Our Vanishing Wild Life Part 49

If the people of Idaho wish to save their wild fauna, they must be up and doing. The time to temporize, theorize, be conservative and easy-going has gone by. It is that fatal policy that causes men to slumber until it is too late to act; and we will watch with keen interest to see whether the real men of Idaho are big enough to do their whole duty in time to benefit their state.

In 1910, Dr. T.S. Palmer credited Idaho with the possession of about five hundred moose and two hundred antelope.

There is one feature of the Idaho game law that may well stand unchanged. The open season on "ibex," of which one per year may be killed, may as well be continued. One myth per year is not an extravagant bag for any intelligent hunter; and it seems that the "ibex"

will not down. Being officially recognized by Idaho, its place in our fauna now seems a.s.sured.

ILLINOIS:

Enact a Bayne law, and stop the sale of all native wild game, regardless of source, and regardless of the gay revelers of Chicago.

In Illinois the bag limits on birds are nearly all at least 50 per cent too high. They should be as follows: No squirrels, doves or sh.o.r.e birds; six quail, five woodc.o.c.k, ten coots, ten rail, ten ducks, three geese and three brant, with a total limit of ten waterfowl per day.

Doves should be removed from the game list.

All tree squirrels and chipmunks should be perpetually protected, as companions to man, unfit for food.

The sale of aigrettes should be stopped, and Chicago placed in the same cla.s.s as Boston, New York, New Orleans and San Francisco.

The use of all machine shotguns in hunting should be prohibited.

The chief plague-spots for the grinding up of American game are Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Orleans and San Francisco. St. Louis cleared her record in 1909. New York thoroughly cleaned her Augean stable in 1911, and Ma.s.sachusetts won her Bayne law by a desperate battle in 1912. In 1913, Pennsylvania probably will enact a Bayne law.

Fancy a city in the center of the United States sending to Norway for 1,500 ptarmigan, to eat, as Chicago did in 1911; and that was only one order.

For forty years the marshes, prairies, farms and streams of the whole upper Mississippi Valley have been combed year after year by the guns of the market shooters. Often the migratory game was located by telegraphic reports. Game birds were slain by the wagon-load, boat-load, barrel, and car-load, "for the Chicago market." And the fool farmers of the Middle West stolidly plowed their fields and fed their hogs, and permitted the slaughter to go on. To-day the sons of those farmers go to the museums and zoological parks of the cities to see specimens of pinnated grouse, crane, woodc.o.c.k, ducks and other species that the market shooters have "wiped out"; and their fathers wax eloquent in telling of the flocks of pigeons that "darkened the sky," and the big droves of prairie chickens that used to rise out of the corn-fields "with a roar like a coming storm."

To-day, Chicago stands half-way reformed. Her markets are open to only one-half the game killable in Illinois, but they are wide open to all "_legally_ killed game imported from other states, from Oct. 1 to Feb.

1." Through that hole in her game laws any game-dealer can drive a moving-van! Of course, any game offered in Chicago has been "legally killed in some other state!" Who can prove otherwise?

In addition to the imported game illegally killed in other states, the starving population of Chicago may also buy for cash, and consume with their champagne in November and December, all the Illinois doves that can be combed out by the market-gunners.

After the awful Iroquois Theatre fire in Chicago, in 1903, the game dealers reported a heavy falling off in the consumption of game! The tragedy caused the temporary closing of the theaters, and the falling off in after-theater suppers may be said to have taken away the appet.i.tes of thousands of erstwhile consumers of game. Incidentally it showed who consumes purchased game.

The people of Illinois should now enact a full-fledged Bayne law, without changing a single word, and bring Chicago up to the level of New York, St. Louis and Boston.

The present bag limits on Illinois game birds are fatally high. As they stand, with 190,000 licensed gunners in the field each year, what else do they mean than extermination? The men of Illinois have just two alternatives between which to choose: drastic and immediate preservation, or a gameless state. Which shall it be?

INDIANA:

Indiana should hasten to stop spring shooting.

She should enact a law, prohibiting the sale for millinery purposes of the plumage of all wild birds save ducks killed in their open season.

