Our Vanishing Wild Life Part 56

The State of Wyoming once had a magnificent heritage of game. It embraced the Rocky Mountain species, and also those of the great plains.

First and last, the state has worked hard to protect her wild life, and hold the killing of it down to a decent basis.

As far back as 1889, I met on the Shoshone River a very wide-awake warden, actually "on his job," who was maintained by a body of private citizens headed by Col. Pickett and known as the Northern Wyoming Game Protective a.s.sociation. And even then we saw that the laws were too liberal for the game. In one man's cold-storage dug-out we saw enough sheep, deer and elk meat to subsist a company of hungry dragoons, all killed and possessed according to law.

In the protection of her mountain game, Wyoming has had a hard task. In the Yellowstone Park between 1889 and 1894, the poachers for the taxidermists of Livingston and elsewhere slaughtered 270 bison out of 300; and Howell was the only man caught. England can protect game in far-distant mountains and wildernesses; but America can not,--or at least _we don't!_ With us, men living in remote places who find wild game about them say "To h--- with the law!" They kill on the sly, in season and out of season, females and males; and the average local jury 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 Alleghanies where the law permits big-game hunting!_ An interesting chapter might be written on game exterminated according to law.

The deadly defects in the protection of western big game are:

Structural weakness in the enforcement of the laws;

Collusion between offenders for the suppression of evidence;

Perjury on the witness stand;

Dishonesty and disloyalty on the part of local jurors when friends, are on trial;

Sympathy of judges for "the poor man" who wants to eat the game to save his cattle and sheep.

[Ill.u.s.tration: (Map of) STATES AND PROVINCES WHICH REQUIRE RESIDENTS TO OBTAIN HUNTING LICENSES, 1912

In Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma and Rhode Island an additional fee of 10 to 20 cents is charged for issuing the license.

Inclosed names indicate States which permit residents to hunt on their own land without license. Nova Scotia has a $5 resident license and exempts landowners.

Note that many of the States adopt the French method of exempting landowners, while some, particularly in the West follow the English method of requiring everyone who hunts to obtain a license.

From Farmers' Bulletin No. 510, U-S. Dept. of Agriculture]

Elsewhere there appears a statement regarding the elk of Jackson Hole, and the efforts made and being made to save them. At this point we are interested in the game of Wyoming as a whole.

First of all, the killing of mountain sheep should absolutely cease, for ten years.

A similar ten-year close season should be accorded moose and p.r.o.ng-horned antelope.

All grouse should now be cla.s.sed with doves and swans (no open season), and kept there for ten years.

Spring shooting is wrong in principle and vicious in practice; and it should be stopped in Wyoming, as elsewhere.

The automatic and pump shotguns when used in hunting are a disgrace to Wyoming, as they are to other states, and should be suppressed; and the silencer for use in hunting is in the black list.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

NEED FOR A FEDERAL MIGRATORY BIRD LAW, NO-SALE-OF-GAME LAW, AND OTHERS

We are a.s.suming 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 dollar's 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 in bird protection.

There are four needs of wild bird life that are fundamental, and that can not 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 close seasons for all species that are about to be "shot out_."

If the gunners of America wish to have a gameless continent, all they need 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 "bag limits" of the United States to-day are just as deadly as the 5,000,000 sporting guns now in use, and the 700,000,000 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 in behalf of wild life. A stranger to this proposition will need to pause for thought in order to grasp its full meaning, and appreciate the magnitude of its influence.

The urgent necessity for a law of this nature is due to the utter 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 can not 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 residents_ of the haunts of birds and game that are exterminating the wild life.

The value of the birds as destroyers of noxious insects, has been set forth in Chapter XXIII. Their total value is enormous--or it _would_ be if the birds were alive and here in their normal numbers. To-day there are about one-tenth as many birds as were alive and working thirty years ago. During the past thirty 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 $100,000,000 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 can not see it_?) a loss of nearly $400,000,000 worth of value that is destroyed by insects. The damage is inflicted silently, insidiously, without any scare heads or wooden 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 this loss_! To-day, 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 outrageous 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 pa.s.sage 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 $250,000,000. 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 sh.o.r.e birds (_great_ destroyers of bad insects); all the swifts and swallows; the goat-suckers (whippoorwill and nighthawk); some of the woodp.e.c.k.e.rs; 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 s.h.i.+ras, 3rd, who as a member of the House in the 58th Congress introduced a bill to secure that end. An excellent brief on that subject by Mr. s.h.i.+ras 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, mention need be made only of the measures under consideration in the present Congress. One of these is a bill introduced by Representative J.W. Weeks, of Ma.s.sachusetts, and another is 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 No. 6497 (Calendar No. 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 farmer's and fruit-grower's best friends. It is ent.i.tled to the enthusiastic support of 90,000,000 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 (1) to urge the speedy consideration of the bill for the federal protection of all migratory birds, (2) to vote for it, and (3) to work for it until it is pa.s.sed. 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 have been 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 Oldys, 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 prohibit the _export_ of their game, as well as the sale of it, a very large quant.i.ty of such game as quail, ruffed grouse, snipe, woodc.o.c.k and sh.o.r.e birds was illegally shot for the market, exported in defiance both of state laws and the federal Lacey 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 neighboring states, there was not merely a loop-hole, but there was a gap wide enough to drive through with a coach and four. The ruffed grouse of Ma.s.sachusetts 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EIGHTEEN STATES ENTIRELY PROHIBIT THE SALE OF GAME WHY DO THE OTHERS LAG BEHIND?]

In 1911, the no-sale-of-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 a.s.semblymen in the lower house, to wage merciless warfare on the whole wild-life 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, or impose bag limits on wild fowl. The Milliners' a.s.sociation proposed to wipe off the books the Dutcher law against the use of the plumage of wild birds in millinery, and an a.s.semblyman was committed to that cause as its special champion.

Then it was that all the friends of wild life in the Empire State resolved upon a death grapple with the Destroyers, and a fight to an absolute finish. The Bayne 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 wild life 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 ma.s.s of people who love wild life, and never kill, were quick to comprehend the far-reaching importance of the measure, and they supported it, with money and enthusiasm.