Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation

William Temple Hornaday

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• Publié par: naver
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 58
• Langue: English
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Title: Our Vanishing Wild Life
Its Extermination and Preservation
Author: William T. Hornaday
Release Date: August 22, 2004 [EBook #13249]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUR VANISHING WILD LIFE ***
Produced by Paul Murray and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
OUR VANISHING
WILD LIFE
ITS
EXTERMINATION AND PRESERVATIONBY
WILLIAM T. HORNADAY, Sc.D.
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
Copyright, 1913, by
WILLIAM T. HORNADAY
First Publication, Jan, 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 permission.
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 vii]
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.
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,
[Page viii]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 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
worldwide 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
[Page ix]
PREFACEThe 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.
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
ninetenths 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" 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. A continent without wild life is
like a forest with no leaves on the trees.
[Page x]The great increase in the slaughter of song birds for food, by the negroes and poor whites of the South, has
become an unbearable scourge to our migratory birds,—the very b