Our Vanishing Wild Life Part 27

In view of the alarming scarcity of game, in view of the impending extermination of species by legal hunting, can any high-minded _sportsman_, can any _good citizen_ either sell a machine shot-gun or use one in hunting?

A gentleman is incapable of taking an unfair advantage of any wild creature; therefore a gentleman cannot use punt guns for ducks, dynamite for game fish, or automatic or pump guns in bird-shooting. The machine guns and "silencers" are grossly unfair, and like gang-hooks, nets and dynamite for trout and ba.s.s, their use in hunting must everywhere be prohibited by law. Times have changed, and the lines for protection must be more tightly drawn.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CHAMPION GAME SLAUGHTER CASE One Hour's Slaughter (218 Geese) With Two Automatic Shot-Guns]

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania (Judge Orlady) has decided that the Pennsylvania law against the use of automatic guns in hunting is entirely const.i.tutional, because every state has a right to say how its game may and may not be killed.

It is up to the American People to say _now_ whether their wild life shall be slaughtered by machinery, or not.

If they are willing that it should be, then let us be consistent and say--away with all "conservation!" The game conservators can endure a gameless and birdless continent quite as well as the average citizen can.

HOW THEY WORK.--There are a few apologists for the automatic and pump guns who cheerfully say, "So long as the bag limit is observed what difference does it make how the birds are killed?"

It is strange that a conscientious man should ask such a question, when the answer is apparent.

We reply, "The difference is that an automatic or pump gun will kill fully twice as many waterfowl as a double-barrel, _if not more_; and _it is highly undesirable that every gunner should get the bag limit of birds, or any number near it_! The birds can not stand it. Moreover, _the best states for ducks and geese have no bag limits on those birds_!"

To-day, on Currituck Sound, for example, the market hunters are killing all the waterfowl they can sell. On Marsh Island, Louisiana, one man has killed 369 ducks in one day, and another market gunner killed 430 in one day.

The automatic and the "pump" shot-guns are the favorite weapons of the game-hog who makes a specialty of geese and ducks. It is no uncommon thing for a gunner who shoots a machine gun to get, with one gun, as high as _eight_ birds out of one flock. A man who has himself done this has told me so.

_The Champion Game-Slaughter Case_.--Here is a story from California that is no fairy tale. It was published, most innocently, in a western magazine, with the ill.u.s.tration that appears herewith, and in which please notice the automatic shot-gun:

"February 5th, I and a friend were at one of the Glenn County Club's camps.... Neither of us having ever had the pleasure of shooting over live decoys, we were anxious, and could hardly wait for the sport to commence. On arriving at the scene we noticed holes which had been dug in the ground, just large enough for a man to crawl into. These holes were used for hiding places, and were deep enough so the sportsmen would be entirely out of sight of the game. The birds are so wild that to move a finger will frighten them....

"The decoys are wild geese which had been crippled and tamed for this purpose. They are placed inside of silk net fences which are located on each side of the holes dug for hiding places. These nets are the color of the ground and it is impossible for the wild geese flying overhead to detect the difference.

"After we had investigated everything the expert caller and owner of the outfit exclaimed: 'Into your holes!'

"We noticed in the distance a flock of geese coming. Our caller in a few seconds had their attention, and they headed towards our decoys. Soon they were directly over us, but out of easy range of our guns. We were anxious to shoot, but in obedience to our boss had to keep still, and soon noticed that the birds were soaring around and in a short time were within fifteen or twenty feet of us. At that moment we heard the command, 'Punch 'em!' and the bombardment that followed was beyond imagining. _We had fired five shots apiece and found we had bagged ten geese from this one flock_.

"At the end of one hour's shooting we had 218 birds to our credit and were out of ammunition.

"On finding that no more sh.e.l.ls were in our pits we took our dead geese to the camp and returned with a new supply of ammunition. We remained in the pits during the entire day. When the sun had gone behind the mountains we summed up our kill and _it amounted to 450 geese_!

"The picture shown with this article gives a view of _the first hour's shoot_. A photograph would have been taken of the remainder of the shoot, but it being warm weather the birds had to be s.h.i.+pped at once in order to keep them from spoiling.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SLAUGHTERED ACCORDING TO LAW A Result of a Faulty System. Such Pictures as this are Very Common in Sportsmen's Magazines Note the Automatic Gun]

"Supper was then eaten, after which we were driven back to Willows; both agreeing that it was one of the greatest days of sport we ever had, and wis.h.i.+ng that we might, through the courtesy of the Glenn County Goose Club, have another such day. C.H.B."

