1 78 ECONOMIC MAMMALOGY 



also, and in New Mexico the license required seems to be only the 

 usual hunting license required for hunting bears. In many instances 

 close seasons apply only to certain counties, and in case of foxes and 

 bears the law in some states applies only to certain species, not to all. 

 In Newfoundland the governor may open the season on beaver, with 

 a bag limit of twenty. Various other exceptions will be found by an ex- 

 amination of the laws themselves or the annual summary thereof. 



The payment of bounties for the destruction of noxious animals has 

 been on trial in North America for several centuries, and there are 

 very serious doubts as to whether this method has accomplished much. 

 There are a number of objections to it. Certainly it has not resulted in 

 the extermination of any injurious animals, and as a result of much 

 experience bounty laws have lost a great deal of their former popu- 

 larity, though such laws still exist in one form or another in a majority 

 of the states. 10 There were bounty acts in force in some of the American 

 colonies nearly four centuries ago, and nearly every state in the Union 

 has at some time had bounty laws on the statute books. In 1905 all but 

 eight states had such acts, including in their scope, in one state or an- 

 other, the following mammals: Puma (mountain lion), lynx, wolf, 

 coyote, fox, bear, woodchuck, prairie-dog, squirrel, rabbit, raccoon, 

 weasel, skunk, mink, seal and sea-lion. Bounty laws in some states still 

 include the same mammals, together with ground squirrels, pocket go- 

 phers and even muskrats. There is great lack of uniformity in the laws, 

 some . species being destroyed as pernicious animals in one state and 

 protected as useful animals in another. The modern tendency is espe- 

 cially in the direction of removing all fur-bearers (weasels, skunks, 

 minks, muskrats, etc.) from the bounty list. Bears are protected in 

 many states and a subject of bounty in one or two. 



Nearly all experienced writers on the subject question the efficacy 

 of bounties, especially as to the abundant rodents, and believe that 

 better results would come from the expenditure of bounty funds in 

 systematic, wide-spread campaigns under the direction of men of 

 special training and experience in that line of work, a subject more 

 fully discussed in a preceding chapter. In order to do much good boun- 

 ties must be high, making that method very expensive, and resulting in 

 much fraud. For example, when bounties on coyotes are high, unscru- 



10 Palmer, Extermination of noxious animals by bounties, Yearbook U. S. Dept. 

 Agric. for 1896, pp. 55-68. Lantz, Bounty laws in force in the United States, ibid., 

 for 1907, pp. 260-265. 



