There are reasons for the belief that Maine is conserving her large game better than any other state or province in North America. One glance over her laws is sufficient to convince anyone that instead of studying the clamor of her shooting population, Maine has actually been studying the needs of her game, and providing for those needs. If all other states were doing equally well, the task of writing a book of admonition would have been unnecessary. The proof of Maine's alertness is to be found in the number of her extra short, or entirely closed, seasons on game. For example:
People who have not learned the facts habitually think of Maine as a vast killing-ground for deer; and it is well for it to be known that the hunting-grounds have been carefully designated, according to the abundance or scarcity of game.
Maine has wisely chosen to regard her hunting-grounds and her deer as a valuable asset, and she manages them accordingly. To be a guide in that state is to be a good citizen, and a protector of game from illegal slaughter. No non-resident may hunt without a licensed guide. The licenses for the thousands of deer killed in Maine each year, and the expenses of the visiting sportsmen who hunt them, annually bring into the state and leave there a huge sum of money, variously estimated at from $2,000,000 to $3,000,000. One can only guess at the amount from the number of non-resident licenses issued; but certainly the total can not be less than $1,000,000.
Although Mr. L.T. Carleton is no longer chairman of the Commission of Inland Fisheries and Game, the splendid services that he rendered the state of Maine during his thirteen years of service, especially in the creation of a good code of game laws, constitute an imperishable monument to his name and fame.
There is very little that Maine needs in the line of new legislation, or better protection to her game. With the enactment of a resident license law and a five-year close season for woodcock, plover, snipe and sandpipers, I think her laws for the protection of wild life would be sufficiently perfect for all practical purposes. The Pine-Tree State is to be congratulated upon its wise and efficient handling of the wild-life situation.
Maryland:How has it come to pass that Maryland lacks more good wild-life laws than any other state in the Union except North Carolina? Of the really fundamental protective laws, embracing the list that to every self-respecting state seems indispensable, Maryland has almost none save certain bag-limit laws! Otherwise, the state is wide open! It is indeed high time that she should abandon her present attitude of hostility to wild life, and become a good neighbor. She should do what is fair and right about the protection of the migratory game and bird life that annually passes twice through her territory!
At the last session of the Maryland legislature, the law preventing the use of power boats in wild-fowl shooting was repealed. That was a step ten years backward; and Maryland should be ashamed of it!
The list of things that Maryland must do in order to clear her record is a long one. Here it is:
In 1912 the state of Massachusetts moved up into the foremost rank of states, where for one year New York had stood alone. She passed a counterpart of the New York law, absolutely prohibiting the sale of all wild American game in Massachusetts, but providing for the sale of game that has been reared in preserves and tagged by state officers. This victory was achieved only after three months of hard fighting. The coalition of sportsmen, zoologists and friends of wild life in general proved irresistible, just as a similar union of forces accomplished the Bayne law in New York in 1911. The victory is highly instructive, as great victories usually are. It proves once more that whenever the American people can be aroused from their normal apathy regarding wild life, any good conservation legislation can be enacted! The prime necessities to success are good measures, good management, a reasonable campaign fund, and tireless energy and persistence. Massachusetts is to be roundly congratulated on having so thoroughly cleaned up her sale-of-game situation.
Incidentally, five bills for the repeal of the Massachusetts law against spring shooting were introduced, and each one went down to the defeat that it deserved. The repeal of a spring-shooting law, anywhere, is a step backward ten years!
Massachusetts needs a bag-limit law more in keeping with her small remnant of wild life; and that she will have ere long. Very soon, also, her sportsmen will raise the standard of ethics in shotgun shooting, by barring out the automatic and pump shotguns so much beloved by the market shooters. As matters stand at this date (1912) the Old Bay State needs the following new laws:
On the whole, the game laws of Michigan are in excellent shape, and leave little to be desired in the line of betterment except to be simplified. All the game protected by the laws of the state is debarred from sale; squirrels, pinnated grouse, doves and wild turkeys enjoy long close seasons; the bag limits on deer and game birds are reasonably low; spring shooting still is possible on nine species of ducks; and this should be stopped without delay.
