Our Vanishing Wild Life Part 35

In chapter XIII, treating of the "Extermination of Birds for Women's Hats," Dr. Hornaday has dealt fully with the feather and plumage traffic after it enters the brokers' hands, and has proved conclusively that the plumes of egrets are gathered from the freshly killed birds. We may trace the course of the plumes and feathers backward through the tightly-packed bales and boxes in the holds of the vessels to the ports of the savage lands whence they were shipped; then to the skilful, dark hands of Mexican peon, Venezuelan Indian, African negro or Asiatic Chinaman or Malay, who stripped the skin from the flesh; and finally to the jungle or mountain side or terai where the bird gave up its life to blowpipe, cross-bow, blunderbuss or carefully set snare.

In various trips to Mexico, Venezuela and other countries in the tropics of the New World I have seen many such scenes, but not until I had completed a seventeen months' expedition in search of pheasants, through some twenty wild countries of Asia and the East Indies, did I realize the havoc which is being wrought week by week everywhere on the globe.

While we were absent even these few months from the great centers of civilization, tremendous advances had been made in air-ships and the thousand and one other modern phases of human development, but evolution in the world of Nature as we observed it was only destructive--a world-wide katabolism--a retrogression often discernible from month to month. We could scarcely repeat the trip and make the same observations upon pheasants, so rapidly is this group of birds approaching extinction.

The causes of this destruction of wild life are many and diverse, and resemble one another only in that they all emanate from mankind. To the casual traveller the shooting and trapping of birds for millinery purposes at first seems to hold an insignificant place among the causes.

But this is only because in many of the larger ports, the protective laws are more or less operative and the occupation of the plume hunter is carried on in secret ways. But it is as far-reaching and insidious as any; and when we add to the actual number of birds slain, the compound interest of eggs grown cold, of young birds perishing slowly from hunger, of the thousands upon thousands of birds which fall wounded or dead among the thick tropical jungle foliage and are lost, the total is one of ghastly proportions.

Not to weaken my argument with too many general statements, let me take at once some concrete cases. First, that of the Himalayan pheasants and game-birds. In a recent interesting article by E.P. Stebbing[H] the past, present and hoped-for future of game birds and animals in India is reviewed. Unfortunately, however, most of the finest creatures in Asia live beyond the border of the British sphere of influence, and though within sight, are absolutely beyond reach of civilized law. The heart of the Himalayas,--the haunts of some of the most beautiful birds in the world, the tragopans, the blood and impeyan pheasants--lies within the limits of Nepal, a little country which time and time again has bade defiance to British attacks, and still maintains its independence. From its northern border Mt. Everest looks down from its most exalted of all earthly summits and sees valley after valley depleted of first one bird and then another. I have seen and lived with Nepalese shepherds who have nothing to do month after month but watch their flocks. In the lofty solitudes time hangs heavy on their hands, and with true oriental patience they weave loop after loop of yak-hair snares, and then set them, not in dozens or scores, but in hundreds and thousands up and down the valleys.

[Footnote H: "Game Sanctuaries and Game Protection in India,"

Proc. Zool. Soc., London, 1912. pp. 23-35.]

In one locality seven great valleys had been completely cleared of pheasants, only a single pair of tragopans remaining; and from one of these little brown men I took two hundred nooses which had been prepared for these lone survivors. In these cases, the birds were either cooked and eaten at once, or sold to some pa.s.sing shepherd or lama for a few annas. But in other parts of this unknown land systematic collecting of skins goes on, for bale after bale of impeyan and red argus (tragopan) pheasant skins goes down to the Calcutta wharves, where its infamous contents, though known, are safe from seizure under the Nepal Raja's seal! Thus it is that the London feather sales still list these among the most splendid of all living birds. And shame upon shame, when we read of 80 impeyan skins "dull," or "slightly defective," we know that these are female birds. Then, if ever, we realize that the time of the bird and the beast is pa.s.sing, the acme of evolution for these wonderful beings is reached, and at most we can preserve only a small fragment of them.

To the millinery hunter, what the egret is to America, and the bird of paradise to New Guinea, the impeyan pheasant is to India--the most coveted of all plumages. There is a great tendency to blame the native hunter for the decrease of this and other pheasants, and from what I have personally seen in many parts of the Himalayas there is no question that the Garwhalese and Nepalese hill-men have wrought havoc among the birds. But these men are by no means the sole cause. As long ago as 1879 we read that "The great demand for the brilliant skins of the moonal that has existed for many years has led to their almost total extermination in some parts of the hills, as the native shikaris shoot and snare for the pot as well as for skins, and kill as many females as males. On the other hand, though for nearly thirty years my friend Mr.

