254 -PUBLIC PARKS OF IOWA 



Now there are hunters and sportsmen. Every one who buys a license 

 to shoot is not 'a sportsman, by a long shot. There is a certain stamina 

 and principle of fair play in the makeup of a sportsman that is partly 

 or wholly lacking in the hunter or gunner. The latter is only contented 

 when he sees the bird or animal fall headlong to the ground. He loves 

 to kill. He is saturated with blood lust. He takes no interest or pleas- 

 ure in nature, with its beauties, except as it hides him from his fellow 

 man while he commits murder on some small defenseless bird or beast. 

 How long will our local gun clubs tolerate such standards in the name 

 of sportsmanship? The mere gunner has not the energy, and perhaps 

 the intelligence, to study the habits of the animal and make the hunt 

 a game of skill, always giving the animal an equal chance for its life. 



A true sportsman never shoots an aninrial in or on the water. True 

 sportsmen are coming to realize the unfairness of the pump and automatic 

 shotgun in the hunting of birds. They are the tools of the game hog. 

 The sportsman is sometimes thoughtless in such matters but the game 

 hog has no sense of shame. 



Now the bird lovers throughout this state do not desire to see the 

 sportsmen deprived of his hunting. It is for this reason that we advo- 

 cate moderation. Game is not 'as plentiful now as it was 15 and 50 years 

 ago. With the settlement of the country it hasn't the chance for ex- 

 istence that it had then. We cannot kill with the reckless impunity of 

 earlier days, without the inevitable result of extermination. Our wild 

 game will go the same road that did the great auk, the Labrador ducks, 

 the Eskimo curlew, the Carolina paroquet and the passenger pigeon, 

 never again to be seen on the face of the earth; to be known to future 

 generations only by pictures and stuffed skins. What right have hunters 

 to do this? They make the mistake in supposing that the song birds and 

 insectivorous birds belong to the people who study birds without a gun, 

 while the game birds belong to the hunters who pay license fees to the 

 state. Nothing could be more in error. The game birds as well as the 

 song birds belong to all of the people, and we have a right to demand 

 that they be protected from extermination, or even serious approach 

 to it. We owe this to the future just as we owe the conservation of 

 the forest, the soil, the mineral resources, etc. Besides, the conservation 

 of the game birds is in the interest of the sportsmen; and real sports- 

 men see it clearly. 



Last year Missouri reduced the daily bag limit on birds from 25 to 10. 

 Last year Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Ohio and South Da.kota either ex- 

 tended the closed season for quail, or gave them absolute protection for 

 five years, at least. When a similar bill to protect the quail for five years 

 was presented to the Iowa legislature it was defeated by a gunclub lobby 

 of which our present state game warden was a member. 



Because' the title to the wild life of the state rests in all the people 

 of the state, and not in any class, and because all the people are inter- 

 ested and concerned in the preservation of such wild life, both for 

 aesthetic and economic reasons, I advocate that the fish and game warden 

 of the state (or, better, a game commission) be compensated out of 

 the general funds of the state, and not from a special fund created by 

 the license fees of those who hunt, as is the case at present. 



