Our Vanishing Wild Life Part 14

[Ill.u.s.tration: A MARKET GUNNER AT WORK ON MARSH ISLAND Killing Mallards for the New Orleans Market. The Purchase of This Island by Mrs. Russell Sage has now Converted it Into a Bird Sanctuary]

The output of this systematic bird slaughter has supplied the greedy game markets of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore, Chicago, New Orleans, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle. The history of this industry, its methods, its carnage, its profits and its losses would make a volume, but we can not enter upon it here. Beyond reasonable doubt, this awful traffic in dead game is responsible for at least three-fourths of the slaughter that has reduced our game birds to a mere remnant of their former abundance.

There is no influence so deadly to wild life as that of the market gunner who works six days a week, from sunrise until sunset, hunting down and killing every game bird that he can reach with a choke-bore gun.

During the past five years, several of the once-great killing grounds have been so thoroughly "shot out" that they have ceased to hold their former rank. This is the case with the Minnesota Lakes, the Sunk Lands of Arkansas, the Klamath Lakes of Oregon, and I think it is also true of southern California. The Klamath Lakes have been taken over by the Government as a bird refuge. Currituck Sound, at the northeastern corner of North Carolina, has been so bottled up by the Bayne law of New York State that Currituck's greatest market has been cut off. Last year only one-half the usual number of ducks and geese were killed; and already many "professional" duck and brant shooters have abandoned the business because the commission merchants no longer will buy dead birds.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RUFFED GROUSE A Common Victim of Illegal Slaughter]

Very many enormous bags of game have been made in a day by market gunners: but rarely have they published any of their records. The greatest kill of which I ever have heard occurred under the auspices of the Glenn County Club, in southern California, on February 5, 1906. Two men, armed with automatic shot-guns, fired five shots apiece, and got ten geese out of one flock. In one hour they killed _two hundred and eighteen geese_, and their bag for the day was _four hundred and fifty geese!_ The shooter who wrote the story for publication (on February 12, at Willows, Glenn County, California) said: "It being warm weather, the birds had to be shipped at once in order to keep them from spoiling." A photograph was made of the "one hour's slaughter" of two hundred and eighteen geese, and it was published in a western magazine with "C.H.B.'s" story, nearly all of which will be found in Chapter XV.

The reasons why market shooting is so deadly destructive to wild life are not obscure.

The true sportsman hunts during a very few days only each year. The market gunners shoot early and late, six days a week, month after month.

When game is abundant, the price is low, and a great quant.i.ty must be killed in order to make it pay well. When game is scarce, the market prices are high, and the shooter makes the utmost exertions to find the last of the game in order to secure the "big money."

When game is protected by law, thousands of people with money desire it for their tables, just the same, and are willing to pay fabulous prices for what they want, when they want it. Many a dealer is quite willing to run the risk of fines, because fines don't really hurt; they are only annoying. The dealer wishes to make the big profit, and _retain his customers_; "and besides," he reasons, "if I don't supply him some one else will; so what is the difference?"

When game is scarce, prices high and the consumer's money ready, there are a hundred tricks to which shooters and dealers willingly resort to ship and receive unlawful game without detection. It takes the very best kind of game wardens,--genuine detectives, in fact,--to ferret out these cunning illegal practices, and catch lawbreakers "with the goods on them," so that they can be punished. Mind you, convictions can not be secured at _both_ ends of the line save by the most extraordinary good fortune, and usually the shooter and shipper escape, even when the dealer is apprehended and fined.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A PERFECTLY LAWFUL BAG OF 58 RUFFED GROUSE FOR TWO MEN From "Rod and Gun in Canada"]

Here are some of the methods that have been practiced in the past in getting illegal game into the New York market:

Ruffed grouse and quail have both been shipped in b.u.t.ter firkins, marked "b.u.t.ter"; and latterly, b.u.t.ter has actually been packed solidly on top of the birds.

Ruffed grouse and quail very often have been shipped in egg crates, marked "eggs." They have been shipped in trunks and suit cases,--a very common method for illegal game birds, all over the United States. In Oklahoma when a man refuses to open his trunk for a game warden, the warden joyously gets out his brace and bitt, and bores an inch hole into the lower story of the trunk. If dead birds are there, the tell-tale auger quickly reveals them.

Three years ago, I was told that certain milk-wagons on Long Island made daily collections of dead ducks intended for the New York market, and the drivers kindly shipped them by express from the end of the route.

Once upon a time, a New York man gave notice that on a certain date he would be in a certain town in St. Lawrence County, New York, with a palace horse-car, "to buy horses." Car and man appeared there as advertised. Very ostentatiously, he bought one horse, and had it taken aboard the car before the gaze of the admiring populace. At night, when the A.P. had gone to bed, many men appeared, and into the horseless end of that car, they loaded thousands of ruffed grouse. The game warden who described the incident to me said: "That man pulled out for New York with one horse and _half a car load of ruffed grouse_!"

