Our Vanishing Wild Life Part 42

When the shoe of Necessity pinches the People hard enough, remember the possibilities in deer.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WHITE-TAILED DEER If Honestly and Intelligently Conserved, this Species could be made to Produce on our Wild Lands Two Million Deer per annum, as a new Food Supply From the "American Natural History"]

The best wild animal to furnish a serious food supply is the white-tailed deer. This is because of its persistence and fertility. The elk is too large for general use. An elk carca.s.s can not be carried on a horse; it is impossible to get a sled or a wagon to where it lies; and so, fully half of it usually is wasted! The mule deer is good for the Rocky Mountains, and can live where the white-tail can not; but it is _too easy to shoot_! The Columbian black-tail is the natural species for the forests of the Pacific states; but it is a trifle small in size.

THE EXAMPLE OF VERMONT.--In order to show that all the above is not based on empty theory,--regarding the stocking of forests with deer, their wonderful powers of increase, and the practical handling of the damage question,--let us take the experience and the fine example of Vermont.

In April, 1875, a few sportsmen of Rutland, of whom the late Henry W.

Cheney was one, procured in the Adirondacks thirteen white-tailed deer, six bucks and seven does. These were liberated in a forest six miles from Rutland, and beyond being protected from slaughter, they were left to s.h.i.+ft for themselves. They increased, slowly at first, then rapidly, and by 1897, they had become so numerous that it seemed right to have a short annual open season, and kill a few. From first to last, many of those deer have been killed contrary to law. In 1904-5, it was known that 294 head were destroyed in that way; and undoubtedly there were others that were not reported.

ACCOUNT OF DEER KILLED IN VERMONT, OF RECORD SINCE KILLING BEGAN, IN 1897

_From John W. t.i.tcomb, State Game Commissioner, Lyndonville, Vt., Aug. 23, 1912_

By By By Wounded By By Average Gross Year Hunters, Hunters, Dogs Deer Railroad Various Weight Weight Legally Illegally Killed Trains Accidents (lbs.) (lbs.)

1897* 103 47 1898 131 30 40 3 1899 90 1900 123 1901 211 1902 403 81 50 13 14 171 68,747 1903 753 199 190 142,829 1904 541 1905 497 163 74 22 18 17 198 1906 634 200 127,193 1907 991 287 208 62 31 21 196 134,353 1908 2,208 207 457,585 1909 4,597 381 168 69 24 72 155 716,358

* First open season after deer restored to state in 1875.

DAMAGES TO CROPS BY DEER.--For several years past, the various counties of Vermont have been paying farmers for damages inflicted upon their crops by deer. Clearly, it is more just that counties should settle these damages than that they should be paid from the state treasury, because the counties paying damages have large compensation in the value of the deer killed each year. The hunting appears to be open to all persons who hold licenses from the state.

In order that the public at large may know the cost of the Vermont system, I offer the following digest compiled from the last biennial report of the State Fish and Game Commissioner:

DAMAGES PAID FOR DEER DEPREDATIONS IN VERMONT DURING TWO YEARS

Total damages paid from June 8, 1908, to June 22, 1910 $4,865.98 Total number of claims paid 311 Total number of claims under $5 80 Number between $5 and $10, inclusive 102 Number over $25 and under $51 23 Number between $50 and $100 11 Number in excess of $100 4 Number in excess of $200 1 Largest claim paid $326.50

VALUE OF WHITE-TAILED DEER.--Having noted the fact that in two years (1908-9), the people of Vermont paid out $4,865 in compensation for damages inflicted by deer, it is of interest to determine whether that money was wisely expended. In other words, did it pay?

We have seen that in the years 1908 and 9, the people of Vermont killed, legally and illegally, and converted to use, 7,186 deer. This does not include the deer killed by dogs and by accidents.

Regarding the value of a full-grown deer, it must be remembered that much depends upon the locality of the carca.s.s. In New York or Pittsburg or Chicago, a whole deer is worth, at wholesale, at least twenty-five dollars. In Vermont, where deer are plentiful, they are worth a less sum. I think that fifteen dollars would be a fair figure,--at least low enough!

Even when computed at fifteen dollars per carca.s.s, those deer were worth to the people of Vermont $107,790. It would seem, therefore, that the soundness of Vermont's policy leaves no room for argument; and we hope that other states, and also private individuals, will profit by Vermont's very successful experiment in bringing back the deer to her forests, and in increasing the food supply of her people.