Only three or four suggestions are in order:
To-day, direct and reliable advices show that the game situation in Minnesota is far from encouraging. Several species are threatened with extinction at an early date. In northern Minnesota it is reported that much game is surreptitiously trapped and slaughtered. The bob white is reported as threatened with total extinction at an early date; but I think the prairie chicken will be the first bird species to go. Moose will soon be extinct everywhere in Minnesota except in the game preserves. Apparently there is now about one duck in Minnesota for every ten ducks that were there only ten years ago.
Now, what is Minnesota going to do about all this? Is she willing through Apathy to become a gameless state? Her people need to arouse themselves now, and pass several strong laws. Her bag limit of forty-five birds per day of quail, grouse, woodcock and plover, and fifty per day of the waterbirds, is a joke, and nothing more; but it is no laughing matter. It spells extermination.
Mississippi:It is seriously to the discredit of Mississippi that her laws actually classify robins, cedar-birds, grosbeaks and doves as "game," and make them killable as such from Sept. 1 to March 1! I should think that if no economic consideration carried weight in Mississippi, state pride alone would be sufficient to promote a correction of the evil. If we of the North were to slaughter mockingbirds for food, when they come North to visit us, the men of the South would call us greedy barbarians; and they would be quite right.
Missouri:The state of Missouri is really strong in her position as a game-protecting state. She perpetually protects such vanishing species as the ruffed grouse, prairie chicken (pinnated grouse), woodcock, and all her shore birds save snipe and plover. She prohibits the sale of native game and the killing of female deer; but she wisely permits the sale of preserve-bred elk and deer under the tags of the State Game Commission. For nearly all the wild game that is accessible, her markets are tightly closed.
We heartily congratulate Missouri on her advanced position on the sale of game, and we hope that the people of Iowa will even yet profit by her good example.
Montana:Like Colorado and Wyoming, Montana is wasting a valuable heritage of wild game while she struggles to maintain the theory that she still is in the list of states that furnish big-game hunting. It is a fact that ten years ago most sportsmen began to regard Montana as a has-been for big game, and began to seek better hunting-grounds elsewhere. British Columbia, Alberta and Alaska have done much for the game of Montana by drawing sportsmen away from it. Mr. Henry Avare, the State Game Warden, is optimistic regarding even the big game, and believes that it is holding its own. This is partially true of white-tailed deer, or it was up to the time of great slaughter. It is said that in 1911, 11,000 deer were killed in Montana, all in the western part of the state, seventy per cent of which were white-tails. The deep snows and extreme cold of a long and unusually severe winter drove the hungry deer down out of the mountains into the settlements, where the ranchmen joyously slaughtered them. The destruction around Kalispell was described by Harry P. Stanford as "sickening."
Mr. Avare estimates the prong-horned antelope in Montana at three thousand head, of which about six hundred are under the quasi-protection of four ranches.
Montana's bag-limits are not wholly bad; but the grizzly bear has almost been exterminated, save in the Yellowstone Park. Some of these days, if things go on as they are now going, the people of Montana will be rudely awakened to the fact that they have 50,000 licensed hunters but no longer any killable game! And then we will hear enthusiastic talk about "restocking."
Nebraska:No other state has bestowed close seasons upon as many extinct species of game as Nebraska. Behold how she has resolutely locked the doors of her empty cage after all these species have flown: Elk, antelope, wild turkey, passenger pigeon, whooping crane, sage grouse, ptarmigan and curlew. In a short time the pinnated grouse can be added to the list of has-beens.
There is little to say regarding the future of the game of Nebraska; for its "future" is now history.
Nevada still has a few antelope; and we beg her to protect them all from being hunted or killed! It is my belief that if the antelope is really saved anywhere in the United States outside of national parks and preserves, it will be in the wild and remote regions of Nevada, where it is to be hoped that lumpy-jaw has not yet taken hold of the herds.
New Hampshire:Speaking generally, the New Hampshire laws regulating the killing and shipment of game are defective for the reason that on birds, and in fact all game save deer, there appear to be no "bag" limits on the quantity that may be killed in a day or a season. The following bag limits are greatly needed, forthwith:
New Jersey enjoys the distinction of being the second state to break the strangle-hold of the gun-makers of Hartford and Ilion, and cast out the odious automatic and pump guns. It was a pitched battle,—that of 1912, inaugurated by Ernest Napier, President of the State Game and Fish Commission and his fellow commissioners. The longer the contest continued, the more did the press and the people of New Jersey awaken to the seriousness of the situation. Finally, the gun-suppression bill passed the two houses of the legislature with a total of only fourteen votes against it, and after a full hearing had been granted the attorneys of the gunmakers, was promptly signed by Governor Woodrow Wilson. Governor Wilson could not be convinced that the act was "unconstitutional," or "confiscatory" or "class legislation."