Wilson has yearly sent home from 1,000 to 1,500 skins of this species and the tragopan, there are still in the woods whence they were obtained as many as, if not more than, when he first entered them, simply because he has rigidly preserved females and nests, and (as amongst English pheasants) one c.o.c.k suffices for several hens."

[Ill.u.s.tration: PHEASANT SNARES Made of Yak Hair, Taken from a Shepherd in Nepal by Mr. Beebe]

Ignoring the uncertainty of the last statement, it is rather absurd to think of a single man "preserving" females and nests in the Himalayas from 1850 to 1880, when the British Government, despite most efficient laws and worthy efforts is unable to protect the birds of these wild regions to-day. The statement that after thirty to forty-five thousand c.o.c.k impeyans were shot or snared, as many or more than the original quota remained, could only emanate from the mind of a professional feather-hunter, and Hume should not be blamed for more than the mere repet.i.tion of such figures. Let it be said to the credit of Wilson, the slaughterer of something near forty-five thousand impeyans, that he was a careful observer of the birds' habits, and has given us an excellent account, somewhat coloured by natives, but on the whole, the best we have had in the past. But it is not pleasant to read of his waiting until "twenty or thirty have got up and alighted in the surrounding trees, and have then walked up to the different trees and fired at those I wished to procure without alarming the rest, only those very close to the one fired at being disturbed at each report."

Hume's opinion that in 1879 there were scores of places where one might secure from ten to eighteen birds in a day, is certainly not true to-day. Indeed, as early as 1858 we read that "This splendid bird, once so abundant on the Western Himalayas is now far from being so, in consequence of the numbers killed by sportsmen on account of its beauty.

Whole tracts of mountain forest once frequented by the moonal are now almost without a single specimen." The same author goes on naively to tell the reader that "Among the most pleasant reminiscences of bygone days is a period of eleven days, spent by the author and a friend on the Choor Mountain near Simia, when among other trophies were numbered sixty-eight moonal pheasants, etc."

[Ill.u.s.tration: SILVER PHEASANT SKINS SEIZED AT RANGOON, BRITISH BURMA About 600 Skins out of Several Thousand Confiscated in the Custom House, on their way to the London Feather Market. Photographed by Mr. Beebe]

For some unaccountable reason there is, or was for many years, a very prevalent idea that the enormous number of skins which have poured into the London market were from birds bred in the vicinity of Calcutta. When we remember the intense heat of that low-lying city, and learn from the records of the Calcutta Zoological Garden that impeyans and tragopans are even shorter-lived than in Europe, the absurdity of the idea is apparent. In spite of numberless inquiries throughout India, I failed to learn of a single captive young bird ever hatched and reared even in the high, cool, hill-stations. The commercial value of an impeyan skin has varied from five dollars to twenty dollars, according to the number received annually. In 1876 an estimate placed the monthly average of impeyans received in London at from two to eight hundred.

In such a case as Nepal, direct protective laws are of no avail. All humane arguments are useless, but if the markets at the other end _can be closed_, the slaughter will cease instantly and automatically.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DEADFALL TRAPS IN BURMA A Long Series set Across a Valley, by the Kachins of the Burma-Chinese Border. A Wholesale Method of Wild-life Slaughter, Photographed by C.

William Beebe, 1910]

As a contrast to the millinery hunter of fifty years ago it is refreshing to find that at last sincere efforts are being made in British possessions to stop this traffic. I happened to be at Rangoon when six large bales of pheasant skins were seized by the Custom officials. A Chinaman had brought them from Yunnan via Bhamo, and was preparing to ship them as ducks' feathers. Two of the bales were opened for my inspection. The first contained about five hundred Lady Amherst pheasant skins, falling to pieces and lacking heads and legs. The second held over four hundred silver pheasants, in almost perfect condition.

The chief collector had put the absolutely prohibitive fine of 200 pounds on them, and was waiting for the expiration of the legal number of days before burning the entire lot. They must have represented years of work in decimating the pheasant fauna of western China.

