Major J. Stevenson-Hamilton, C.M.Z.S., Warden of the Government Game Reserves of the Transvaal, South Africa, has adopted the platform and given it the most effective endorsement that it has received from any single individual. In his great work on game protection in Africa and wild-animal lore, entitled "Animal Life in Africa" (and "very highly commended" by the Committee on Literary Honors of the Camp-Fire Club), he publishes the entire platform, with a depth and cordiality of endorsement that is bound to warm the heart of every man who believes in the principles laid down in that document. He says, "It should be printed on the back of every license that is issued for hunting in Africa."
I am profoundly impressed by the fact that it is high time for sportsmen all over the world to take to heart the vital necessity of adopting high and clearly defined codes of ethics, to suit the needs of the present hour. The days of game abundance, and the careless treatment of wild life have gone by, never to return.
CHAPTER XLIII
THE DUTY OF AMERICAN ZOOLOGISTS AND EDUCATORS TO AMERICAN WILD LIFE
The publication of this chapter will hardly be regarded as a bid for fame, or even popularity, on the part of the author. However, the subject can not be ignored simply because it is disagreeable.
Throughout sixty years, to go no further back, the people of America have been witnessing the strange spectacle of American zoologists, as a mass, so intent upon the academic study of our continental fauna that they seem not to have cared a continental about the destruction of that fauna.
During that tragic period twelve species of North American birds have been totally exterminated, twenty-three are almost exterminated, and the mammals have fared very badly.
If "by their works ye shall know them," then no man can say that the men referred to have been conspicuous on the firing line in defense of assaulted wild life. In their hearts, we know that in an academic way the naturalists of America do care about wild-life slaughter, and the extermination of species; and we also know that perhaps fifty American zoologists have at times taken an active and serious interest in protection work.
I am speaking now of the general body of museum directors and curators; professors and teachers of zoology in our institutions of learning—a legion in themselves; teachers of nature study in our secondary schools; investigators and specialists in state and government service; the taxidermists and osteologists; and the array of literary people who, like all the foregoing, make their bread and butter out of the exploitation of wild life.