Our Vanishing Wild Life Part 55

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 three inches long may be killed; and that there is a law under which damages by deer to growing crops may be a.s.sessed and paid 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 close seasons of five-years' duration for ruffed grouse, quail, woodc.o.c.k, snipe and all sh.o.r.e birds without a single exception.

The gray 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.

Pa.s.s an automatic pump-gun law.

Extend the term of the Fish and Game Commissioner to four 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, thirteen 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 XXIV.

VIRGINIA:

Virginia is far below the position that she should occupy in wild-life conservation. To set her house in order, and come up to the level of the states that have been born during the past twenty years, she must bestir 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 close season to grouse, and all sh.o.r.e birds.

She should rule out the machine shot-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 short cuts to comprehensive results, and save the game before it is too late.

WAs.h.i.+NGTON:

The state of Was.h.i.+ngton 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 Was.h.i.+ngton need to be told that conditions have greatly 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 sportsmen 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 a.s.sertion.

Ten years ago a few men in Seattle resented the idea of outside co-operation in the protection of Was.h.i.+ngton game. They said they were abundantly able to take care of it; but the march of events has proven that they overestimated their capacity. To-day the wild-life 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 admirable State of Was.h.i.+ngton 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 laws covering the entire state, uniformly. County legislation is twenty years behind the times!_

For ten (10) 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, no matter where killed, by the enactment of a Bayne 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 grouse, every other grouse, quail, and all species of sh.o.r.e birds, then give a five-year close 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.

Provide 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 wild life 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 Was.h.i.+ngton. The deer law is excellent, and the non-game birds, and the dove and wood-duck are perpetually protected.

One fly in the ointment is--spring shooting; which for ducks, geese and brant continues from September 1 to April 20. Unfortunately the law enacted in 1875 against spring shooting has been _repealed,_ and so has the resident hunting license law (1911).

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 re-enacted.

That the resident hunter's license law be re-enacted, 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 ruffed grouse it should be 3 per day (as in New York) or 12 per season. One wild turkey per day, or three per season is quite enough for one man. The visible supply will not justify the existing limit of two and six.

WISCONSIN:

In spite of the fierce fight made in 1910-11 by the saloon-element game-shooters of Milwaukee for the control of the wild-life situation, and the repeal of the best protective laws of the state, the Army of Defense once more defeated 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 steam roller over the enemies of wild life.

Alphabetically, Wisconsin may come near the end of the roll-call; but by downright merit in 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 address Dr. T.S. Palmer, Department of Agriculture, Was.h.i.+ngton.

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 wild life 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, or it will get away from her, after all.

Not another prairie chicken or woodc.o.c.k 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 now is 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 pa.s.s a law shutting out the machine guns. They are a disgrace to our country, and a scourge to our game. Continually are they leading good men astray.

Extend the term of your State Warden to four years.

WYOMING: