ECONOMIC BIOLOGY 



"vermin" control 



391 



Trapping, hunting, bounty-grabbing and "vermin" control are the most 

 important of man's activities that are directly destructive of our small 

 mammal population; and the most destructive of these is "vermin" control. 

 This has not always been so; "vermin" control is a recently imported in- 

 novation, and was at first confined to a relatively few hunting estates and 

 game farms. These institutions have now increased in number, and have 

 intensified their destruction of "vermin"; prize contests in "vermin" kill- 

 ing, the result of propaganda, and stimulated by ammunition manufactur- 

 ers, have increased all over the country. So-called, but one cannot imagine 

 why — "conservation" departments are encouraging state-wide "vermin" 

 campaigns that are destroying small animals and other wild creatures liter- 

 ally by the hundreds of thousands; while the control campaigns of the 

 Biological Survey wipe out animals by the millions. 



It must first be said with all possible emphasis that there is no justifica- 

 tion for state-wide killijig of a?iimals as ^'vermin.'' "Vermin" is a game- 

 keeper's name for the natural enemies of game; game species are a very small 

 minority of the wild life population of any State; and hunters in most places 

 constitute but a minority of the human population. For gunners to assume 

 that suppression of any and all creatures that they imagine inimical to their 

 "sport" (a minority indulgence based on a minor element of wildlife) must 

 be carried on over the state in general, is sheer arrogance that should be 

 sharply curbed. Their payment of nominal fees to state game departments 

 gives them no right to go roughshod over public interests. Game is a 

 product of the land, and an asset of the landowner; its production is not 

 paid for by license fees going into the state treasury; and its taking with- 

 out compensation is imposition. If its production were really paid for, 

 gunners would find that their license fees would purchase very little. Not 

 only game, but all that the wild life hunters recklessly slaughter as "ver- 

 min" is a product of the soil, and the landowner's interest in it is paramount. 

 It is his right not only to insist that all protective legislation be obeyed, but 

 also, by invoking trespass laws, to prevent any and all killing of wild life 

 on his property. 



"Man's inhumanity to man" aroused the inspired scorn of a great poet, 

 but what could he say that would properly castigate man's inhumanity 

 to the small and defenseless creatures of the wild? Every state of the Union 

 has exterminated some of the forms of wild life inhabiting it when white 

 men took possession, and every state right now is pushing other species 

 into the abyss of extinction. Much of the destruction is being accomplished 

 or instigated by minorities of the population, by cliques, seeking only their 

 own advantage, or sadistic pleasure. The immolation of wild hfe on the 

 altars of fashion, sport, industry, and politics is accomplished by incon- 

 ceivable cruelty. An intelligent people will not permit the wanton waste 



