Our Vanishing Wild Life: Its Extermination and Preservation

Part I.--Extermination

Chapter I. FORMER ABUNDANCE OF WILD LIFE II. EXTINCT SPECIES OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS III. THE NEXT CANDIDATES FOR OBLIVION IV. EXTINCT AND NEARLY EXTINCT SPECIES OF MAMMALS V. THE EXTERMINATION OF SPECIES, STATE BY STATE VI. THE REGULAR ARMY OF DESTRUCTION VII. THE GUERRILLAS OF DESTRUCTION VIII. THE UNSEEN FOES OF WILD LIFE IX. DESTRUCTION OF WILD LIFE BY DISEASES X. DESTRUCTION OF WILD LIFE BY THE ELEMENTS XI. SLAUGHTER OF SONG-BIRDS BY ITALIANS XII. DESTRUCTION OF SONG-BIRDS BY SOUTHERN NEGROES AND POOR WHITES XIII. EXTERMINATION OF BIRDS FOR WOMEN'S HATS XIV. THE BIRD TRAGEDY ON LAYSAN ISLAND XV. UNFAIR FIREARMS AND SHOOTING ETHICS XVI. THE PRESENT AND FUTURE OF NORTH AMERICAN BIG GAME--I XVII. THE PRESENT AND FUTURE OF NORTH AMERICAN BIG GAME--II XVIII. THE PRESENT AND FUTURE OF AFRICAN GAME XIX. THE PRESENT AND FUTURE OF GAME IN ASIA XX. DESTRUCTION OF BIRDS IN THE FAR EAST. BY C. WILLIAM BEEBE XXI. THE SAVAGE VIEWPOINT OF THE GUNNER

Part Ii.--Preservation

XXII. OUR ANNUAL LOSSES BY INSECTS XXIII. THE ECONOMIC VALUE OF BIRDS XXIV. GAME AND AGRICULTURE: DEER AS A FOOD SUPPLY XXV. LAW AND SENTIMENT AS FACTORS IN PRESERVATION XXVI. THE ARMY OF THE DEFENSE XXVII. HOW TO MAKE A NEW GAME LAW XXVIII. NEW LAWS NEEDED: A ROLL-CALL OF THE STATES--I XXIX. NEW LAWS NEEDED: A ROLL-CALL OF THE STATES--II XXX. NEW LAWS NEEDED: A ROLL-CALL OF THE STATES--III XXXI. NEW LAWS NEEDED: A ROLL-CALL OF THE STATES--IV XXXII. NEED FOR A FEDERAL MIGRATORY BIRD LAW, NO-SALE-OF-GAME LAW, AND OTHERS XXXIII. BRINGING BACK THE VANISHED BIRDS AND GAME XXXIV. INTRODUCED SPECIES THAT HAVE BEEN BENEFICIAL XXXV. INTRODUCED SPECIES THAT HAVE BECOME PESTS XXXVI. NATIONAL AND STATE GAME PRESERVES AND BIRD REFUGES XXXVII. GAME PRESERVES AND GAME LAWS IN CANADA XXXVIII. PRIVATE GAME PRESERVES XXXIX. BRITISH GAME PRESERVES IN AFRICA XXL. BREEDING GAME AND FUR IN CAPTIVITY XLI. TEACHING WILD-LIFE PROTECTION TO THE YOUNG XLII. ETHICS OF SPORTSMANSHIP XLIII. THE DUTY OF AMERICAN ZOOLOGISTS TO AMERICAN WILD LIFE XLIV. THE GREATEST NEED OF THE CAUSE; AND THE DUTY OF THE HOUR

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ILLUSTRATIONS

The Folly of 1857 and the Lesson of 1912 Frontispiece Shall We Leave Any One of Them Open? Six Recently Exterminated North American Birds Sacred to the Memory of Exterminated Birds Whooping Cranes in the Zoological Park California Condor Primated Grouse, or "Prairie Chicken" Sage Grouse Snowy Egrets in the McIlhenny Preserve Wood-Duck Gray Squirrel Skeleton of a Rhytina Burchell's Zebra Thylacine, or Tasmanian Wolf West Indian Seal California Elephant Seal The Regular Army of Destruction G.O. Shields Two Gunners of Kansas City Why the Sandhill Crane is Becoming Extinct A Market Gunner at Work on Marsh Island Ruffed Grouse A Lawful Bag of Ruffed Grouse Snow Bunting A Hunting Cat and Its Victim Eastern Red Squirrel Cooper's Hawk Sharp-Shinned Hawk The Cat that Killed Fifty-eight Birds in One Year An Italian Roccolo on Lake Como Dead Song-Birds The Robin of the North The Mocking-Bird of the South Northern Robins Ready for Southern Slaughter Southern-Negro Method of Combing Out the Wild Life Beautiful and Curious Birds Destroyed for the Feather Trade--I Sixteen Hundred Hummingbirds at Two Cents Each Beautiful and Curious Birds Destroyed for the Feather Trade--II Beautiful and Curious Birds--III Fight in England Against the Use of Plumage Young Egrets, Unable to Fly, Starving Snowy Egret Dead on Her Nest Miscellaneous Bird Skins, Eight Cents Each Laysan Albatrosses, Before the Great Slaughter Laysan Albatross Rookery, After the Great Slaughter Acres of Gull and Albatross Bones Shed Filled with Wings of Slaughtered Birds Four of the Seven Machine Guns The Champion Game-Slaughter Case Slaughtered According to Law A Letter that Tells its Own Story The "Sunday Gun" The Prong-Horned Antelope Hungry Elk in Jackson Hole The Wichita National Bison Herd Pheasant Snares Pheasant Skins Seized at Rangoon Deadfall Traps in Burma One Morning's Catch of Trout near Spokane The Cut-Worm The Gypsy Moth Downy Woodpecker Baltimore Oriole Nighthawk Purple Martin Bob-White Rose-Breasted Grosbeak Barn Owl Golden-Winged Woodpecker Kildeer Plover Jacksnipe A Food Supply of White-Tailed Deer White-Tailed Deer Notable Protectors of Wild Life: Madison Grant, Henry Fairfield Osborn, John F. Lacey, and William Dutcher Notable Protectors: Forbush, Pearson, Burnham, Napier Notable Protectors: Phillips, Kalbfus, McIlhenny, Ward Band-Tailed Pigeon Six Wild Chipmunks Dine with Mr. Loring Chickadee, Tamed Chipmunk, Tamed Object Lesson in Bringing Back the Ducks Gulls and Terns of Our Coast Egrets and Herons in Sanctuary on Marsh Island Bird Day at Carrick, Pa Distributing Bird Boxes and Fruit Trees

