BULLETIN NUMBER TWO 



41 



amounts awarded out of the County 

 treasury. This prevented the awarding 

 of exorbitant sums as damages, and the 

 law has been in successful operation for 

 a number of years. The total amount 

 paid out for deer damages each year 

 amounts to less than $2,500 for the en- 

 tire State, and the value of the venison 

 taken each year, figured at $15 per car- 

 cass, amounts to more than $75,000. 

 These figures are based on the records 

 of the two years 1908-9, when 7,186 deer 

 were killed, and $4,865 were paid as 

 damages. 



The Vermont experiment has proven 

 a great success. The sanity of it and 

 the business-like methods employed, re- 

 mind us of the methods pursued in the 

 great deer forests of Austria, where the 

 herds are exactly regulated, and main- 

 tained generation after generation with 

 decided profit to the people concerned. 



With similar initiative and intelligence, 

 and resolute enforcement of law and 

 order, the waste woodlands of the 

 United States could be made to yield 

 2,000,000 killable deer each year, at an 

 annual cost of not more than ten per 

 cent of the value of the annual catch. 

 The question is, are the American peo- 

 ple equal to such work in the utilization 

 of the opportunities of Nature? 



SANE POLICIES IN WILD 

 LIFE PROTECTION 



In no line of national progress has 

 this country witnessed more rapid ad- 

 vancement during the past six years 

 than in the protection of wild life. It 

 was about ten years ago that the non- 

 game birds began to receive in some of 

 the states the legal protection that was 

 their due, but the movement toward im- 

 provement was slow. Down to 1909 the 

 game of the United States generally was 

 on the toboggan slide toward oblivion, 

 and the general outlook was decidedly 

 black. Spring-shooting, the sale of 

 game, the killing of insectivorous birds 

 for food and other forms of extermina- 

 tion according to law made the situation 

 seem almost hopeless. 



But the year 1910 marked the begin- 

 ning of a new period in protection. Edit- 



ors, law-makers, and people of wealth 

 began to awaken to the dangers of the 

 hour. The demands of the protectors 

 began to strike home as never before. 

 The first great battle of a long series 

 was waged in the State of New York, 

 against the market hunters of the At- 

 lantic Coast, and the game-dealers of 

 America's greatest game market. It was 

 predicted while the fight was on that 

 New York would prove to be the Get- 

 tysburg of the war between the two ar- 

 mies, and so indeed it proved. The 

 tremendous success of the wild life 

 cause that was achieved in New York 

 in the spring of 1911 was but the first 

 of a long series of victories that were 

 won in Congress and in various state 

 legislatures. These included the saving 

 of the fur-seal industry, the stoppage of 

 game sale in Massachusetts and other 

 states, the passage of the federal migra- 

 tory bird law, and the suppression of 

 the trade in wild birds' plumage for 

 millinery purposes throughout both the 

 United States and Canada. 



In a recent lengthy review of Dr. 

 Hornaday's "Wild Life Conservation in 

 Theory and Practice," the London 

 Athaneum said: 



"It is a truism that America does 

 nothing by halves. That by criminal 

 folly a colossal heritage has been wan- 

 tonly squandered, none can gain-say; 

 but, on the other side of the picture, the 

 splendid efforts of an enlightened few 

 have in recent years launched a scheme 

 of systematic reparation on a scale 

 which can only excite the envy and 

 amazement of all who are working along 

 similar lines in England. The problem 

 in America is very different in its de- 

 tails from that which our protagonists 

 have to solve, but the underlying prin- 

 ciple is the same." 



The success of many great measures 

 that have triumphed during the last six 

 years has been due to the fact that they 

 were safe, sane and necessary for the 

 greatest good of the greatest number. 

 Lawmakers have become thoroughly 

 convinced that the American people de- 

 sire that the wild life of the nation 

 should be saved from annihilation. 



Will Congress give us a hundred new 

 big game preserves, and good hunting 

 for the next hundred years? 



