Does anyone question this statement? If so let him turn backward and look at the lists of dead and dying species.
The Division Of Meat-Shooters contains all men who sordidly shoot for the frying-pan,—to save bacon and beef at the expense of the public, or for the markets. There are a few wilderness regions so remote and so difficult of access that the transportation of meat into them is a matter of much difficulty and expense. There are a very few men in North America who are justified in "living off the country," for short periods. The genuine prospectors always have been counted in this class; but all miners who are fully located, all lumbermen and railway-builders certainly are not in the prospector's class. They are abundantly able to maintain continuous lines of communication for the transit of beef and mutton.
Of all the meat-shooters, the market-gunners who prey on wild fowl and ground game birds for the big-city markets are the most deadly to wild life. Enough geese, ducks, brant, quail, ruffed grouse, prairie chickens, heath hens and wild pigeons have been butchered by gunners and netters for "the market" to have stocked the whole world. No section containing a good supply of game has escaped. In the United States the great slaughtering-grounds have been Cape Cod; Great South Bay, New York; Currituck Sound, North Carolina; Marsh Island, Louisiana; the southwest corner of Louisiana; the Sunk Lands of Arkansas; the lake regions of Minnesota; the prairies of the whole middle West; Great Salt Lake; the Klamath Lake region (Oregon) and southern California.
A MARKET GUNNER AT WORK ON MARSH ISLAND
Killing Mallards for the New Orleans Market. The Purchase of This Island by Mrs. Russell Sage has now Converted it Into a Bird Sanctuary
The output of this systematic bird slaughter has supplied the greedy game markets of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore, Chicago, New Orleans, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle. The history of this industry, its methods, its carnage, its profits and its losses would make a volume, but we can not enter upon it here. Beyond reasonable doubt, this awful traffic in dead game is responsible for at least three-fourths of the slaughter that has reduced our game birds to a mere remnant of their former abundance. There is no influence so deadly to wild life as that of the market gunner who works six days a week, from sunrise until sunset, hunting down and killing every game bird that he can reach with a choke-bore gun.
During the past five years, several of the once-great killing grounds have been so thoroughly "shot out" that they have ceased to hold their former rank. This is the case with the Minnesota Lakes, the Sunk Lands of Arkansas, the Klamath Lakes of Oregon, and I think it is also true of southern California. The Klamath Lakes have been taken over by the Government as a bird refuge. Currituck Sound, at the northeastern corner of North Carolina, has been so bottled up by the Bayne law of New York State that Currituck's greatest market has been cut off. Last year only one-half the usual number of ducks and geese were killed; and already many "professional" duck and brant shooters have abandoned the business because the commission merchants no longer will buy dead birds.
| RUFFED GROUSE A Common Victim of Illegal Slaughter |