Our Vanishing Wild Life Part 64

848 " " 542,320 "

Manitoba is to be congratulated on this record.

QUEBEC.--This province has created two huge game preserves, well worthy of the fauna that they are intended to conserve when all hunting in them is prohibited!

_The Laurentides National Park_ is second in area of all the national parks of Canada, being surpa.s.sed only by the Rocky Mountains Park of British Columbia. Its area is 3565 square miles, or 2,281,600 acres. It occupies the entire central portion of the great area surrounded by Lake St. John, the Saguenay River, the wide portion of the St. Lawrence, and the St. Maurice River on the west. Its southern boundary is in several places only 16 miles from the St. Lawrence, while its most northern angle is within 13 miles of Lake St. John. Its greatest width from east to west is 71 miles, and its greatest length from north to south is 79 miles. It covers a huge watershed in which over a dozen large rivers and many small ones have their sources. It is indeed a forest primeval. The rivers are well stocked with fish, and the big game includes moose, woodland caribou, black bear, lynx, beaver, marten, fisher, mink, fox, and--sad to say--the gray wolf. The caribou live in rather small bands, from 10 up to 100.

Unfortunately, hunting under license is permitted in the Laurentian National Park, and therefore it is by no means a _real_ game preserve!

It is a near-preserve.

_The Gaspesian Forest, Fish and Game Preserve_, created in 1906, is in "the Gaspe country," and it has an area of 2500 square miles situated in the eastern Quebec counties of Gaspe and Matane.

_The Connaught National Park_, to be named in honor of H.R.H. the Duke of Connaught, has been proposed by Mr. J.M. Macoun, of the Canadian Geological Survey. The general location chosen is the mountains and forested territory north of Ottawa and the Ottawa River, within easy access from the Canadian capitol. On the map the location recommended lies between the Gatineau River on the east and Wolf Lake on the west.

The proposal is meeting with much popular favor, and it is extremely probable that it will be carried into effect at an early date.

LABRADOR.--During the past two years Lieut.-Col. William Wood has strongly advocated the making of game preserves in Labrador, that will not only tend to preserve the scanty fauna of that region from extinction but will also aid in bringing it back. While Col. Wood's very energetic and praiseworthy campaign has not yet been crowned with success, undoubtedly it will be successful in the near future, because ultimately such causes always win their objects, provided they are prosecuted with the firm and unflagging persistence which has characterized this particular campaign. We congratulate Col. Wood on the success that he _will achieve_ in the near future!

GAME LAWS OF THE CANADIAN PROVINCES

ALBERTA.--The worst feature of the Alberta laws is the annual open season on antelope, two of which may be killed under each license. This is _entirely wrong_, and a perpetual close season should at once be enacted. Duck shooting in August is wrong, and the season should not open until September. It is not right that duck-killing should be made so easy and so fearfully prolonged that extermination is certain. _All killing of cranes and sh.o.r.e birds should be absolutely stopped, for five years_. No wheat-producing province can afford the expense to the wheat crops of the slaughter of sh.o.r.e birds, _thirty species_ of which are great crop-protectors.

The bag limit of two sheep is too high, by 50 per cent. It should immediately be cut down to one sheep, before sheep hunting in Alberta becomes a lost art. _Sheep hunting should not be encouraged_--quite the reverse! There are already too many sheep-crazy sportsmen. The bag limit on grouse and ptarmigan of 20 per day or 200 in a season is simply legalized slaughter, no more and no less, and if it is continued, a grouseless province will be the quick result. The birds are not sufficiently numerous to withstand the guns on that basis. Alberta should be wiser than the states below the international boundary that are annihilating their remnants of birds as fast as they can be found.

BRITISH COLUMBIA.--We note with much satisfaction that the Provincial Game Warden, Mr. A. Bryan Williams, has been allowed $37,000 for the pay of game wardens, and $28,000 for the destruction of wolves, coyotes, pumas and other game-destroying animals. During the past two years the following game-destroyers were killed, and bounties were paid upon them:

1909-10 1910-11

Wolves 655 518 Coyotes 1,464 3,653 Cougars 382 277 Horned Owls 854 2,285 Golden Eagles 29 73 3,374 6,806

"Now," says Warden Williams in his excellent annual report for 1911, "in these two years a total of 2,896 wolves and cougars and 5,141 coyotes were destroyed, as well as a number of others poisoned and not recovered for the bounty. Allowing fifty head for each wolf and cougar and ten for each coyote, by their bounties alone 196,210 head of game and domestic animals were saved. Is it any wonder that deer are increasing almost everywhere?"

The great horned owl has been and still is a great scourge to the upland game birds, partly because when game is abundant "they become fastidious, and eat only the brains of their prey." The destruction of 3,139 of them on the Lower Mainland during the last two years has made these owls sing very small, and says the warden, "Is it any wonder that grouse are again increasing?"

