ANIMAL SANCTUARIES IN LABRADOR 1 



By LIEUT.-COLONEL WILLIAM WOOD, F.R.S.C. 



Though not a scientific expert on either animals, sanctuaries or 

 Labrador, I can plead a life-long love of animals, a good deal 

 of experience and study of them — especially down the Lower- 

 St. Lawrence — and considerable attention to sanctuaries in 

 general and their suitability to Labrador in particular. More- 

 over, I can plead this most pressingly important fact, that a 

 magnificent opportunity is fast slipping away before our very 

 eyes there, without a single effort being made to seize it. I 

 have repeatedly discussed the question with those best qualified 

 to give sound advice and though I have been careful to consult 

 men who regard such questions from very different points of 

 view and books showing quite as wide a general divergence, 

 I have found a remarkable consensus of opinion in favour of 

 establishing a system of sanctuaries before it is too late. 



Perhaps I might be allowed to explain that I speak simply as 

 a Canadian. I am not connected with any of the material 

 interests concerned. My only object is to prove, from verifiable 

 facts, that animal life in Labrador is being recklessly and 

 wantonly squandered ; that this is detrimental to every one 

 except the get-rich-quickly people who are ready to destroy any 

 natural resources for ever in order to reap an immediate and 

 selfish advantage ; that sanctuaries will better conditions in 

 every way and that the ultimate benefit to Canada — both in a 

 material and a higher sense — will repay over and over again the 

 small present expense required. And this repayment need not 

 be long deferred. I can show that once the public grasps the 

 issues' at stake it will supply enough petitioners to move any 

 government based on popular support and that the scheme 

 itself will supply enough money to make the sanctuaries a 

 national asset of the most paying kind and enough higher 



1 An address presented at the second annual meeting of the Commission of 

 Conservation held at Quebec, January 191 1. 



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