KILLING FEMALE DEER.--To say one word on this subject which might by any possibility be construed as favoring it, is like juggling with a lighted torch over a barrel of gunpowder. Already, in Pennsylvania at least one gentleman has appeared anxious to represent me as favoring the killing of does, which in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of every thousand I distinctly and emphatically do not. The slaughter of female hoofed game animals is necessarily destructive and reprehensible, and not one man out of every ten thousand in this country ever will see the place and time wherein the opposite is true.

At present there are just two places in America, and I think only two, wherein there exists the slightest exception on this point. The state of Vermont is becoming overstocked with deer, and the females have in _some_ counties (not in all), become so tame and destructive in orchards, gardens and farm crops as to const.i.tute a great annoyance. For this reason, the experiment is being made of permitting does to be killed under license, until their number is somewhat reduced.

The first returns from this trial have now come in, from the county game wardens of Vermont to the state game warden. Mr. John W. t.i.tcomb. I will quote the gist of the opinion of each.

The State Commissioner says: "This law should remain in force at least until there is some indication of a decrease in the number of deer."

Warden W.H. Taft (Addison County) says: "The killing of does I believe did away with a good many of these tame deer that cause most of the damage to farmers' crops." Harry Chase (Bennington County) says the doe-killing law is "a good law, and I sincerely trust it will not be repealed." Warden Hayward of Rutland County says: "The majority of the farmers in this county are in favor of repealing the doe law.... A great many does and young deer (almost fawns) were killed in this county during the hunting season of 1909." R.W. Wheeler, of Rutland County says: "Have the doe law repealed! We don't need it!" H.J. Parcher of Was.h.i.+ngton County finds that the does did more damage to the crops than the bucks, and he thinks the doe law is "a just one." R.L. Frost, of Windham County, judicially concludes that "the law allowing does to be killed should remain in force one or two seasons more." C.S Parker, of Orleans County, says his county is not overstocked with deer, and he favors a special act for his county, to protect females.

A summary of the testimony of the wardens is easily made. When deer are too plentiful, and the over-tame does become a public nuisance too great to be endured, the number should be reduced by regular shooting in the open season; but,

As soon as the proper balance of deer life has been restored, protect the does once more.

The pursuit of this policy is safe and sane, provided it can be wrought out without the influence of selfishness, and reckless disregard for the rights of the next generation. On the whole, its handling is like playing with fire, and I think there are very, very few states on this earth wherein it would be wise or safe to try it. As a wise friend once remarked to me, "Give some men a hinch, and they'll always try to take a h.e.l.l." In Vermont, however, the situation is kept so well in hand we may be sure that at the right moment the law providing for the decrease of the number of does will be repealed.

HIPPOPOTAMI AND ANTELOPES.--Last year a bill was introduced in the lower House of Congress proposing to provide funds for the introduction into certain southern states of various animals from Africa, especially hippopotami and African antelopes. The former were proposed partly for the purpose of ridding navigation of the water hyacinths that now are choking many of the streams of Louisiana and Mississippi. The antelopes were to be acclimatized as a food supply for the people at large.

This measure well ill.u.s.trates the prevailing disposition of the American people to-day,--to ignore and destroy their own valuable natural stock of wild birds and mammals, and when they have completed their war of extermination, reach out to foreign countries for foreign species.

Instead of preserving the deer of the South, the South reaches out for the utterly impossible antelopes of Africa, and the preposterous hippopotamus. The North joyously exterminates her quail and ruffed grouse, and goes to Europe for the Hungarian partridge. That partridge is a failure here, and I am _heartily glad of it_, on the ground that the exterminators of our native species do not deserve success in their efforts to displace our finest native species with others from abroad.

The hippo-antelope proposition is a climax of absurdity, in proposing the replacing of valuable native game with impossible foreign species.

CHAPTER XXV

LAW AND SENTIMENT AS FACTORS IN PRESERVATION

There is grave danger that through ignorance of the true character of about 80 per cent of the men and boys who shoot wild creatures, a great wrong will be done the latter. Let us not make a fatal mistake.

After more than thirty years of observation among all kinds of sportsmen, hunters and gunners, I am convinced that it is utterly futile and deadly dangerous to rely on humane, high-cla.s.s sentiment to diminish the slaughter of wild things by game-hogs and pot-hunters.

In some respects, the term "game-hog" is a rude, rough word; but it is needed in the English language, and it has come to stay. It is a disagreeable term, but it was brought into use to apply to a cla.s.s of very disagreeable persons.