Whenever a good market exists for the sale of game, as sure as the world that market will be supplied. Twenty-six states forbid by law the sale of _their own_ "protected" game, but twenty of them do _not_ expressly prohibit the sale of game stolen from neighboring states! That is _a very, very weak point in the laws of all those states_. A child can see how it works. Take Pittsburgh as a case in point.

In the winter and spring of 1912 the State Game Commission of Pennsylvania found that quail and ruffed grouse were being sold in Pittsburgh, in large quant.i.ties. The state laws were well enforced, and it was believed that the birds were not being killed in Pennsylvania.

Some other state was being _robbed_!

The Game Commission went to work, and in a very short time certain game-dealers of Pittsburgh were arrested. At first they tried to bluff their way out of their difficulty, and even went as far as to bring charges against the game-warden whom the Commission had instructed to buy some of their illegal game, and pay for it. But the net of the law tightened upon them so quickly and so tightly that they threw up their hands and begged for mercy.

It was found that those Pittsburgh game-dealers were selling quail and grouse that had been stolen in thousands, from the state of Kentucky!

Between the state game laws, working in lovely harmony with the Lacey federal law that prohibits the shipment of game illegally killed or sold, the whole bad business was laid bare, and signed confessions were promptly obtained from the shippers in Kentucky.

At that very time, a good bill for the better protection of her game was before the Kentucky legislature; and a certain member was vigorously opposing it, as he had successfully done in previous years. He was told that the state was being robbed, but refused to believe it. Then a signed confession was laid before him, bearing the name of the man who was instigating his opposition,--his friend,--who confessed that he had illegally bought and shipped to Pittsburgh over 5,000 birds. The objector literally threw up his hands, and said, "I have been _wrong!_ Let the bill go through!" And it went.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SNOW BUNTING A Great "Game Bird"! Of These, 8,058 Were Found in 1902 in one New York Cold-Storage Warehouse]

Before the pa.s.sage of the Bayne law, New York City was a "fence" for the sale of grouse illegally killed in Ma.s.sachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and I know not how many other states. The Bayne law stopped all that business, abruptly and forever; and if the ruffed grouse, quail and ducks of the Eastern States are offered for sale in Chicago, Cincinnati, Baltimore and Washington, the people of New York and Ma.s.sachusetts can at least be a.s.sured that they are not to blame.

Those two states now maintain no "fences" for the sale of game that has been stolen from other states. They have both set their houses in order, and set two examples for forty other states to follow.

The remedy for all this miserable game-stealing, law-breaking business is simple and easily obtained. Let each state of the United States and each province and Canada _enact a Bayne law, absolutely prohibiting the sale of all wild native game_, and the thing is done! But nothing short of that will be really effective. It will not do at all to let state laws rest with merely forbidding the sale of game "protected by the State;" for that law is full of loop-holes. It does much good service, yes; but what earthly _objection_ can there be in any state to the enactment of a law that is sweepingly effective, and which can not be evaded, save through the criminal connivance of officers of the law?

By way of ill.u.s.tration, to show what the sale of wild game means to the remnant of our game, and the wicked slaughter of non-game birds to which it leads, consider these figures:

DEAD BIRDS FOUND IN ONE COLD STORAGE HOUSE IN NEW YORK IN 1902.

Snow Buntings 8,058 Grouse 7,560 Sandpipers 7,607 Quail 4,385 Plover 5,218 Ducks 1,756 Snipe 7,003 Bobolinks 288 Yellow-legs 788 Woodc.o.c.k 96

The fines for this lot, if imposed, would have amounted to $1,168,315.

Shortly after that seizure American quail became so scarce that in effect they totally disappeared from the banquet tables of New York. I can not recall having been served with one since 1903, but the little Egyptian quail can be legally imported and sold when officially tagged.

Few persons away from the firing line realize the far-reaching effects of the sale of wild game. Here are a few flashes from the searchlight:

At Hangkow, China, Mr. C. William Beebe found that during his visit in =1911=, over =46,000= pheasants of various species were shipped from that port on one cold-storage steamer to the London market. And this when English pheasants were selling in the Covent Garden market at from two to three shillings each, for _fresh_ birds!

In =1910=, =1,200= ptarmigan from Norway, bound for the Chicago market, pa.s.sed through the port of New York,--not by any means the first or the last shipment of the kind. The epicures of Chicago are being permitted to comb the game out of Norway.

In =1910=, =70,000= _dozen_ Egyptian quail were shipped to Europe from Alexandria, Egypt. Just why that species has not already been exterminated, is a zoological mystery; but extermination surely will come some day, and I think it will be in the near future.

