132 WILD LIFE CONSERVATION 



an eastern bird protector and his judgment was 

 asked, he advised that the over-supply of eagles 

 should by shooting be reduced to a point sufficiently 

 low so that subsequent depredations would be 

 endurable. Fortunately, that condition was con- 

 fined to a small area and it was by no means neces- 

 sary to enact a general law providing for state-wide 

 eagle destruction. In fact, such a law would have 

 been a mistake. 



About five years ago a gentleman living on 

 Shelter Island, near the eastern end of Long 

 Island, liberated a herd of white-tailed deer in a 

 county wherein deer-shooting is permitted by law 

 on two days only of each year. Two years later, 

 complaints were made that on Shelter Island it was 

 impossible to maintain a vegetable garden, on 

 account of the depredations of deer. It was claimed 

 that it was impossible to build a wire fence high 

 enough so that those deer could not leap over it; 

 but that statement was, and is, open to doubt. The 

 conditions described above suggested a law to pro- 

 vide for the abatement of wild-animal nuisances, 

 which was proposed by the framers of the revised 

 game-laws of the state of New York, and adopted. 

 It appears in the code of that state as Section 158, 

 and its full text is as follows : 



Power to Take Birds and Quadrupeds. In the event that 

 any species of birds protected by the provisions of section two 

 hundred and nineteen of this article, or quadrupeds protected 

 by law, shall at any time, in any locality, become destructive 