I have discussed with the Provincial Game Warden the advisability of putting a limit of one on the grizzly bear, but Mr. Williams advances good reasons for the opinion that it would be impracticable to do so at present. I am quite sure, however, that the time has already arrived when a limit of one is necessary. During the present year three of my friends who went hunting in British Columbia, _each killed 3 grizzly bears!_ Hereafter I will "locate" no more bear hunters in that country until the bag limit is reduced to one grizzly per year. Since 1905 the trapping of bears south of the main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway has been stopped; and an excellent move too. A Rocky Mountain without a grizzly bear is like a tissue-paper rose.

The bag limit on the big game of British Columbia is at least twice too liberal,--five deer, two elk, two moose (one in Kootenay County), three caribou and three goats. There is no necessity for such wasteful liberality. Few sportsmen go to British Columbia for the sake of a large lot of animals. I know many men who have been there to hunt, and the great majority cared more for the scenery and the wild romance of camping out in ground mountains than for blood and trophies.

MANITOBA.--What are we to think of a "bag limit" of fifty ducks per day in October and November? A "limit" indeed! Evidently, Manitoba is tired of having ducks, ruffed grouse, pinnated and other grouse pestering her farmers and laborers. While a.s.suming to fix bag limits that will be of some benefit to those species, the limit is distinctly off, and nothing short of a quick and drastic reform will save a remnant that will remain visible to the naked eye.

NEW BRUNSWICK.--This is the banner province in the protection of moose, caribou and deer, even while permitting them to be shot for sport. Of course, only males are killed, and I am a.s.sured by competent judges that thus far the killing of the finest and largest male moose has had no bad effect upon the stature or antlers of the species as a whole.

NOVA SCOTIA.--If there is anything wrong with the game laws of Nova Scotia, it lies in the wide-open sale of moose meat and all kinds of feathered game during the open season. If that province were more heavily populated, it would mean a great destruction of game. Even with conditions as they are, the sale permitted is entirely wrong, and against the best interests of 97 per cent of the people.

As previously mentioned, the law against the waste of moose meat is both novel and admirable. The saving of any considerable portion of the flesh of a full-grown bull moose, along with its head, is a large order; but it is right. The degree of accountability to which guides are held for the doings of the men whom they pilot into the woods is entirely commendable, and worthy of imitation. If a sportsman or gunner does the wrong thing, the guide loses his license.

SASKATCHEWAN.--This is another of the too-liberal provinces having no real surplus of big game with which to sustain for any length of time an excess of generosity. I am told that in this province there is now a great deal of open country around each wild animal. And yet, it cheerfully offers two moose, two elk, two caribou and two _antelope_ per season to each licensed gunner or sportsman. The limit is too generous by half. Why throw away an extra $250 worth of game with each license?

That is precisely what the people of Saskatchewan are doing to-day.

And that antelope-killing! It should be stopped at once, and for ten years.

YUKON.--This province permits the sale of all the finest and best wild game within its borders,--moose, elk, caribou, _bison_, musk-ox, sheep and goats! The flesh of all these may be sold during the open season, and for sixty days thereafter. Of the species named above, the barren ground caribou is the only one regarding which we need not worry; because that species still exists in millions. The Osborn caribou (_Rangifer osborni_), can be exterminated in our own times, because it is nowhere really numerous, and it inhabits exposed situations.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII

PRIVATE GAME PRESERVES

Primarily, in the early days of the Man-on-Horseback, the self-elected and predatory lords of creation evolved the private game preserve as a scheme for preventing other fellows from shooting, and for keeping the game sacred to slaughter by themselves. The idea of conserving the game was a fourth-rate consideration, the first being the estoppel of the other man. The old-world owner of a game preserve delights in the annual killing of the surplus game, and we have even heard it whispered that in the Dark Ages there were kings who enjoyed the wholesale slaughter of deer, wild boar, pheasants and grouse. If we may accept as true the history of sport in Europe, there have been men who have loved slaughter with a genuine blood-l.u.s.t that is quite foreign to the real nature-loving sportsman.

In America, the impulse is different. Here, there is raging a genuine fever for private game preserves. Some of those already existing are of fine proportions, and cost fortunes to create. Every true sportsman who is rich enough to own a private game preserve, sooner or later acquires one. You will find them scattered throughout the temperate zone of North America from the Bay of Fundy to San Diego. I have had invitations to visit preserves in an unbroken chain from the farthest corner of Quebec to the Pacific Coast, and from Grand Island, Lake Superior to the Gulf of Mexico. It was not necessarily to hunt, and kill something, but to _see_ the game, and the beauties of nature.

The wealthy American and Canadian joyously buys a tract of wilderness, fences it, stocks it with game both great and small, and provides game keepers for all the year round. At first he has an idea that he will "hunt" therein, and that his guests will hunt also, and actually kill game. In a mild way, this fiction sometimes is maintained for years. The owner may each year shoot two or three head of his surplus big game, and his tenderfoot guests who don't know what real hunting is may also kill something, each year. But in most of the American preserves with which I am well acquainted, the gentlemanly "sport" of "hunting big game" is almost a joke. The trouble is, usually, the owner becomes so attached to his big game, and admires it so sincerely, he has not the heart to kill it himself; and he finds no joy whatever in seeing it shot down by others!

