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.
- The Missouri bag limits that permit the killing or possession of fifty birds per day are absurd, and fatally liberal. The utmost should be twenty-five; and even that is too high.
- Doves should be taken off the list of game birds, and protected throughout the year; and so should all tree squirrels.
- Spring shooting of shore birds and waterfowl should be prohibited without delay.
- A law against automatic and pump guns should be enacted at the next legislative session, as a public lesson on the raising of the standard of ethics in shooting.
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.
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.
- The antelope need three or four small ranges, such as the Snow Creek Antelope Range, where the bad lands are too rough for ranchmen, but quite right for antelopes and other big game.
- All the grouse and ptarmigan of Montana need a five-year close season. The splendid sage grouse is now extinct in many parts of its previous range. Fifty-eight thousand licensed gunners are too many for them!
- The few mountain sheep and mountain goats that survive should have a five-year close season, at once.
- The killing of female hoofed animals should be prohibited by law.
- Montana has not yet adopted the model law for the protection of non-game birds. Only seven states have failed in that respect.
- The use of automatic and pump shotguns, and silencers, should immediately be prohibited.
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."
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.