The foregoing may sound harsh, but in view of what other states have endured from Iowa's stubbornness regarding migratory game, the time for silent treatment of her case has gone by. She is to-day in the same class as North Carolina, South Carolina and Maryland,—at the tail end of the procession of states. She cares everything for corn and hogs, but little for wild life.
- Spring shooting should be stopped, at once: with apologies for not having done so long ago.
- The continued shooting of prairie chickens when the species is near extermination is outrageous, and should be prohibited for ten years.
- Doves should be removed permanently from the game list, partly as a measure of self respect.
- Kansas should treat herself to a force of salaried game wardens rendering real service.
- She should bar out the machine guns as unfit for use in a well-regulated State.
Kansas has calmly witnessed the extermination of her bison, elk, deer, antelope, wild turkeys, sage grouse, whooping cranes, and the beginning of the end of her pinnated grouse, without a pang. What is wild game in comparison with fat hogs, and seventy-bushels-to-the-acre!
Draw a line around the hog-and-corn area of the United States, and within it you will find more spring shooting, more sale of game and more extermination of species than in any other area in the United States. I refer to Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. In not one of these states except Missouri is there any big game hunting, and in the majority of them spring shooting is lawful!
In the Island of Mauritius, it was swine that exterminated the dodo. In the United States, hogs and game extermination still go hand in hand. Since the days of the dodo, however, a new species of swine has been developed. It is now widely known as the "game-hog," and it has been officially recognized by both bench and bar.
Nearly everything that a state should maintain in the line of wild life protection Kentucky lacks! It is easier to tell what she has than to recite what she should have. Kentucky permits spring shooting; she has no bag limits, and she has long open seasons on everything save introduced pheasants; She protects from sale only quail, grouse and wild turkey killed within her own borders. This means that her markets are practically wide open.
Until recently the people of Kentucky have been very indifferent to the value of her wild-life; but with the new law enacted this year providing for a game commission and a game protection fund, surely every member of the Army of the Defense will wish God-speed to her efforts in game conservation, and stand ready to lend a helping hand whenever help can be utilized.
Kentucky should at one grand coup stop spring shooting and all sale of wild game, accord long close seasons to all species that are verging on extinction, protect doves, establish moderate bag limits and stop the use of machine guns. If she takes up these measures at the rate of only one at each legislative session, by the time her laws are perfect all her game will be gone!
On more counts than one, Louisiana is in the list of Great Delinquents; for behold the things that she needs to do:
- Protect deer for five years.
- Instantly take the robin, red-winged black-bird, dove, grosbeak, wood-duck and gull off the list of birds that may be killed as "game."
- Stop all late winter and spring shooting.
- Stop the sale of all native game, and the possession and transportation of game sold or intended for sale. In short,
- Enact a Bayne law.
- Re-establish a game warden system.