We do not now have to depend upon the wild creatures for food, because our flocks and herds supply all that we require. But Dame Fashion has decreed that furs and feathers are still the proper thing to wear. Thus it has come about that those animals that have soft, furry coats and those birds that have bright plumage are hunted more eagerly now than they were long ago when food was the most important thing.
The demand for furs has always been great and the trapping industry has employed thousands of men ever since our land was discovered, but in recent years feathers have become almost as important. No region where fur-bearing animals have their lairs, or birds of beautiful plumage have their nests, is too far away or too difficult for the hunters and trappers to go and hunt.
The business of killing wild creatures for money makes beasts out of men and has led to most heartless cruelties. The savage, hunting for food, kills his prey at once; but the fur trapper with a circuit which takes sometimes a week to cover often has to leave his prey, tortured in the traps, until it starves to death.
If the wearer of that handsome warm fur coat could know what was, perhaps, the story of the wild creature to which it once belonged, would she enjoy it so much? Could the wearer of that gay hat, for the making of which not only a mother bird, but perhaps a whole family of little ones, gave up their lives, take so much pleasure in it if she knew the history of its plumes?
It is not the desire for warm furs about our necks or for beautiful feathers in our hats that is wrong. It is the needless suffering that those who hunt and trap cause the wild creatures that we should be ashamed of and insist upon having stopped.
The work of the trapper and hunter is nearly done. These men have despoiled for money the life of a whole continent in a few short years. The fur-bearing animals, if hunted in moderation, would have continued to people the wilds for all time to come. But neither the wearer of furs nor the hunter has given one thought to their preservation.
In the getting of bird plumage for millinery purposes we find cruelties practiced which are almost beyond our belief. The lowest savage that ever lived on the earth could be no worse than many of our bird hunters.
Birds have habits which make them easier to kill than fur-bearing animals. Although the modern fashion for feathers began less than fifty years ago, the birds that afford bright and graceful plumage have already been nearly exterminated. Now most of them are protected in our country, and the sale of feathers from other countries is prohibited in our markets. But there are some places where the law is not enforced, as well as many other countries where there are no laws, and thoughtless women still wear plumes. To supply the demands of fashion all the remote lands as well as islands of the sea are being searched.
Finley & Bohlman