75 On the migration battlefront 



were outspoken in their opinion that all this fuss about the whoop 

 ing crane was a lot of nonsense. They proposed that the best way 

 to put a stop to it would be to kill the few birds that remain and 

 then forget the whole thing, thus saving the taxpayers a lot of 

 money and, they implied, making them much happier about 

 life in general. They likewise announced their intention of using 

 their guns at every opportunity to promote such results. Another 

 letter, addressed to the editor of a leading newspaper, objected 

 to the space that had been given to the whooping crane in a recent 

 editorial. It went on: ". . .As you may judge from the foregoing 

 I myself do not give a whoop for the whooping crane. From what I 

 have observed and read he is a dim-witted gawk of a bird whose 

 pate has become more or less addled in the course of time until 

 now he is not quite sharp enough mentally to be up to the funda- 

 mentals of procreation. This in a world where stupidity is nothing 

 unusual is nevertheless pretty dumb and to my thinking deserves 

 everyone's acquiescence to the idea that as far as extinction is 

 concerned the sooner the better. . . . Don't you think in all hon- 

 esty that our children's children's children will respect our memory 

 more if we forego the expenditure of whatever monies are being 

 spent to preserve these birds and leave them these kids unborn 

 just ever so little of a bank balance with which to face the exi- 

 gencies of that world of tomorrow?" 



We are very willing to agree that stupidity is not unusual in this 

 world of ours, although we will hold back from giving any direct 

 examples. I would also suggest that there are other things of value 

 that we might leave our children's children's children besides a 

 bank balance. But apparently this gentleman has never heard of 

 them. 



As for the Saskatchewan farmers who want to see the whooping 

 cranes disposed of, they are an active threat, very real and quite 

 possibly dangerous. When things began to go haywire with our 

 migrating whoopers it was their kind that stood behind the guns. 

 The facts are startling. Beginning with the departure of the flock 

 for the North in April, 1950, and carrying them through the re- 

 mainder of that year and all of 1951 and 1952 a total of six round 

 trips over the migration route 24 whooping cranes were lost! This 



