We have had our warnings. The great auk and the Labrador duck have both become utterly extinct within living memory. The Eskimo curlew is decreasing to the danger point, and the Yellowlegs is following. The lobster fishing is being wastefully conducted along the St. Lawrence; so, indeed, are the other fisheries. Whales are diminishing: the Cape Charles and Hawke Harbour establishments are running, but those at L'Anse au Loup and Seven islands are not. The whole whaling industry is disappearing all over the world before the uncontrolled persecution of the new steam whalers. The walrus is exterminated everywhere in Labrador except in the north. The seals are diminishing. Every year the hunters are better supplied with better implements of butchery. The catch is numbered by the hundreds of thousands, and this only for one fleet in one place at one season, when the Newfoundlanders come up the St. Lawrence at the end of the winter. The woodland caribou has been killed off to such an extent as to cause both Indians and wolves to die off with him. The barren-ground caribou is still plentiful, though decreasing. The dying out of so many Indians before the time of the Low and Eaton expedition of 1893-4 led to an increase of fur-bearing animals. But renewed, improved, increased and uncontrolled trapping has now reduced them below their former level. Hunting for the market seems to be going round in a vicious circle, always narrowing in on the quarry, which must ultimately be strangled to death. The white man comes in with better equipment, more systematic methods and often a "get-rich-and-get-out" idea that never entered a native head. The Indian has to go further afield. The white follows. Their prey shrinks back in diminishing numbers before them both. Prices go up. The hunt becomes keener, the animals fewer and farther off. Presently hunters and hunted will reach the far side of the utmost limits. And then traded, traders and trade will all disappear together. And it might so well be otherwise.
There is another point that should never be passed over. In these days the public conscience is beginning to realize that the objection to man's cruelty towards his other fellow-beings is something more than a fad or a fancy. And wanton slaughter is very apt to be accompanied by shameless cruelty. To kill off parents when the young are helpless.... But I have already given enough sickening details of this. The treatment of the adults is almost worse in many typical cases. An Indian will skin a hare alive and gloat over his quivering death-agonies. The excuse is, "white man have fun, Indian have fun, too." And it is a valid excuse, from one point of view. When "there's nothing in caribou" except the value of the tongue, the tongue has been cut out of the living deer, whose only other value is considered to be the amusement afforded by his horrible fate. And, fiendish cruelty like this is not confined to the outer wilds. When some civilized English-speaking bird-catchers get a bird they do not want, they will deliberately wrench its bill apart, so that it must die of lingering starvation. Sometimes the cruelty is done to man himself. Not so many years ago some whalers secured a lot of walrus hides and tusks by having a whole herd of walrus wiped out, in spite of the fact that these animals were, at that very time, known to be the only food available for a neighbouring tribe of Eskimos. The Eskimos were starved to death, every soul among them, as the Government explorers found out. But Eskimos have no votes and never write to the papers; while walrus hides were booming in the markets of civilization.
Things like these are not much spoken of. They very rarely appear in print. And when they are mentioned at all it is generally with an apology for introducing unpleasant details. But I am sure I need not apologize to gentlemen who are anxious to know the full truth of this great question, who cannot fail to see the connection between wanton destruction and revolting cruelty, and who must be as ready to rouse the moral conscience of our people against the cruelty as they are to rouse its awakening sense of conservation against the destruction.
CONSERVATION
All the sound reasons ever given for conserving other natural resources apply to the conservation of wild life—and with three-fold power. When a spend-thrift squanders his capital it is lost to him and his heirs; yet it goes somewhere else. When a nation allows any one kind of natural resource to be squandered it must suffer a real, positive loss; yet substitutes of another kind can generally be found. But when wild life is squandered it does not go elsewhere, like squandered money; it cannot possibly be replaced by any substitute, as some inorganic resources are: it is simply an absolute, dead loss, gone beyond even the hope of recall.
Now, we have seen verifiable facts enough to prove that Labrador, out of its total area of eleven Englands, is not likely to be advantageously exploitable over much more than the area of one England for other purposes than the growth and harvesting of wild life by land and water. How are these ten Englands to be brought under conservation, before it is too late, in the best interests of the five chief classes of people who are concerned already or will be soon? Of course, the same individual may belong to more than one class. I merely use these divisions to make sure of considering all sides of the question. The five great interests are those of—1. Food. 2. Business. 3. The Indians and Eskimos. 4. Sport, and 5. The Zoophilists, by which I mean all people interested in wild-animal life, from zoologists to tourists.