This contest aroused the whole state to the imperative necessity of providing more thorough protection for the remnant of New Jersey game, and it was chiefly responsible for the enactment of four other excellent new protective laws.
New Jersey always has been sincere in her desire to protect her wild life, and always has gone as far as the killers of game would permit her to go! But the People have made one great mistake,—common to nearly every state,—of permitting the game-killers to dictate the game laws! Always and everywhere, this is a grievous mistake, and fatal to the game. For example: In 1866 New Jersey enacted a five-year close-season law on the "prairie fowl" (pinnated grouse); but it was too late to save it. Now that species is as dead to New Jersey as is the mastodon. The moral is: Will the People apply this lesson to the ruffed grouse, quail and the shore birds generally before they, too, are too far gone to be brought back? If it is done, it must be done against the will of the gunners; for they prefer to shoot,—and shoot they will if they can dictate the laws, until the last game bird is dead.
In 1912, New Jersey is spending $30,000 in trying to restock her birdless covers with foreign game birds and quail. In brief, here are the imperative duties of New Jersey:
All things considered, the game laws of New Mexico are surprisingly up to date, and the state is to be congratulated on its advanced position. For example, there are long close seasons on antelope, elk (now extinct!), mountain sheep, bob white quail, pinnated grouse, wild pigeon and ptarmigan,—an admirable list, truly. It is clear that New Mexico is wide awake to the dangers of the wild-life situation. On two counts, her laws are not quite perfect. There is no law prohibiting spring shooting, and there is no "model law" protecting the non-game birds. The sale of game will not trouble New Mexico, because the present laws prevent the sale of all protected game except plover, curlew and snipe,—all of them species by no means common in the arid regions of the Southwest.
In the year of grace, 1912, I think we may justly regard New York as the banner state of all America in the protection of game and wild life in general. This proud position has been achieved partly through the influence of a great conservation Governor, John A. Dix, and the State Conservation Commission proposed and created by his efforts. In these days of game destruction, when our country from Nome to Key West is reeking with the blood of slaughtered wild creatures, it is a privilege and a pleasure to be a citizen of a state which has thoroughly cleaned house, and done well nigh the utmost that any state can do to clear her bad record, and give all her wild creatures a fair chance to survive. The people of the Empire State literally can point with pride to the list of things accomplished in the discharge of good-citizenship toward the remnant of wild life, and toward the future generations of New Yorkers. That we of to-day have borne our share of the burden of bringing about the conditions of 1912, will be a source of satisfaction, especially when the sword and shield hang useless upon the walls of Old Age.
New York began to protect her deer in 1705 and her heath hens in 1708. In 1912 she stopped the killing of female deer, and of bucks having horns less than three inches in length. Spring shooting was stopped in 1903. A comprehensive law protecting non-game birds was enacted in 1862. New York's first law against the sale of certain game during close seasons was enacted in 1837.
In 1911 New York enacted, with only one adverse vote, a law prohibiting the sale of all native wild game throughout the state, no matter where killed, and providing liberally for the encouragement of game-breeding, and the sale of preserve-bred game.
In 1912 a new codification of the state game laws went into effect, through the initiative of Governor Dix and Conservation Commissioners Van Kennen, Moore and Fleming, assisted (as special counsel) by Marshall McLean, George A. Lawyer and John B. Burnham. This code contains many important new provisions, one of the most valuable of which is a clause giving the Conservation Commission power, at its discretion, to shorten or to close any open season on any species of game in any locality wherein that species seems to be threatened with extermination. This very valuable principle should be enacted into law in every state!
In 1910, William Dutcher and T. Gilbert Pearson and the National Association of Audubon Societies won, after a struggle lasting five years, the passage of the "Shea plumage bill," prohibiting the sale of aigrettes or other plumage of wild birds belonging to the same families as the birds of New York (Chap. 256). This law should be duplicated in every state.
Two things remain to be done in the state of New York.