from 4 to 5 dollars it is hoped that these combined values will eliminate the fox pest regarding foxes in Australia Mr. W. H. D. LeSouf has this to say in his extremely interesting and valuable book Wild Life in Australia page 146 we found that foxes were unfortunately plentiful in this district and in a hollow log that served to shelter some cubs were noticed the remains of ducks, fowls, rabbits lambs, bandicoots and snakes so they evidently bury their fair snakes even not coming amiss they also sneak on wild ducks that are nesting by the edge of the water among the rushes and tussocky grass and catch quail also especially sitting birds these animals are and always will be a great source of trouble in the thickly timbered country in stony ranges and will gradually like the rabbit extend all over Australia they are evidently not contented with ground game as Mr. A. F. Kelly of Barlin Lay in Victoria states when riding past a bull oak tree about 25 feet high with either a magpies or crow's nest on top I noticed the nest looked very bulky and had something red in it ongoing nearer I saw a large fox coiled up in it the mongoose circumstances alter cases and a change of environment sometimes works marvelous changes in the character of an animal species now why should not the grey indian mongoose formerly called the Iqnumian herpestus griscus destroyed poultry in India as it does elsewhere there is poultry in plenty to be destroyed but Rikki Tikki Tavi elects to specialize on the killing of rats and cobras and other snakes in his own sphere of influence India and the Orient the mongoose is a fairly decent citizen to the time-worn economy of that region as a destroyer of the thrice anethema domestic rat he has no equal in the domain of flesh and blood his temper is so fierce that one pet mongoose has been known to kill a full grown male giant bustard and put a greyhound to flight in an evil moment 1872 Mr. W. B. Asput conceived the idea that it would be a good thing to introduce mongooses to the rats of Barbados and Jamaica that were pestering the cane fields to an annoying extent it was done the mongooses attacked the rats cleaned them out, multiplied and then looked about for more worlds to conquer snakes and lizards were few but they cheerfully killed and devoured all there were then being continuously hungry they attacked the wild birds in poultry indiscriminately and with their usual vigor I have been told that in Barbados they cleaned out every living thing that they could catch and kill and then they attacked the sugar cane the last count in the indictment may seem hard to believe but it is a fact that the Indian mongoose often resorts to fruits and vegetable food in Jamaica at the end of the rat killing period the planters joyfully estimated that the labourers of her pesties had saved between five hundred thousand pounds and seven hundred fifty thousand pounds to the industries of that island the slaughter of wild birds in poultry began I am told that up to date the damage done by the mongoose far exceeds the value of the benefit at once conferred but the total has not been computed up to this date the mongoose has invaded and become a destructive pest in Barbados Jamaica, Cuba, St. Vincent St. Lucia, Trinidad, Nevis Fiji and all the larger islands of the Hawaiian group it would require many pages to contain a full account of each introduction awakening, reckoning of damages and payment of bounties for destruction that the fiendish mongoose has wrought out wherever it has been introduced the progress of the pest is everywhere the same sweeping destruction of rats, snakes wild birds, small mammals and finally poultry and vegetables every country that now is without the mongoose will do well to shut and guard diligently all the doors by which it might be introduced throughout its range in the western hemisphere the mongoose is a pest and the biological survey of the Department of Agriculture has done well in securing the enactment of a law preemptorily prohibiting the importation of any animals of that species into the United States or any of its colonies the fierce temper indomitable courage and vaulting appetite of the mongoose would make its actual introduction in any of the warm portions of the United States a horrible calamity in the southern states and all along the pacific slope clear up to Seattle it could live, thrive and multiply and the slaughter that it could and would inflict upon our wild birds generally especially although there's nest and live on the ground saying nothing of the slaughter of poultry would drive the American people crazy fancy an animal with the murderous ferocity of a mink the agility of a squirrel the creation of a ferret and the cunning of a rat infesting the thickets and barnyards of this country the mongoose can live wherever a rat can live provided it can get a fair amount of animal food not for one million dollars could any one of the southern or pacific states afford to have a pair of these little gray fiends imported and set free if such a calamity ever occurs all wheels should stop and every inhabitant should turn out and hunt for the animals until they are found and pulverized no matter if it should require a thousand men and one hundred thousand dollars find them if not found the cost to the state will soon be a million a year with no ending in spite of the vigilance of our custom house officers every now and then a hindu from some foreign vessel sneaks into the country with a pet mongoose and they do make great pets inside his shirt or in the bottom of a bag of clothing of course whenever the department of agriculture discovers any of these surreptitious animals they are at once confiscated and either killed or sent to a public zoological park for safekeeping in new york the director of the zoological park is so generally concerned about the possibility of the escape of a female mongoose that he has issued two standing orders all live mongooses offered to us shall at once be purchased and every female animal shall immediately be chloroformed if her pestis gristis ever breaks loose in the united states the crime shall not justly be chargeable to us the english sparrow in the united states the english sparrow is a national sorrow almost too great to be endured it is a bird of plain plumage low tastes impudent disposition and persistent fertility continually does it crowd out its bedders or pugnaciously drive them away and except on very rare occasions it eats neither insects nor weed seeds it has no song and inhabits it is a bird of the street and the gutter there is not one good reason why it should exist in this country if it were out of the way our native insect eaters of song and beauty could return to our lawns and orchard the english sparrow is a nuisance and a pest and if it could be returned to the land of its nativity we would gain much end of chapter 35