A Bayne law, absolutely prohibiting the sale of all native wild game, should be enacted at once.

The killing of squirrels should be prohibited; because they are not white men's game.

Ruffed grouse and quail should have five year close seasons.

The use of pump and autoloading guns in hunting should be prohibited.

In Indiana the white-tailed deer is extinct. This means very close hunting, and a bad outlook for all other game larger than the sparrow.

On October 2, 1912, eleven heads of greater bird of paradise, with plumes attached, were offered for sale within one hundred feet of the headquarters of the Fourth National Conservation Congress. The prices ranged from $35 to $47.50; and while we looked, two ladies came up, one of whom pointed to a bird-of-paradise corpse and said: "There! I want one o' them, an' I'm a-goin' to _have_ it, too!"

IOWA:

Spring shooting should be stopped, at once and forever.

The killing of all tree squirrels and chipmunks should cease.

All sh.o.r.e birds that visit Iowa deserve a five-year close season.

Especially is the shooting of plover, sandpiper, marsh and beach birds, rail, duck, geese and brant from September 1, to April 15, an outrage.

Iowa should prohibit the use of the machine guns, and it is to be hoped that she will awaken sufficiently to do so.

It is said that the Indian word "Iowa" means "the drowsy, or sleepy ones." Politically, and educationally, Iowa is all right, but in the protection of wild life she is ten years behind the times, in almost everything save the prohibition of the sale of game. _Iowa knows better than to pursue the course that she does_! She boasts about her corn and hogs, but she is deaf to the appeals of the states surrounding her on the subject of spring shooting. For years Minnesota has set her a good example; but nothing moves her to step up where she belongs in the phalanx of intelligent game-protecting states.

The foregoing may sound harsh, but in view of what other states have endured from Iowa's stubbornness regarding migratory game, the time for silent treatment of her case has gone by. She is to-day in the same cla.s.s as North Carolina, South Carolina and Maryland,--at the tail end of the procession of states. She cares everything for corn and hogs, but little for wild life.

KANSAS:

Spring shooting should be stopped, at once: with apologies for not having done so long ago.

The continued shooting of prairie chickens when the species is near extermination is outrageous, and should be prohibited for ten years.

Doves should be removed permanently from the game list, partly as a measure of self respect.

Kansas should treat herself to a force of salaried game wardens rendering real service.

She should bar out the machine guns as unfit for use in a well-regulated State.

Kansas has calmly witnessed the extermination of her bison, elk, deer, antelope, wild turkeys, sage grouse, whooping cranes, and the beginning of the end of her pinnated grouse, without a pang. What is wild game in comparison with fat hogs, and seventy-bushels-to-the-acre!

Draw a line around the hog-and-corn area of the United States, and within it you will find more spring shooting, more sale of game and more extermination of species than in any other area in the United States. I refer to Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. In not one of these states except Missouri is there any big game hunting, and in the majority of them spring shooting is lawful!

In the Island of Mauritius, it was swine that exterminated the dodo. In the United States, hogs and game extermination still go hand in hand.

Since the days of the dodo, however, a new species of swine has been developed. It is now widely known as the "game-hog," and it has been officially recognized by both bench and bar.

KENTUCKY:

Nearly everything that a state should maintain in the line of wild life protection _Kentucky lacks_! It is easier to tell what she has than to recite what she should have. Kentucky _permits spring shooting_; she has _no bag limits_, and she has _long open seasons_ on everything save introduced pheasants; She protects from sale only quail, grouse and wild turkey _killed within her own borders_. This means that her markets are practically wide open.

Until recently the people of Kentucky have been very indifferent to the value of her wild-life; but with the new law enacted this year providing for a game commission and a game protection fund, surely every member of the Army of the Defense will wish G.o.d-speed to her efforts in game conservation, and stand ready to lend a helping hand whenever help can be utilized.

Kentucky should at one grand coup _stop spring shooting and all sale of wild game, accord long close seasons to all species that are verging on extinction, protect doves, establish moderate bag limits and stop the use of machine guns_. If she takes up these measures at the rate of only one at each legislative session, by the time her laws are perfect _all her game will be gone_!