Far up in the wilderness of northern Burma, and over the Yunnan border, we often came upon some of the most ingenious examples of native trapping, a system which we found repeated in the Malay States, Borneo, China and other parts of the Far East. A low bamboo fence is built directly across a steep valley or series of valleys, about half way from the summit to the lower end, and about every fifteen feet a narrow opening is left, over which a heavy log is suspended. Any creature attempting to make its way through, treads upon several small sticks and by so doing springs the trap and the dead-fall claims a victim. When a country is systematically strung with traps such as these, sooner or later all but a pitiful remnant of the smaller mammals, birds and reptiles are certain to be wiped out. Morning after morning I have visited such a runway and found dead along its path, what must have been all the walking, running or crawling creatures which the night before had sought the water at the bottom; pheasants, cobras, mouse-deer, rodents, civets, and members of many other groups. In some countries nooses instead of dead-falls guard the openings, but the result is equally deadly.

I have described this method of trapping because of its future importance in the destruction of wild life in the Far East. The Chinaman in all his many millions is undergoing a remarkably swift and radical evolution both of character and dress. In many ways, if only from the viewpoint of the patient, thrifty store-keeper he is a most powerful factor in the East, and is becoming more so. In many cases he imitates the white nations by cutting off his queue and altering his dress. In some mysterious correlated way his diet seems simultaneously affected, and while for untold generations rice and fish has satisfied all his gastronomic desires, a new craving, that for meat, has come to him. The result is apparent in many parts of the East. The Chinaman is willing and able to pay for meat, and the native finds a new market for the creatures about him. Again and again when I wished a few specimens of some certain pheasant I had but to hail pa.s.sing canoes and bid a few annas or "cash" or "ringits" higher than the prospective Chinese purchaser would give, and the pheasants were mine.

In the catalogues of the brokers' sales of feathers we read of many thousands of the wonderful ocellated wing feathers of the argus pheasant, but no less horrible is the sight of a canoe crammed with the bedraggled bodies of these magnificent birds on their way to some Chinese hamlet where they will be sold for a pittance, the flesh eaten to the last tendon and the feathers given to the children and puppies to play with. The newly-aroused appet.i.te of the Mongolian will soon be an important factor in the extermination of animals and birds, few species being exempt, for the Chinaman lives up to his reputation and is not squeamish as to the nature of his meat.

Before we leave the subject of Chinamen let us consider another recent factor in the destruction of wild life which is at present widely operative in China itself. This is the cold storage warehouse, of which six or eight enormous ones have gone up in different parts of the East.

To speak in detail only of the one at Hankow, six hundred miles up the Yangtze, we found it to be the largest structure in the city. Surrounded by a high wall, with each entrance and exit guarded by armed Sikhs, it seemed like the feudal castle of some medieval baron. Why such secrecy is necessary I could not learn, as there are no laws against its business. But so carefully guarded is its premises that until a short time ago even the British consul-general of Hankow had not been allowed to enter. He, however, at last refused to sign the papers for any more outgoing shipments until he should be allowed to see what was going on within the warehouse. I hoped to be able to look over some of the frozen pheasants for interesting scientific material, but of course was not allowed to do so.

Although here in the heart of China, outside changes are not felt so strongly and the newly-acquired meat diet of the border and emigrant Chinese is hardly apparent, these warehouses have opened up a new source of revenue, which has met with instant response. Thousands and tens of thousands of wild shot or trapped pheasants and other birds are now brought to these establishments by the natives from far and near. The birds are frozen, and twice a year shipped on specially refrigerated P.

and O. steamships to England and the continent of Europe where they seem to find a ready sale. Pigs and chickens also figure in the shipments.

Now the pheasants have for centuries existed in enormous numbers in the endless ricefields of China, without doing any damage to the crops. In fact they could not be present in such numbers without being an important factor in keeping down insect and other enemies of the grain.

When their numbers are decimated as they are being at present, there must eventually result a serious upsetting of the balance of nature. Let us hope that in some way this may be avoided, and that the present famine deaths of thirty thousand or more in some provinces will not be increased many fold.

When I started on this search for pheasants I was repeatedly told by old explorers in the east that my task would be very different from theirs of thirty years ago; that I would find steamers, railroads and automobiles where formerly were only canoes and jungle. I indeed found this as reported, but while my task was different it was made no easier.

Formerly, to be sure, one had from the start to paddle slowly or push along the trails made by natives or game animals. But then the wild life was encountered at once, while I found it always far from the end of the steamer's route or the railroad's terminal, and still to be reached only by the most primitive modes of travel.

