The President of the Boone and Crockett Club, Major W. Austin Wadsworth, Geneseo, N.Y., wrote:
I wish to express officially the admiration of our Club for your paper on Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador, because the whole question of Game Refuges has been one of especial interest to us and we have been identified with all movements in that direction in this country.
Captain R.G. Boulton, R.N., retired, was engaged for many years on the Hydrographic Survey of the Lower St. Lawrence, the Gulf and Newfoundland. He says:
There is no doubt, as regards the conservation of birds, that sea-birds, such as gulls, &c., &c., are useful "aids to navigation," by warning the mariner of the proximity of land, on making the coast. On foggy shores, like those of Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, they are especially useful, and it is to the advantage of the voyaging public to conserve what we have left. While carrying on the Survey of Georgian bay, and North channel of lake Huron, 1883-1893, the Bayfield, my surveying vessel, was more than once kept off the rocks in the foggy weather which prevails in May and June, by the chirping and warbling of land birds.
His Excellency the Right Hon. James Bryce, British Ambassador at Washington, who is a keen botanist and lover of the wilds, writes:
It is painfully interesting. One finds it hard to realize that such wicked waste of the gifts of Providence, and such horrible cruelty, should be going on in our time. You are doing a great service in calling attention to them and I heartily wish you success in your endeavours.
At a special meeting of the Board of Governors of the Camp-Fire Club of America, held on December 12th last, the following resolution was unanimously passed:
"Whereas, the Camp-Fire Club of America desires to express its interest in and endorsement of the plan for the establishment of Bird and Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador, outlined by Lieut.-Colonel William Wood in his address before the Commission of Conservation delivered at Quebec, in January, 1911;
"We believe that the establishment of adequate sanctuaries is one of the most potent factors in the conservation of our rapidly disappearing wild life. The Camp-Fire Club of America has taken, and is taking, an active part in the movement for the establishment of such sanctuaries in various places. We believe that such sanctuaries should be established in Labrador in the near future, while an abundance of undeveloped land is available and before the wild life has been decimated to such an extent as to make its preservation difficult;
"Be it therefore Resolved, that the Secretary convey to Colonel Wood the assurance of our hearty interest in and approval of the plan to establish adequate animal sanctuaries in Labrador, and our hope that such sanctuaries will be established in the near future."
Dr. John M. Clarke, Director, Science Division, New York State Education Department, and a gentleman acquainted with the wild life of the gulf of St. Lawrence, writes:
I have taken much interest in reading your paper. It seems to be based on an extraordinary acquaintance with the situation.
Canada is blessed with many unique natural resorts of animal life and I have been particularly impressed with the invasions that have been made on the wonderful nesting places of the waterfowl. In my repeated stays on the coast of Gaspe and the islands of the Gulf, now running over a dozen years, I have had my attention forced to the hideous sacrifices of bird life that are constantly going on; for example in the Magdalen islands with their extraordinary array of shore birds. The great lagoons within the islands afford ideal breeding conditions, and an extraordinary attraction for the hunter as well.
My observation leads me to the conviction that the shooting law is not in the least respected on these islands, except perhaps by the residents themselves. In some cases the outsider is obliged to wait for the fall migration of the ducks and geese and so comes within the law, but there are plenty of early migrants that arrive during the close season, only to be quickly picked up by the summer hunter, who realizes that he is too far away to incur the law's force.
As far as the shore birds are concerned, it is not the occasional hunter that does the real damage. The islands are becoming widely known to students of birds, and it is the bird student, the member of the Audubon Society, (in most instances, I regret to say, men of my own country) who are guilty of ruthless slaughter of the shore birds for their skins, and particularly for their eggs; all this in the protected season.
The situation is even worse on the Bird rocks. That is a protected area and yet is subject to fearful attacks from the egg hunters. I do not mean the commercial "eggers," but the member of the Audubon Society who has a collection of birds' eggs and skins and wants duplicates in order to enter into exchange with his colleagues. I met there on one of my visits an American "student" who had taken 369 clutches of eggs of each of the seven or more species of waterfowl there breeding, thus destroying at one swoop upwards of two thousand potential birds. It is no wonder that, with such a hideous desecration of the rights of the birds, the population of the Rocks is rapidly decreasing.
I believe the light-keeper is supposed to be a conservator of the birds and to prevent such uncontrolled destruction; but what can he do, a man who is practically exiled from the rest of his race for the entire year, frozen in for six months of the year? He is naturally so overjoyed at the sight of a fellow creature from the big world outside as to indulge him, whatever his collecting proclivities may be. The eggs that are taken by the occasional sailor seem to me to cut no figure at all in the actual diminution of the bird life there. That is a slender thing compared with the destruction caused by the bird students. It is a severe indictment of the ornithologist that such statements as the foregoing happen to be true.
Almost as remarkable for its number of waterfowl of the same species is the roost on the east cliffs of Bonaventure island. These have fortunately been rendered by Nature, thus far, inaccessible and the bird men have not yet found a way of getting among them. Yet, even so, there is constantly a great deal of reckless shooting at the birds simply for the sake of "stirring them up." This place is not protected by law, I believe, as a special reservation, but that might easily be brought about if the matter were placed in the hands of some responsible citizen residing on that island.
There is a happy situation in connection with the great Percé rock at Percé, on the top of which the gulls and cormorants have kept house for untold generations. These birds are a constant temptation to the men with a gun, but the Percé people are so attached to the birds that no one would ever think of killing one, except the occasional French fisherman who will eat a young gull when hard pressed. Any attempt made by outsiders to use the birds as targets is resented so strongly that even the cormorants are let live.
Your address seems to me timely and extremely pertinent. I hope your proposition may receive more than passing attention and the suggestions therein be made effective, for they certainly aim to maintain the natural attractions and the natural resources of the country.