AMERICAN GAME PROTECTION 



By T. S. Palmer 



Of the U. S. Biological Survey 



AME protection in the United States has been gradually developing during a 

 period of nearly three hundred years and has been marked by an immense 

 volume of legislation. In no other country in the world have laws for the pro- 

 tection of game been passed in such numbers or amended so frequently. 



The history of the development of the complex game laws of today from 

 the simple provisions of colonial times is both interesting and valuable in 

 showing the numerous experiments which have been tried and have resulted 

 in failure, and in throwing light on present problems. Many provisions, such 

 as restrictions on sale and export, considered recent, are in reality very old; 

 while, on the other hand, legislation prohibiting spring shooting of waterfowl 

 and summer shooting of woodcock and shore birds is comparatively recent, owing in large 

 measure to the generally accepted, but erroneous, idea that migratory birds require little 

 protection and may be shot as long as they are present in spring and as soon as they appear 

 in late summer. The earliest game laws were probably the fowling and hunting rights 

 conferred, in 1623, on the Plymouth colonists in Massachusetts; the hunting privileges 

 granted, in 1629, by the West India Company to persons planting colonies in New 

 Netherlands; and the provisions regarding the right of hunting in the New Jersey 

 Concessions of Agreements of 1678. The succeeding years may be conveniently divided into 

 two periods of approximately equal length — a colonial period and a modern period. The 

 latter period is the more important and the one with which we are mainly concerned. In 

 the century and a third since the Revolution a vast number of experiments have been 

 made in game protection. 



GAME LAWS IN THE i8tH AND I9TH CENTURIES 



At the end of the colonial period twelve colonies had enacted game laws. Close seasons 

 had been provided for deer in all the colonies except Georgia; and for wild turkeys, heath 

 hens, partridges, and quail in New York. Several of the colonies had laws prohibiting 

 hunting on Sunday or hunting with fire at night. Massachusetts in 1710 prohibited 

 the use of boats or canoes with sails, or canoes disguised with hay, sedge, or seaweed for 

 hunting waterfowl. Restrictions on the export and sale of deerskins were also in force 

 in some of the colonies. The beginnings of the warden system had been made in 

 Massachusetts and New Hampshire about the middle of the eighteenth century, but these 

 comparatively few statutes were all that were considered necessary. 



By 1850 comparatively little game legislation had been enacted, although the list of 

 States having such laws had increased to nineteen, which included the thirteen original 

 States and Maine, Vermont, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Indian Territory. The 

 only game law in force west of the Mississippi was the restriction on hunting on Indian 

 lands. No protection for non-game birds was provided until the passage of the first laws 

 protecting insectivorous birds in Connecticut and New Jersey in 1850. 



In the decade from 185 1 to i860 game laws were passed for the first time in twelve 

 States, increasing the total number to thirty-one. These States included Illinois, Indiana, 

 Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin, east of the Mississippi River; Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, 

 Nebraska, and California in the West; and Louisiana and Texas in the South. 



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