The coast of China has been raked and sc.r.a.ped for wild ducks to ship to New York,--prior to the pa.s.sage of the Bayne law! I have forgotten the figures that once were given me, but they were an astonishing number of thousands for the year.

The Division of Negroes and Poor Whites who kill song and other birds indiscriminately will be found in a separate chapter.

THE DIVISION OF "RESIDENT" GAME-BUTCHERS.--This refers to the men who live in the haunts of big game, where wardens are the most of the time totally absent, and where bucks, does and fawns of hoofed big game may be killed in season and out of season, with impunity. It includes guides, ranchmen, sheep-herders, cowboys, miners, lumbermen and floaters generally. In times past, certain taxidermists of Montana promoted the slaughter of wild bison in the Yellowstone Park, and it was a pair of rascally taxidermists who killed, or caused to be killed in Lost Park, in 1897, the very last bison of Colorado.

It seems to be natural for the minds of men who live in America in the haunts of big game to drift into the idea that the wild game around them is all theirs. Very few of them recognize the fact that every other man, woman and child in a given state or province has vested rights in its wild game. It is natural for a frontiersman to feel that because he is in the wilds he has a G.o.d-given right to live off the country; but to-day _that idea is totally wrong_! If some way can not be found to curb that all-pervading propensity among our frontiersmen, then we may as well bid all our open-field big game a long farewell; for the deadly "residents" surely will exterminate it, outside the game preserves. The "residents" are, in my opinion, about ten times more destructive than the sportsmen. A sportsman in quest of large game is in the field only from ten to thirty days; all his movements are known, and all his trophies are seen and counted. His killing is limited by law, and upon him the law is actually enforced. Often a resident hunts the whole twelve months of the year,--for food, for amus.e.m.e.nt, and for trophies to sell. Rarely does a game warden reach his cabin; because the wardens are few, the distances great and the frontier cabins are widely scattered.

Mr. Carl Pickhardt told me of a guide in Newfoundland who had a shed in the woods hanging full of bodies of caribou, and who admitted to him that while the law allowed him five caribou each year, he killed each year about twenty-five.

Mr. J.M. Phillips knows of a mountain in British Columbia, once well stocked with goats, on which the goats have been completely exterminated by one man who lives within easy striking distance of them, and who finds goat meat to his liking.

I have been reliably informed that in 1911, at Haha Lake, near Grande Bay, Saguenay District, P.Q., one family of six persons killed thirty-four woodland caribou and six moose. This meant the waste of about 14,000 pounds of good meat, and the death of several female animals.

In 1886 I knew a man named Owens who lived on the head of Sunday Creek, Montana, who told me that in 1884-5 he killed thirty-five mule deer for himself and family. The family ate as much as possible, the dogs ate all they could, and in the spring the remainder spoiled. Now there is not a deer, an antelope, or a sage grouse within fifty miles of that lifeless waste.

Here is a Montana object lesson on the frame of mind of the "resident"

hunter, copied from _Outdoor Life_ Magazine (Denver) for February, 1912.

It is from a letter to the Editor, written by C.B. Davis.

November 27, 28, 29, and 30, 1911, will remain a red letter day with a half thousand men for years to come. These half thousand men gathered along the border of the Yellowstone National Park, near Gardiner, Montana, at a point known as Buffalo Flats, to exterminate elk. The snow had driven the elk down to the foothills, and Buffalo Flats is on the border of the park and outside the park. The elk entered this little valley for food. Like hungry wolves, shooters, not hunters, gathered along the border waiting to catch an elk off the "reservation" and kill it.

On November 27th about 1500 elk crossed the line, and the slaughter began. I have not the data of the number killed this day, but it was hundreds.

On the 28th, twenty-two stepped over and were promptly executed.

Like Custer's band, not one escaped. On the evening of the 28th, 600 were sighted just over the line, and the army of 125 brave men entrenched themselves for the battle which was expected to open next morning. Before daylight of the 29th the battle began. The elk were over the line, feeding on Buffalo Flats. One hundred and twenty-five men poured bullets into this band of 600 elk till the ground was red with blood and strewn with carca.s.ses, and in their madness they shot each other. One man was shot through the ear,--a close call; another received a bullet through his coat sleeve, and another was shot through the bowels and can't live.

My informer told me he partic.i.p.ated in the slaughter, and while he would not take fifty dollars for what he saw, and the experience he went through, yet he would not go through it again for $1,000. When my informer got back to Gardiner that day there were four sleigh loads of elk, each load containing from twenty to thirty-five elk, besides thirty-two mules and horses carrying one to two each. This was only a part of the slaughter. Hundreds more were carried to other points; and this was only one day's work.

Hundreds of wounded elk wandered back into the park to die, and others died outside the park. The station at Livingston, Montana, for a week looked like a packing house. Carca.s.ses were piled up on the trucks and depot platform. The baggage cars were loaded with elk going to points east and west of Livingston.