1. FOOD.—The resident population is so sparse that there is not one person for every 20,000 acres; and most of these people live on the coast. Consequently, the vast interior could not be used for food supplies in any case. Besides, ever since the white man occupied the coast, the immediate hinterland, which used to be full of life, has become more and more barren. Fish is plentiful enough. A few small crops of common vegetables could be grown in many places, and outside supplies are becoming more available. So the toll of birds and mammals taken by the present genuine residents for necessary food is not a menace, if taken in reason. In isolated places in the Gulf, like Harrington, the Provincial law might safely be relaxed, so as to allow the eggs of ducks and gulls to be taken up to the 5th of June and those of murres, auks and puffins up to the 15th. Flight birds might also be shot at any time on the outside capes and islands. There is a local unwritten law down there—"No guns inside, after the 1st of June"—and it has been kept for twenty years. Similar relaxations might be allowed in other places, in genuine cases of necessity. But the egging and out-of-season slaughter done by people, resident or not, who are in touch with the outside world, should be stopped absolutely. And the few walrus now required as food by the few out-living Eskimos should be strictly protected. Of course, killing for food under real stress of need at any time or place goes without saying. The real and spurious cases will soon be discriminated by any proper system.
2. BUSINESS.—Business is done in fish, whales, seals, fur, game, plumage and eggs. The fish are a problem apart. But it is worth noting that uncontrolled exploitation is beginning to affect even their countless numbers in certain places. Whales have always been exploited indiscriminately, and their wide range outside of territorial waters adds to the difficulties of any regulation. But some seasonal and sanctuary protection is necessary to prevent their becoming extinct. The "white porpoise" could have its young protected; and whaling stations afford means of inspection and consequent control. The only chance at present is that when whales become too scarce to pay they are let alone, and may revive a little. The seals can be protected locally and ought to be. The preponderance of females and young killed in the whelping season is a drain impossible for them to withstand under modern conditions of slaughter. The difficulty of policing large areas simultaneously might be compensated for by special sanctuaries. The Americans are protecting their seals by restrictions on the numbers, ages and sex of those killed; and doing so successfully. The fur trade is open to the same sort of wise restriction, when necessary, to the protection of wild fur by the breeding of tame, as in the fox farms, and to the benefits of sanctuaries. Marketable game, plumage and eggs can be regulated at out ports and markets. And the extension of suitable laws to non-game animals, coupled with the establishment of sanctuaries, would soon improve conditions all round, especially in the interest of business itself. No one wants his business to be destroyed. But if Labrador is left without control indefinitely every business dealing with the products of wild life will be obliged to play the suicidal game of competitive grab till the last source of supply is exhausted, and capital, income and employment all go together.
3. INDIANS AND ESKIMOS.—The Eskimos are few and mostly localized. The Indians stand to gain by anything that will keep the fur trade in full vigour, as they are mostly hunters and trappers. Restriction on the number of skins, if that should prove necessary, and certainly on the sale of all poisons, could be made operative. Strychnine is said to kill animals eating the carcases even so far as to the seventh remove. Close seasons and sanctuaries are difficult to enforce with all Indians. But the registration of trappers, the enforcement of laws, the employment of Indians as guides for sportsmen, and other means, would have a salutary effect. The full-bloods, unfortunately, do not take kindly to guiding. Indians wishing to change their way of life or proving persistent lawbreakers might be hived in reserves with their wives and families. The reserves themselves would cost nothing, the Indians could find employment as other Indians have, and the expense of establishing would be a bagatelle. As a matter of fact, in spite of all the bad bargains having always been on the Indian side when sales and treaties were made with the whites, there is enough money to the credit of the Indians in the hands of the Government to establish a dozen hives and keep the people in them as idle as drones on the mere interest of it. But good hunting grounds are better than good hives.
4. SPORT.—Sport should have a great future in Labrador. Inland game birds, except ptarmigan, are the only kind of which there is never likely to be a great abundance, owing to the natural scarcity of their food. But, besides the big game on land and game birds on the coast, there are some unusual forms of sport appealing to adventurous natures. Harpooning the little white whale by hand in a North Shore canoe, or shooting the largest and gamest of all the seals—the great "hood"—also out of a canoe, requires enough skill and courage to make success its own reward. The extension and enforcement of proper game laws would benefit sport directly, while indirectly benefitting all the other interests.