Volume XVIII. 



RECREATION 



JANUARY, J903. 

 G. 0. SHIELDS (COQUINA,) Editor and Manager 



Number J. 



MOOSE SNARING IN NOVA SCOTIA. 



ERNEST RUSSELL. 



A noted writer on outdoor life has 

 recently drawn attention to the fact 

 that few of our wild animals meet 

 death in a natural or, at least, in a 

 peaceful manner. This statement 

 serves but to emphasize the appalling 

 number of destructive agencies which 

 surround and assail every inhabitant 

 of the woods, and demonstrates how 

 acute is their struggle for existence. 

 The "survival of the fittest" needs no 

 better exposition than is to be found 

 in the experience of any observing 

 sportsman. 



It is true that nature offsets, in a 

 great measure, such apparently over- 

 whelming odds ag'ainst her children 

 by a remarkable array of protective 

 faculties, adapted in each individual 

 to the requirements of its particular 

 environment and developed to a sur- 

 prising degree ; but a realization of 

 the myriad forces at work against 

 the lives of all wild creatures must 

 ultimately bring to their human an- 

 tagonists a pronounced and sympa- 

 thetic interest. The modern tendency 

 toward game protection is the first 

 ray of hope to penetrate the gloom of 

 a relentless extermination which has 

 been waged for centuries in the name 

 of sport. 



An authority of repute has stated 

 in Recreation his belief that the 

 moose will be the last of the great 

 deer family to become extinct in 

 America. He relies for this optimistic 

 view on the non-gregarious habits of 

 the animal and on the impenetrable 

 fastnesses of the vast territory in the 

 North and Northwest. Let us hope 



this may be so; that the moose may 

 escape the perils which threaten him 

 elsewhere to find in those dim soli- 

 tudes true sanctuary. 



The moose of Nova Scotia are well 

 distributed over the 15,000 square 

 miles which constitute the peninsula 

 proper, and, though perhaps neither 

 so numerous nor attaining such size 

 as their brethren in New Brunswick 

 and Alaska, they are. as abundant as 

 can reasonably be expected under the 

 adverse conditions existing. There is 

 no finer moose territory anywhere 

 than exists in that Province to-day. 

 There the moose could and should be 

 indefinitely perpetuated, safeguarded 

 in a true wilderness of lakes streams 

 and boggy lowlands, interesected by 

 long ridges, well timbered with beech, 

 birch, poplar and spruce. It is truly 

 a glorious country, teeming with the 

 natural food of the cerzndae, an ideal 

 home of large extent, yet easily pa- 

 trolled. 



The modern sportsman has many 

 sins to answer for. He is charged 

 with the ruthless slaughter of count- 

 less sentient and freedom-loving 

 creatures, and has even been indicted, 

 perhaps with a measure of justice, as 

 "the fiercest beast of prey." There is 

 another individual who has wandered 

 into my ken, built like a man, garbed 

 like man, and with many of the su- 

 perficial masculine attributes, yet 

 whose real nature contrasts so darkly 

 with that of the true sportsman that I 

 hold him up to immediate and merited 

 condemnation. I refer to the moose 

 snarer in his Nova Scotian haunts. 