Another picture was published in a Canadian magazine, ill.u.s.trating a story from which I quote:

"I fixed the decoys, hid my boat and took my position in the blind. My man started his work with a will and hustled the ducks out of every cove, inlet or piece of marsh for two miles around. I had barely time to slip the cartridges into my guns--_one a double and the other a five shot automatic_--when I saw a brace of birds coming toward me. They sailed in over my decoys. I rose to the occasion, and the leader up-ended and tumbled in among the decoys. The other bird, unable to stop quick enough, came directly over me. He closed his wings and struck the ground in the rear of the blind.

"More and more followed. Sometimes they came singly, and then in twos and threes. I kept busy and attended to each bird as quickly as possible. Whenever there was a lull in the flight I went out in the boat and picked up the dead, leaving the wounded to take chances with any gunner lucky enough to catch them in open and smooth water. A bird handy in the air is worth two wounded ones in the water. _Twice I took six dead birds out of the water for seven shots, and both guns empty_.

"The ball thus opened, the birds commenced to move in all directions.

Until the morning's flight was over I was kept busy pumping lead, _first with the 10, then with the automatic_, reloading, picking up the dead, etc."

And the reader will observe that the harmless, innocent, inoffensive automatic shot gun, that "don't matter if you enforce the bag limit,"

figures prominently in both stories and both photographs.

_A Story of Two Pump Guns and Geese_:--It comes from Aberdeen, S.D.

(Sand Lake), in the spring of 1911. Mr. J.J. Humphrey tells it, in _Outdoor Life_ magazine for July, 1911.

"Smith and I were about a hundred yards from them [the flock of Canada geese], when Murphy scared them. They rose in a dense ma.s.s and came directly between Smith and me. We were about gunshot distance apart, and they were not over thirty feet in the air when we opened up on them with our pump guns and No. 5 shot. When the smoke cleared away and we had rounded up the cripples we found we had twenty-one geese. I have heard of bigger killings out in this country, but never positively knew of them."

So then: _those two gunners averaged 10-1/2 wild geese per pump gun out of one flock_! And yet there are wise and reflective sportsmen who say, "What difference does the kind of gun make so long as you live up to the law?"

I think that the pump and automatic guns make about 75 _per-cent of difference, against the game_; that is all!

The number of shot-guns now in use in the United States is almost beyond belief. About six years ago a gentleman interested in the manufacture of such weapons informed me, and his statement has never been disputed, that _every year_ about 500,000 new shot-guns were sold in the United States. The number of shot cartridges annually produced by our four great cartridge companies has been reliably estimated as follows:

Winchester Arms Co 300,000,000 Union Metallic Cartridge Co 250,000,000 Peters Cartridge Co 150,000,000 Western Cartridge Co 75,000,000 ----------- 775,000,000

We must stop all the holes in the barrel, or eventually lose all the water. No group of bird-slaughterers is ent.i.tled to immunity. We will not "limit the bag, and enforce the laws," while we permit the makers and users of autoloading and pump guns to kill at will, as they demand.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Copy of letter: National a.s.sociation of Audubon Societies Founded 1901. Incorporated 1906.

For the Protection of Wild Birds and Animals

WILLIAM DUTCHER, President JOHN E. THAYER, 1st Vice-President THEO. S. PALMER, M.D., 2d Vice-President T. GILBERT PEARSON, Secretary FRANK M. CHAPMAN, Treasurer SAMUEL T. CARTER, Jr., Attorney

OFFICES 525 Manhattan Avenue, New York City

[Ill.u.s.tration: Map showing (shaded) States having Audubon Societies.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Map showing (shaded) States which have adopted the A.O.U. model law protecting the non-game birds.]

141 Broadway.

Feb. 26th 1906.

My dear Mr. Hornaday:--

It is with much surprise that I learn through your communication of even date that certain persons are claiming that the National a.s.sociation of Audubon Societies for the Protection of Wild Animals and Birds is in favor of the use of automatic or pump guns, and consequently is not in favor of the pa.s.sage of laws to prevent the use or sale of such firearms.

I beg officially to state that the National a.s.sociation of Audubon Societies is absolutely opposed to either the manufacture, sale, or use of such firearms, and therefore hopes that the meritorious bill introduced by the New York Zoological Society will become a law.

I beg further to add that any statement contrary to the above in effect is unauthorized.

This society is working for the preservation of the wild birds and game of North America, and it sincerely should not stultify itself by advocating the use of one of the most potent means of destruction that has ever been devised.

You are at liberty to use this communication either publicly or privately.

Very sincerely yours, [Signature: William Dutcher]