Our Vanishing Wild Life Part 54

SOUTH CAROLINA:

She should save her game while she still has some to save.

First of all, stop spring shooting; secondly, enact a Bayne law.

In the name of mystery, who is there in South Carolina who desires to kill grackles? And why?

And where is the gentleman sportsman who has come down to killing foolish and tame little doves for "sport?" Stop it at once, for the credit of the state.

Enact a dollar resident license law and thus provide adequate funds for game protection.

South Carolina bag limits are all 50 per cent too high; and they should be reduced.

It is strange to see one of the oldest of the states lagging in game protection, far behind such new states as New Mexico and Oklahoma; but South Carolina does lag. It is time for her to consider her position, and reform.

SOUTH DAKOTA:

South Dakota should stop all spring shooting.

Her game-bag limits are really no limits at all! They should be reduced about 66 per cent without a moment's unnecessary delay.

The two year term of the State Warden is too short for effective work. It should be extended to four years.

Unless South Dakota wishes to repeat the folly of such states as Indiana, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri and Ohio, she needs to be up and doing. If her people want a gameless state, except for migratory waterfowl, all they need do is to slumber on, and they surely will have it. Why wait until greedy sportsmen have killed the last game bird of the state before seriously taking the matter in hand? In one act, all the shortcomings of the present laws can be corrected.

South Dakota needs no Bayne law, because she prohibits at all times the sale or exportation of all wild game.

TENNESSEE:

In wild life protection, Tennessee has much to do. She made her start late in life, and what she needs to do is to draft with care and enact with cheerful alacrity certain necessary amendments.

We notice that there are open seasons for _blackbirds, robins, doves and squirrels_! It seems incredible; but it is true.

Behold the blackbird as a "game" bird, with a lawful open season from September 1 to January 1. Consider its stately carriage, its rapid flight on the wing, its running and hiding powers when attacked. As a test of marksmanship, as the real thing for the expert wing shot, is it not great? Will not any self-respecting dog be proud to point or retrieve them? And what flesh for the table!

Fancy an able-bodied sportsman going out in a fifty-dollar hunting suit, carrying a fifteen-dollar gun behind a seven-dollar dog, and returning with a glorious bag of twenty-five blackbirds! Or robins! Or doves!

Proud indeed, would we be to belong (which we don't) to a club of "sportsmen" who go out shooting blackbirds, and robins, and foolish little doves, as "game!" "Game" indeed, are those birds,--for little lads of seven who do not know better; but not for boys of twelve who have in their veins any inheritance of sporting blood. (I am proud of the fact that at twelve years of age,--and ever so keen to "go hunting,"--I knew without being told that squirrels and doves were not _real_ "game" for real boys.)

The killers of doves, squirrels, blackbirds and robins belong in the same cla.s.s as the sparrow-and-linnet-killing Italians of Venice, Milan and Turin, and in that company we will leave them.

Tennessee needs:

A resident license system to provide funds for game protection.

A salaried warden force.

A law prohibiting spring shooting of sh.o.r.e birds and waterfowl.

A law protecting robins, doves and other non-game birds not covered by the present statute.

TEXAS:

I remember well when the great battle was fought in Texas by the gallant men and women of the State Audubon Society, to compel the people of Texas to learn the economic value to agriculture and cotton of the insectivorous birds. The name of the splendid Brigadier-General who led the Army of the Defense was Capt. M.B. Davis. That was in 1903.

Since that great fight was won, Texas has been a partly reformed state, at times quite jealous of her bird life; but still she tolerates spring shooting and has not made adequate close seasons for her waterfowl; which is wrong. To-day, the people of Texas do not need to be told that forty-three species of birds feed on the cotton boll weevil; for they know it.

On the whole, and for a southern state, the wild-life laws of Texas are in fairly good shape. On account of the absence of game-scourge markets, a Bayne law is not so imperatively necessary there as in certain other states. All the game of the state is protected from sale.

We do a.s.sert, however, that if robins are slaughtered as F.L. Crow, the former Atlantan a.s.serts, all robin shooting should be forever stopped; that the pinnated grouse should be given a seven-year close season, and that doves should be taken off the list of game birds and perpetually protected, both for economic and sentimental reasons, and also because the too weak and confiding dove is not a "game" bird for red-blooded men.

Texas should enact without delay a law providing close seasons for ducks, geese and other waterfowl;

A law prohibiting spring shooting, and

A provision reducing the limit on deer to two bucks a season.

UTAH:

The laws of Utah are far from being up to the requirements of the present hour. One strange thing has happened in Utah.

When I spent a week in Salt Lake City in 1888, and devoted some time to inquiring into game conditions, the laws of the state were very bad. At the mouth of Bear River, ducks were being slaughtered for the markets by the tens of thousands. The cold-blooded, wide open and utterly shameless way in which it was being done, right at the doors of Salt Lake City, was appalling.

At the same time, the law permitted the slaughter of _spotted fawns_. I saw a huge drygoods box filled to the top with the flat skins of slaughtered innocents, _260 in number_, that a rascal had collected and was offering at fifty cents each. In reply to a question as to their use, he said: "I tink de sportsmen like 'em for to make vests oud of."

He lived at Rawlins, Wyo.

After a long and somnolent period, during which hundreds of thousands of ducks, geese, brant and other birds had been slaughtered for market at the Bear River shambles and elsewhere, the state awoke sufficiently to abate a portion of the disgrace by pa.s.sing a bag-limit law (1897).

And then came Nature's punishment upon Utah for that duck slaughter. The ducks of Great Salt Lake became afflicted with a terrible epidemic disease (intestinal coccidiosis) which swept off thousands, and stopped the use of Utah ducks as food! It was a "duck plague," no less. It has prevailed for three years, and has not yet by any means been stamped out. It seems to be due to the fact that countless thousands of ducks have been feeding on the exposed alluvial flats at the mouth of the creek that drains off the _sewage of Salt Lake City_. The conditions are said to be terrible.

To-day, Utah is so nearly dest.i.tute of big game that the subject is hardly worthy of mention. Of her upland game birds, only a fraction remains, and as her laws stand to-day, she is destined to become in the near future a gameless state. In a dry region like this, the wild life always hangs on by a slender thread, and it is easy to exterminate it!

Utah should instantly stop the sale of game that she now legally provides for,--twenty-five sh.o.r.e birds and waterfowl per day to private parties!

Deer should be given a ten-year close season, at once. All bag limits should instantly be reduced one-half. The sage grouse, quail, swans, woodc.o.c.k, dove, and all sh.o.r.e birds should be given a ten-year close season,--and rigidly protected,--before the stock is all gone.

The model law for the protection of non-game birds should be enacted at once.

The absolute protection of elk, antelope and sheep (until 1913) should be extended for twenty years.

Utah should create a big-game preserve, at once.

If Utah proposes to save even a remnant of her wild life for posterity, she must be up and doing.

VERMONT: