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Our Vanishing Wild Life by William T. Hornaday

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Our Vanishing Wild Life by William T. Hornaday Our Vanishing Wild Life by William T. Hornaday Our Vanishing Wild Life by William T. Hornaday Produced by Paul Murray and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. "_I know no way of judging of the Future but by the Past_." --_Patrick Henry_. REPORT of a select committee of the Senate of Ohio, in 1857, on a bill proposed to protect the passenger pigeon. * * * * * "The passenger pigeon needs no protection. Wonderfully prolific, having the vast forests of the North as its breeding grounds, traveling hundreds of miles in search of food, it is here to-day and elsewhere to-morrow, and no ordinary destruction can lessen them, or be missed from the myriads that are yearly produced." page 1 / 848 "The snipe (_Scolopax wilsonii_) needs no protection.... The snipe, too, like the pigeon, will take care of itself, and its yearly numbers can not be materially lessened by the gun." [Illustration: THE LAST LIVING PASSENGER PIGEON Now in the Cincinnati Zoological Gardens. Twenty years old in 1912. Copyright 1911, by Enno Meyer.] * * * * * THE FOLLY OF 1857 AND THE LESSON OF 1912 * * * * * OUR VANISHING WILD LIFE ITS EXTERMINATION AND PRESERVATION BY WILLIAM T. HORNADAY, Sc.D. page 2 / 848 DIRECTOR OF THE NEW YORK ZOOLOGICAL PARK; AUTHOR OF "THE AMERICAN NATURAL HISTORY"; EX-PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN BISON SOCIETY WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS "Hew to the line! Let the chips fall where they will."--_Old Exhortation_. "Nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice."--_Othello_. NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1913 * * * * * SPECIAL NOTICE For the benefit of the cause that this book represents, the author freely extends to all periodicals and lecturers the privilege of reproducing any of the maps and illustrations in this volume except the bird portraits, the white-tailed deer and antelope, and the maps and pictures specially copyrighted by other persons, and so recorded. This privilege does not cover reproductions in books, without special page 3 / 848 permission. * * * * * [Illustration: Portrait of William Dutcher] TO William Dutcher FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF AUDUBON SOCIETIES, AND LIFE-LONG CHAMPION OF AMERICAN BIRDS THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED BY A SINCERE ADMIRER "_I drink to him, he is not here, Yet I would guard his glory; A knight without reproach or fear Should live in song and story_." --_Walsh_. * * * * * page 4 / 848 FOREWORD The preservation of animal and plant life, and of the general beauty of Nature, is one of the foremost duties of the men and women of to-day. It is an imperative duty, because it must be performed at once, for otherwise it will be too late. Every possible means of preservation,--sentimental, educational and legislative,--must be employed. The present warning issues with no uncertain sound, because this great battle for preservation and conservation cannot be won by gentle tones, nor by appeals to the aesthetic instincts of those who have no sense of beauty, or enjoyment of Nature. It is necessary to sound a loud alarm, to present the facts in very strong language, backed up by irrefutable statistics and by photographs which tell no lies, to establish the law and enforce it if needs be with a bludgeon. This book is such an alarm call. Its forceful pages remind me of the sounding of the great bells in the watch-towers of the cities of the Middle Ages which called the citizens to arms to protect their homes, their liberties and their happiness. It is undeniable that the welfare and happiness of our own and of all future generations of Americans are at stake in this battle for the preservation of Nature against the selfishness, the ignorance, or the cruelty of her destroyers. page 5 / 848 We no longer destroy great works of art. They are treasured, and regarded as of priceless value; but we have yet to attain the state of civilization where the destruction of a glorious work of Nature, whether it be a cliff, a forest, or a species of mammal or bird, is regarded with equal abhorrence. The whole earth is a poorer place to live in when a colony of exquisite egrets or birds of paradise is destroyed in order that the plumes may decorate the hat of some lady of fashion, and ultimately find their way into the rubbish heap. The people of all the New England States are poorer when the ignorant whites, foreigners, or negroes of our southern states destroy the robins and other song birds of the North for a mess of pottage. Travels through Europe, as well as over a large part of the North American continent, have convinced me that nowhere is Nature being destroyed so rapidly as in the United States. Except within our conservation areas, an earthly paradise is being turned into an earthly hades; and it is not savages nor primitive men who are doing this, but men and women who boast of their civilization. Air and water are polluted, rivers and streams serve as sewers and dumping grounds, forests are swept away and fishes are driven from the streams. Many birds are becoming extinct, and certain mammals are on the verge of extermination. Vulgar advertisements hide the landscape, and in all that disfigures the wonderful heritage of the beauty of Nature to-day, we Americans are in the lead. Fortunately the tide of destruction is ebbing, and the tide of conservation is coming in. Americans are practical. Like all other page 6 / 848 northern peoples, they love money and will sacrifice much for it, but they are also full of idealism, as well as of moral and spiritual energy. The influence of the splendid body of Americans and Canadians who have turned their best forces of mind and language into literature and into political power for the conservation movement, is becoming stronger every day. Yet we are far from the point where the momentum of conservation is strong enough to arrest and roll back the tide of destruction; and this is especially true with regard to our fast vanishing animal life. The facts and figures set forth in this volume will astonish all those lovers of Nature and friends of the animal world who are living in a false or imaginary sense of security. The logic of these facts is inexorable. As regards our birds and mammals, the failures of supposed protection in America--under a system of free shooting--are so glaring that we are confident this exposure will lead to sweeping reforms. The author of this work is no amateur in the field of wild-life protection. His ideas concerning methods of reform are drawn from long and successful experience. The states which are still behind in this movement may well give serious heed to his summons, and pass the new laws that are so urgently demanded to save the vanishing remnant. The New York Zoological Society, which is cooperating with many other organizations in this great movement, sends forth this work in the belief that there is no one who is more ardently devoted to the great cause or rendering more effective service in it than William T. Hornaday. We believe that this is a great book, destined to exert a page 7 / 848 world-wide influence, to be translated into other languages, and to arouse the defenders and lovers of our vanishing animal life before it is too late. HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN, 10 December, 1912. _President of the New York Zoological Society_ * * * * * PREFACE The writing of this book has taught me many things. Beyond question, we are exterminating our finest species of mammals, birds and fishes _according to law!_ I am appalled by the mass of evidence proving that throughout the entire United States and Canada, in every state and province, the existing legal system for the preservation of wild life is fatally defective. There is not a single state in our country from which the killable game is not being rapidly and persistently shot to death, legally or illegally, very much more rapidly than it is breeding, with extermination for the most of it close in sight. This statement is not open to argument; for millions of men know that it is literally true. We are living in a fool's paradise. page 8 / 848 The rage for wild-life slaughter is far more prevalent to-day throughout the world than it was in 1872, when the buffalo butchers paved the prairies of Texas and Colorado with festering carcasses. From one end of our continent to the other, there is a restless, resistless desire to "kill, _kill!_" I have been shocked by the accumulation of evidence showing that all over our country and Canada fully nine-tenths of our protective laws have practically been dictated by the killers of the game, and that in all save a very few instances the hunters have been exceedingly careful to provide "open seasons" for slaughter, as long as any game remains to kill! _And yet, the game of North America does not belong wholly and exclusively to the men who kill! The other ninety-seven per cent of the People have vested rights in it, far exceeding those of the three per cent. Posterity has claims upon it that no honest man can ignore._ I am now going to ask both the true sportsman and the people who do not kill wild things to awake, and do their plain duty in protecting and preserving the game and other wild life which belongs partly to us, but chiefly to those who come after us. Can they be aroused, before it is too late? The time to discuss tiresome academic theories regarding "bag limits" page 9 / 848 and different "open seasons" as being sufficient to preserve the game, has gone by! We have reached the point where the alternatives are _long closed seasons or a gameless continent;_ and we must choose one or the other, speedily.
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