I cite this to give point to my next great cause of destruction; the burning and clearing of vast stretches of country for the planting of rubber trees. The East seems rubber mad, and whether the enormous output which will result from the millions of trees set out month after month will be profitable, I cannot say. I can think only of the vanishing of the _entire fauna_ and _flora_ of many districts which I have seen as a direct result of this commercial activity. One leaves Port Swettenham on the west coast of Selangor, and for the hour's run to Kuala Lumpur sees hardly anything but vast radiating lines of spindling rubber trees, all underbrush cleared, all native growths vanished. From Kuala Lumpur to Kuala Kubu at the very foot of the mountain backbone of the Malay Peninsula, the same holds true. And where some area appears not under cultivation, the climbing fern and a coa.r.s.e, useless "lalang" gra.s.s covers every inch of ground. One can hardly imagine a more complete blotting out of the native fauna and flora of any one limited region.

And ever-extending roads for the increasing motor cars are widening the cleared zone, mile after mile to the north and south.

In this region, as we pushed on over the mountains into the wilderness of Pahang, we saw little of the actual destruction of the primeval native growth, but elsewhere it became a common sight. Once, for many days we studied the wonderful life of a jungle which stretched up to our very camp. Troops of rollicking wa-was or gibbons frequented the forest; squirrels, tupaias, birds and insects in myriads were everywhere during the day. Great fruit-bats, flying lemurs, owls and other nocturnal creatures made the evenings and nights full of interest.

And then, one day without warning came the sound of an ax, and another and another. From that moment the songs, cries, chirps and roars of the jungle were seldom heard from our camp. Every day saw new phalanxes of splendid primeval trees fallen, or half suspended in their rigging of lianas. The leaves withered, the flower petals fell and we heard no more the crackling of bamboos in the wind. Then the pitiful survivors of the destruction were brought to us; now a baby flying lemur, flung from its hole by the falling of some tree; young tupaias, nestling birds; a few out of the thousands of creatures from insects to mammals which were slain so that a Chinaman or Malay might eke a few dollars, four or five years hence, from a grove of rubber trees. I do not say it is wrong. Man has won out, and might is right, as since the dawn of creation; but to the onlooker, to the lover of nature and the animal world it is a terrible, a hopeless thing.

One cannot at present leave the tourist line of travel in the East without at once encountering evidence of the wholesale direct slaughter of wild life, or its no less certain extermination by the elimination of the haunts and the food plants of the various beasts and birds.

CHAPTER XXI

THE SAVAGE VIEW-POINT OF THE GUNNER

The mental att.i.tude of the men who shoot const.i.tutes a deadly factor in the destruction of wild life and the extermination of species. Fully ninety-five per cent of the sportsmen, gunners and other men and boys who kill game, all over the world and in all nations, regard game birds and mammals only as things to be killed _and eaten_, and not as creatures worth preserving for their beauty or their interest to mankind. This is precisely the viewpoint of the cave-man and the savage, and it has come down from the Man-with-a-Club to the Man-with-a-Gun absolutely unchanged save for one thing: the latter sometimes is prompted to save to-day in order to slaughter to-morrow.

The above statement of an existing fact may seem harsh; and some persons may be startled by it; but it is based on an acquaintance with thousands of men who shoot all kinds of game, all over the world. My critics surely will admit that my opportunities to meet the sportsmen and gunners of the world are, and for thirty-five years have been, rather favorable. As a matter of fact, I think the efforts of the hunters of my personal acquaintance have covered about seven-tenths of the hunting grounds of the world. If the estimate that I have formed of the average hunter's viewpoint is wrong, or even partially so, I will be glad to have it proven in order that I may reform my judgment and apologize.

In working with large bodies of bird-shooting sportsmen I have steadily--and also painfully--been impressed by their intentness on.

killing, and by the fact that _they seek to preserve game only to kill it!_ Who ever saw a bird-shooter rise in a convention and advocate the preservation of any species of game bird on account of its beauty or its esthetic interest _alive?_ I never did; and I have sat in many conventions of sportsmen. All the talk is of open seasons, bag limits and killing rights. The man who has the hardihood to stand up and propose a five-year close season has "a hard row to hoe." Men rise and say: "It's all nonsense! There's plenty of quail shooting on Long Island yet."

