CONSERVATION IN LABRADOR 



population. Mr. A. C. Bent, who visited this 

 coast in the summer of 19 1 2, says: "I had 

 heard that the sea-birds on the Labrador coast 

 were disappearing, but was not prepared to find 

 them so scarce as they proved to be. They seem 

 to have decreased very decidedly during the 

 past few years, and, unless something can be 

 done to protect them, many species will soon 

 have disappeared entirely. Their nests are 

 robbed frequently all through the summer by 

 the resident white people, by the Eskimos, and 

 by the large number of Newfoundland fisher- 

 men that visit the coast in the summer. The 

 birds are also shot freely for food at all seasons 

 of the year." ^ 



The whole outlook is, indeed, a gloomy one. 

 It was thoroughly understood by Audubon in 

 1833. He says: "Nature herself seems perish- 

 ing. Labrador must shortly be depeopled, not 

 only of aboriginal man, but of all else having 

 life, owing to man's cupidity. When no more 

 fish, no more game, no more birds exist on her 

 hills, along her coasts, and in her rivers, then 

 she will be abandoned and deserted like a worn- 

 out field." 



» Bird-Lore (1913), vol. xv, p. ii. 

 293 