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MAPS

The Wilderness of North America Former and Existing Ranges of the Elk Map Showing the Disappearance of the Lion States and Provinces Requiring Resident Licenses. Eighteen States Prohibit the Sale of Game Map Used in Campaign for Bayne Law United States National Game Preserves Bird Reservations on the Gulf Coast and Florida Marsh Island and Adjacent Preserves Most Important Game Preserves of Africa

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OUR VANISHING WILD LIFE

Part I. Extermination

CHAPTER I

THE FORMER ABUNDANCE OF WILD LIFE

"By my labors my vineyard flourished. But Ahab came. Alas! for Naboth."

In order that the American people may correctly understand and judge the question of the extinction or preservation of our wild life, it is necessary to recall the near past. It is not necessary, however, to go far into the details of history; for a few quick glances at a few high points will be quite sufficient for the purpose in view.

Any man who reads the books which best tell the story of the development of the American colonies of 1712 into the American nation of 1912, and takes due note of the wild-life features of the tale, will say without hesitation that when the American people received this land from the bountiful hand of Nature, it was endowed with a magnificent and all-pervading supply of valuable wild creatures. The pioneers and the early settlers were too busy even to take due note of that fact, or to comment upon it, save in very fragmentary ways.

Nevertheless, the wild-life abundance of early American days survived down to so late a period that it touched the lives of millions of people now living. Any man 55 years of age who when a boy had a taste for "hunting,"--for at that time there were no "sportsmen" in America,--will remember the flocks and herds of wild creatures that he saw and which made upon his mind many indelible impressions.

"Abundance" is the word with which to describe the original animal life that stocked our country, and all North America, only a short half-century ago. Throughout every state, on every shore-line, in all the millions of fresh water lakes, ponds and rivers, on every mountain range, in every forest, and even on every desert, the wild flocks and herds held sway. It was impossible to go beyond the settled haunts of civilized man and escape them.

It was a full century after the complete settlement of New England and the Virginia colonies that the wonderful big-game fauna of the great plains and Rocky Mountains was really discovered; but the bison millions, the antelope millions, the mule deer, the mountain sheep and mountain goat were there, all the time. In the early days, the millions of pinnated grouse and quail of the central states attracted no serious attention from the American people-at-large; but they lived and flourished just the same, far down in the seventies, when the greedy market gunners systematically slaughtered them, and barreled them up for "the market," while the foolish farmers calmly permitted them to do it.

We obtain the best of our history of the former abundance of North American wild life first from the pages of Audubon and Wilson; next, from the records left by such pioneers as Lewis and Clark, and last from the testimony of living men. To all this we can, many of us, add observations of our own.

To me the most striking fact that stands forth in the story of American wild life one hundred years ago is the wide extent and thoroughness of its distribution. Wide as our country is, and marvelous as it is in the diversity of its climates, its soils, its topography, its flora, its riches and its poverty, Nature gave to each square mile and to each acre a generous quota of wild creatures, according to its ability to maintain living things. No pioneer ever pushed so far, or into regions so difficult or so remote, that he did not find awaiting him a host of birds and beasts. Sometimes the pioneer was not a good hunter; usually he was a stupid fisherman; but the "game" was there, nevertheless. The time was when every farm had its quota.

The part that the wild life of America played in the settlement and development of this continent was so far-reaching in extent, and so enormous in potential value, that it fairly staggers the imagination. From the landing of the Pilgrims down to the present hour the wild game has been the mainstay and the resource against starvation of the pathfinder, the settler, the prospector, and at times even the railroad-builder. In view of what the bison millions did for the Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming, Kansas and Texas, it is only right and square that those states should now do something for the perpetual preservation of the bison species and all other big game that needs help.

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