In this country the slaughter of game for the market is not considered a gentlemanly pastime, even though there is a surplus of preserve-bred game that must be reduced. To the average American, the slaughter of half-tame elk, deer and birds that have been bred in a preserve does not appeal in the least. He knows that in the protection of a preserve, the wild creatures lose much of their fear of man, and become easy marks; and shall a real sportsman go out with a gun and a bushel of cartridges, on a pony, and without warning betray the confidence of the wild in terms of fire and blood? Others may do it if they like; but as a rule that is not what an American calls "sport." One wide-awake and well-armed grizzly bear or mountain sheep outwitted on a mountain-side is worth more as a sporting proposition than a quarter of a mile of deer carca.s.ses laid out side by side on a nice park lawn to be photographed as "one day's kill."

In America, the shooting of driven game is something of which we know little save by hearsay. In Europe, it is practiced on everything from Scotch grouse to Italian ibex. The German Crown Prince, in his fascinating little volume "From My Hunting Day-Book," very neatly fixes the value of such shooting, as a real sportsman's proposition, in the following sentence:

"The shooting of driven game is merely a question of marksmans.h.i.+p, and is after all more in the nature of a shooting exercise than sport."

I have seen some shooting in preserves that was too tame to be called sport; but on the other hand I can testify that in grouse shooting as it is done behind the dogs on Mr. Carnegie's moor at Skibo, it is sport in which the hunter earns every grouse that falls to his gun. At the same time, also, I believe that the shooting of madly running ibex, as it is done by the King of Italy in his three mountain preserves, is sufficiently difficult to put the best big-game hunter to the test.

There are times when shooting driven game calls for far more dexterity with the rifle than is ordinarily demanded in the still-hunt.

In America, as in England and on the Continent of Europe, private game preserves are so numerous it is impossible to mention more than a very few of them, unless one devotes a volume to the subject. Probably there are more than five hundred, and no list of them is "up to date" for more than one day, because the number is constantly increasing. I make no pretense even of possessing a list of those in America, and I mention only a few of those with which I am best acquainted, by way of ill.u.s.tration.

One of the earliest and the most celebrated deer parks of the United States was that of Hon. John Dean Caton, of two hundred acres, located near Ottawa, Ill., established about 1859. It was the experiments and observations made in that park that yielded Judge Caton's justly famous book on "The Antelope and Deer of America."

The first game preserve established by an incorporated club was "Blooming Grove Park," of one thousand acres, in Pennsylvania, where great success has been attained in the breeding and rearing of white-tailed deer.

In the eastern United States the most widely-known game preserve is Blue Mountain Forest Park, near Newport, New Hamps.h.i.+re. It was founded in 1885, by the late Austin Corbin, and has been loyally and diligently maintained by Austin Corbin, Jr., George S. Edgell and the other members of the Corbin family. Owners.h.i.+p is vested in the Blue Mountain Forest a.s.sociation. The area of the preserve is 27,000 acres, and besides embracing much fine forest on Croydon Mountain, it also contains many converted farms whose meadow lands afford good grazing.

This preserve contains a large herd of bison (86 head), elk, white-tailed deer, wild boar and much smaller game. The annual surplus of bison and other large game is regularly sold and distributed throughout the world for the stocking of other parks and zoological gardens. Each year a few surplus deer are quietly killed for the Boston market, but a far greater number are sold alive, at from $25 to $30 each in carload lots.

In the Adirondacks of northern New York, there are a great many private game preserves. Dr. T.S. Palmer, in his pamphlet on "Private Game Preserves" (Department of Agriculture) places the number at 60, and their total area at 791,208 acres. Some of them have caused much irritation among some of the hunting, fis.h.i.+ng and trapping residents of the Adirondack region. They seem to resent the idea of the exclusive owners.h.i.+p of lands that are good hunting-grounds. This view of property rights has caused much trouble and some bloodshed, two persons having been killed for presuming to a.s.sert exclusive rights in large tracts of wilderness property.

"In the upland preserve under private owners.h.i.+p." says Dr. Palmer, "may be found one of the most important factors in the maintenance of the future supply of game and game birds. Nearly all such preserves are maintained for the propagation of deer, quail, grouse, or pheasants.

They vary widely in area, character, and purpose, and embrace some of the largest game refuges in the country. Some of the preserves in North Carolina cover from 15,000 to 30,000 acres; several in South Carolina exceed 60,000 acres in extent." The Megantic Club's northern preserve, on the boundary between Quebec and Maine, embraces nearly 200 square miles, or upward of 125,000 acres.

Comparatively few of the larger preserves are enclosed, and on such grounds, hunting becomes sport quite as genuine as it is in regions open to free hunting. In some instances part of the tract is fenced, while large unenclosed areas are protected by being posted. The character of their tenure varies also. Some are owned in fee simple; others, particularly the larger ones, are leased, or else comprise merely the shooting rights on the land. In both size and tenure, the upland preserves of the United States are comparable with the grouse moors and large deer forests of Scotland.