LOOLOGICAL 
SOCIETY 
BULLETIN 
Published by the New York Zoological Society 
Vortume XXIV 
THE FUR TRADE 
MARCH, 1921 
7-0 De We 8 
NuMBER 2 
WILD ANIMALS 
By Witutam T. Hornapay, Sc.D., A.M. 
Director, New 
HE following pages have been written 
solely as historic notes, and without the 
slightest expectation that they will cause 
even one fur wearer, fur dealer or trapper to 
pause in his, or her, career of destruction, and 
take measures for tomorrow. 
The fur-bearing animals of the world are in a 
worse plight today than were the birds 25 years 
ago when the Zoological Society joined in the 
great crusade against the milliners which has 
resulted triumphantly in restoring the birds to 
America and aiding, at least, in the preservation 
of birds throughout the world. 
While there is life there is hope. We are 
making the present effort in the hope that some 
remnants at least of the glorious Age of Mam- 
mals may be allowed to survive. But, unless 
immediate steps are taken, we believe that the 
fur-bearing animals of the world at large are 
DOOMED. The craze for “fur,” for legitimate 
and illegitimate purposes; the insatiable de- 
mands of the trappers and fur dealers, and the 
mad rush at the counter for fur and pseudo-fur, 
constitute three irresistible forces with which no 
outside reform can cope, and no outside conser- 
vation campaign can arrest. 
Even the present much reduced prices are 
highly destructive, and if they continue—as they 
surely will—then must we bid a long farewell 
to all the wild mammals whose skins can, by 
any stretch of the human imagination, be re- 
garded as furnishing wearable fur. 
Proressor Osporn’s DECLARATION OF 
Doom 
The world’s final frantic struggle for “fur” 
brings to our mind Professor Henry Fairfield 
York Zoological Park 
Osborn’s masterful book entitled “The Age of 
Mammals.” It reviews and throws upon the 
screen the developments of the world’s most 
interesting geologic period, following the Age 
of Reptiles, and the passing of the dinosaurs. 
Viewing with the eyes of a biologist the war 
of extermination that now is being waged by 
trappers, hunters and fur dealers to satisfy 
the greedy maw of “The Market,” and the de- 
struction of wild animals for food and for sport, 
Professor Osborn today solemnly declares that 
“The last chapter of the Age of Mammals now 
is being written in blood, and the end of the 
period of mammalian life is at hand.” By this 
expression probably he means A. D. 1950. Geo- 
logically considered, the great zoologist is indis- 
putably right. Geologic time is longer than one 
span of human life. 
We would like to think that the mammalian 
species living and thriving today will go on and 
on, changing and progressing according to their 
circumstances, for another million years. But 
all such dreams and hopes are vain and illusory 
We are witnessing the extinguishment of the 
world’s grandest group of vertebrates—the class 
Mammalia. The great tragedy is proceeding 
on plain and mountain, in forest and field, on 
lake shore and seacoast, in swamp and desert, 
in the sea and in the bowels of the earth. Even 
under the surface of Mother Earth it is relent- 
lessly moving on, and not even the subterranean 
mole is secure. All the fur in our coats, around 
our shoulders and upon our hands, implicatiny 
alike, outside the tropics, all men, women and 
children, and even the cradled babe, shows the 
extent to which we are guilty of participating in 
the war of extermination. 
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