Throughout the length and breadth of America, the ruling pa.s.sion is to kill as long as anything killable remains. The man who will openly advocate the stopping of quail-shooting because the quails are of such great value to the farmers, or because they are so _beautiful_ and companionable to man, receives no sympathy from ninety per cent of the bird-killing sportsmen. The remaining ten per cent think seriously about the matter, and favor long close seasons. It is my impression that of the men who shoot, it is only among the big-game hunters that we find much genuine admiration for game animals, or any feeling remotely resembling regard for it.

The moment that a majority of American gunners concede the fact that game birds are worth preserving for their beauty, and their value as living neighbors to man, from that moment there is hope for the saving of the Remnant. That will indeed be the beginning of a new era, of a millennium in fact, in the preservation of wild life. It will then be easy to enact laws for ten-year close seasons on whole groups of species. Think what it would mean for such a close season to be enacted for all the grouse of the United States, all the sh.o.r.e-birds of the United States, or the wild turkey wherever found!

To-day, the great--indeed, the _only_--opponents of long close seasons on game birds are the gunners. Whenever and wherever you introduce a bill to provide such a season, you will find that this is true. The gun clubs and the Downtrodden Hunters' and Anglers' Protective a.s.sociations will be quick to go after their representatives, and oppose the bill.

And state senators and a.s.semblymen will think very hard and with strong courage before they deliberately resolve to do their duty regardless of the opposition of "a large body of sportsmen,"--men who have votes, and who know how to take revenge on lawmakers who deprive them of their "right" to kill. The greatest speech ever made in the Mexican Congress was uttered by the member who solemnly said: "I rise to sacrifice ambition to honor!"

Unfortunately, the men who shoot have become possessed of the idea that they have certain inherent, G.o.d-given "rights" to kill game! Now, as a matter of fact, a sportsman with a one-hundred-dollar Fox gun in his hands, a two-hundred-dollar dog at his heels and five one-hundred-dollar bills in his pocket has no more "right" to kill a covey of quail on Long Island than my milkman has to elect that it shall be let alone for the pleasure of his children! The time has come when the people who don't shoot must do one of two things:

1. They must demonstrate the fact that they have rights in the wild creatures, and demand their recognition, or

2. See the killable game all swept off the continent by the Army of Destruction.

Really, it is to me very strange that gunners never care to save game birds on account of their beauty. One living bob white on a fence is better than a score in a b.l.o.o.d.y game-bag. A live squirrel in a tree is poetry in motion; but on the table a squirrel is a rodent that tastes as a rat smells. Beside the ocean a flock of sandpipers is needed to complete the beautiful picture; but on the table a sandpiper is beneath contempt. A live deer trotting over a green meadow, waving a triangular white flag, is a sight to thrill any human ganglion; but a deer lying dead,--unless it has an exceptionally fine head,--is only so much butcher's meat.

One of the finest sights I ever saw in Montana was a big flock of sage grouse slowly stalking over a gra.s.sy flat thinly sprinkled with sage-brush. It was far more inspiring than any pile of dead birds that I ever saw. I remember scores of beautiful game birds that I have seen and not killed; but of all the game birds that I have eaten or tried to eat in New York, I remember with sincere pleasure only _one_. Some of the ancient cold-storage candidates I remember "for cause," as the lawyers say.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ONE MORNING'S CATCH OF TROUT, NEAR SPOKANE Another Line of Extermination According to law. Three Times too Many Fish for one rod. In those Cold Mountain Streams, Fish Grow Slowly, and a Stream is Quickly "Fished out"]

Sportsmen and gunners, for G.o.d's sake elevate your viewpoint of the game of the world. Get out of the groove in which man has run ever since the days of Adam! There is something in a game bird over and above its pound of flesh. You don't "need" the meat any longer; for you don't know what hunger is, save by reading of it. Try the field-gla.s.s and the camera, instead of the everlasting gun. Any fool can take a five-dollar gun and kill a bird; but it takes a genius to photograph one wild bird and get "a good one." As hunters, the camera men have the best of it.

One good live-bird photograph is more of a trophy and a triumph than a bushel of dead birds. The birds and mammals now are literally dying for _your_ help in the making of long close seasons, and in the real stoppage of slaughter. Can you not hear the call of the wild remnant?

It is time for the people who don't shoot to call a halt on those who do; "and if this be treason, then let my enemies make the most of it!"