MOOSE SNARING IN NOVA SCOTIA. 



5 



suspends the poor animal, either by a 

 foreleg or a hind one, to thrash and 

 beat about till exhaustion compels a 

 rest. With so powerful an animal 

 in the toils this is long in coming. The 

 same futile effort is repeated and re- 

 peated with intervals of rest. 



After spending a day of hard la- 

 bor in setting up a dozen of these 

 hellish contrivances the weary brute 

 seeks rest in his miserable shanty. He 

 knows that unless some fair minded 

 man discovers the work, only to de- 

 stroy it, the traps will not need re- 

 newal for a year or more. Perhaps 

 he will replace a rotten and frayed 

 rope with a new one, but in a general 

 way he has nothing further to do but 

 to visit his snares, remove his meat, 

 reset the trap, and conceal his tell- 

 tale tracks. 



Then follows the worst phase of 

 the whole detestable business. Your 

 snarer is a careless, procrastinating 

 devil, at best ; and for one reason or 

 another he may not, often does not, 

 visit his snares for a week at a time. 

 The captive moose is left wretchedly 

 to drag out his life, or often her life 

 and heavy with calf at that, through 

 the endless hours of day after day 

 and night after night, half suspended 

 in the air by that inexorable rope, 

 without water, without food, weak- 

 ened by the fearful struggle, alone ! 

 Torture unspeakable ! I have myself 

 seen the fearful evidences of all this ; 

 the boggy, blood-soaked sod trampled 

 for yards, the freshly stripped hide 

 thrown to one side of the scene of the 

 hideous tragedy, and half a carcass of 

 what was, so short a time before, a 

 noble bull moose, clawed over and 

 revelled in by a hungry bear. In the 

 near vicinity were discovered and de- 

 stroyed 6 similar snares, all set, and 

 hoof-marks were noted (with what 

 pleasure!) where a running moose 

 had lightly leaped over one of those 

 hidden ropes in some playful mid- 

 night gambol. My companion had 

 earlier had the exquisite if somewhat 



arduous pleasure of freeing a captive 

 cow moose, heavy with calf, from an 

 inevitable and distressing death in 

 one of these snares. Strapping his 

 hunting knife to a pole he succeeded, 

 after much patient toil, in cutting the 

 rope, only to see the poor, half 

 starved creature take a few weak, 

 tottering steps and fall to nibbling 

 the poplar sprouts a short distance 

 from him. For some time she re- 

 mained in the vicinity, as if con- 

 scious of the presence of a protect- 

 or, and finally ambled leisurely away, 

 let us hope to a region of greater se- 

 curity. 



I have given but a brief outline of 

 a barbarous practice, common in 

 nearly every county of Nova Scotia. 

 The reports of the 30 wardens 

 maintained in the Province teem with 

 allusions to it and its deadly effect- 

 iveness. Where it is common knowl- 

 edge that moose snaring is indulged 

 in, it is useless for the authorities to 

 protest ignorance of it. The question 

 naturally arises as to what Nova Sco- 

 tia is doing to suppress it. The fol- 

 lowing interesting statistics from the 

 report of the Nova Scotia Game So- 

 ciety for 1900 will throw a little lime- 

 light on the matter. The 12 members 

 of the Society's Council disbursed the 

 munificent sum of $1,643.82 for game 

 and fish protection during the year. 

 In the same time a force of 37 war- 

 dens have prosecuted 6 cases of game 

 law violat' n and secured one convic- 

 tion, with an attendant fine of $5, 

 while one case is still pending. 



These are the chief features of a 

 most interesting report, covering 21 

 pages, and serve pointedly to answer 

 our question. 



I have the authority of an official 

 of the society for the statement that 

 they are pleased to have a law-abid- 

 ing class of American sportsmen visit 

 the Province in quest of moose. For 

 indulging in the sport there is an in- 

 cidental license fee of $30. It seems 

 proper to inquire if Nova Scotia, in 