A "game-hog" is a hunter of game who knows no such thing as sentiment or conscience in the killing of game, so long as he keeps within the limit of the law. Regardless of the scarcity of game, or of its hard struggle for existence, he will kill right up to the bag limit every day that he goes out, provided it is possible to do so. He uses the "law" as a salve for the spot where his conscience should be. He will shoot with any machine gun, or gun of big calibre, in every way that the law allows, and he knows no such thing as giving the game a square deal. He brags of his big bags of game, and he loves to be photographed with a wagon-load of dead birds as a background. He believes in automatic and pump guns, spring shooting, longer open seasons and "more game." He is quite content to shoot half tame ducks in a club preserve as they fly between coop and pond, whenever he secures an opportunity. He will gladly sell his game whenever he can do so without being found out, and sometimes when he is.

Often a true sportsman drifts without realizing it into some one way of the confirmed game-hog; but the moment he is made to realize his position, he changes his course and his standing. The game-hog is impervious to argument. You can shame a horse away from his oats more easily than you can shame him from doing "what the Law allows."

There are hundreds of thousands of gentlemen and gentlewomen who never once have come in touch with real cloven-footed game-hogs, who do not understand the species at all, and do not recognize its ear-marks.

Thousands of such persons will tell you: "In my opinion, the best way to save the wild life is to _educate the people_!" I have heard that, many, many times.

For right-hearted people, a little law is quite sufficient; and the best people need none at all! But the game-hogs are different. For them, the strict letter of the law, backed up by a strong-arm squad, is the only controlling influence that they recognize. To them it is necessary to say: "You shall!" and "You shall not!"

Only yesterday the latest game-hog case was related to me by a game-protector from Kansas. Into a certain county of southern Kansas, from which the prairie-chicken had been totally gone for a dozen years or more, a pair of those birds entered, settled down and nested. Their coming was to many habitants a joyous event. "Now," said the People, "we will care for these birds, and they will multiply, and presently the county will be restocked."

But Ahab came! Two men from another county, calling themselves sportsmen but not ent.i.tled to that name, heard of those birds, and resolved to "get them." They waited until the young were just leaving the nest: and they went down and camped near by. On the first day they killed the two parent birds and half the flock of young birds, and the next day they got all the rest.

But there is a sequel to this story. One of those men was a dealer in guns and ammunition; and when his customers heard what he had done, "they simply put him out of business, by refusing to trade with him any more." He is now was.h.i.+ng dirty dishes in a restaurant; but at heart he is a game-hog, just the same.

Near Bridgeport, Connecticut, a gentleman of my acquaintance owns a fine estate which is adorned with a trout stream and a superfine trout pond.

Once he invited a business man of Bridgeport to be his guest, and fish for trout in his pond. On that guest, during a visit of three days all the finest forms of hospitality were bestowed.

Two weeks later, my friend's game-warden caught that guest, early on a Sunday morning, _poaching_ on the trout-pond, and spoiled his carefully arranged get-away.

In his book "Saddle and Camp in the Rockies," Mr. Dillon Wallace tells a story of a man from New York who in the mountains of Colorado deliberately corrupted his guides with money or other influences, shot mountain sheep _in midsummer_, and "got away with it."

In northern Minnesota, George E. Wood has been having a hand-to-hand fight with the worst community of game-hogs and alien-born poachers of which I have heard. There appears to be no game law that they do not systematically violate. The killers seem determined to annihilate the last head of game, in spite of fines and imprisonments. The foreigners are absolutely uncontrollable. The latest feature of the war is the discovery of a tannery in the woods, where the hides of illegally-slaughtered deer and moose are dressed. Apparently the only kind of a law that will save the game of northern Minnesota is one that will totally disarm the entire population.

In Pennsylvania, there exists an a.s.sociation which was formed for the express purpose of fighting the State Game Commission, preventing the enactment of a hunter's license law and repealing the law against the killing of female deer and hornless fawns. The continued existence of that organization on that basis would be a standing disgrace to the fair name of Pennsylvania. I think, however, that that organization was founded on secret selfish purposes, and that ere long the general body of members will awaken to a realizing sense of their position, and range themselves in support of the excellent policies of the commission.

A POT-HUNTER is a man or boy who kills game as a business, for the money that can be derived from its sale, or other use. Such men have the same feelings as butchers. From their point of view, they can see no reason why all the game in the world should not be killed and marketed. Like the feather-dealers, they wish to get out of the wild life all the money there is in it; that is all. Left to themselves, with open markets they would soon exterminate the land fauna of the habitable portions of the globe.