The War for America's Wild Life 



By W I L L I A ]\I T. H O H N A D A Y 



Director of t]ie New York Zoological Park, and Campaigning Trustee of the Permanent Wild 



Life Protection Fund 



OX account of the many and 

 frequent changes in the con- 

 ditions affecting wild life, the 

 defenders of our fauna must maintain 

 a close surveillance of their entire field 

 of activity, in order to meet new dan- 

 gers with new measures. Even during 

 the past three years, so many changes 

 have occurred that a new bird's-eye 

 view of the national field is both de- 

 sirable and interesting. 



During the past five years two great 

 classes of our wild life have been 

 brought under good protection, and 

 two more remain exposed to the dan- 

 gers of extermination according to law. 

 They stand as follows : 



Under halfway protection 



Both the singing and the songless insec- 

 tivorous birds are noAv appreciated, and 

 protected by state and federal laws; and 

 they are increasing. 



The migratory game birds are 75 per 

 cent protected by the federal law, and they 

 also are increasing. 



In danger of extermination 



The nonmigratory upland game birds are, 

 as a rule, feebly and inadequately protected 

 by their state laws; and in most localities 

 they are rapidly vanishing through over- 

 shooting, legal and illegal, and through other 

 causes. 



The big game of the West, outside the 

 game sanctuaries, has been going out at a 

 frightful rate; and to this rule there are 

 only a limited number of local exceptions. 

 Local extinction on a vast scale, and in the 

 near future, seems certain to supervene. 



Finally, far too much attention has 

 been focused on the breeding and in- 

 troduction of foreign game birds while 

 the protection and rehabilitation of na- 

 tive species have been sadly neglected. 

 The movement to breed exotic pheas- 

 ants on game farms, at state expense. 



extends, with a few barren intervals, 

 across the continent. Alien species are 

 bred and coddled, while our native spe- 

 cies are shot. The most aggravated 

 case of this kind has been on exhibition 

 in Iowa, where the pheasant-devoted 

 state game warden has bitterly fought 

 — fortunately in vain — the state-wide 

 demand for a five-3'ear close season on 

 quail and pinnated grouse. 



In the fall of 1915 when the writer 

 made a long tour of inspection through 

 eleven western states, the alarming 

 condition of the upland game birds of 

 that vast region became painfully ap- 

 parent. Throughout that whole area 

 not one move had been made to give 

 long close seasons to the sage grouse or 

 the pinnated grouse, and both of those 

 fine species were fast going down to 

 oblivion. The big game was vanishing 

 at a tremendously rapid rate, by over- 

 shooting; and in several states female 

 deer were being killed for sport. 



The advent of the automobile and its 

 concomitant "good roads" was like the 

 sudden rising of a hundred thousand 

 new dragons to destroy the remnant of 

 game. Some of the stories told were 

 alarming, and the game-slaughter pic- 

 tures that came out of Texas were ap- 

 palling. Some of the open seasons on 

 the magnificent sage grouse began 

 August 15, with chicks hardly able to 

 fly, and the bag "limits" were a ghastly 

 joke. 



For the saving of the remnants of 

 deer, elk, mountain sheep, and goats, 

 and the restocking of lifeless areas, a 

 workable plan for the making of game 

 sanctuaries in national forests was 



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