VOL 
Forest and 
. LXXXIII. 
July 25, 1914 
No. 4 
This Law Means Extermination, Extinction, Annihilation 
People of California Facing a Crisis, in Proposed Legislation Permitting Open Sale of Game 
Pasadena, Calif., July 19, 1914. 
Editor Forest and Stream• 
California faces this fall, in an anti-game law 
referendum and initiative petition, the gravest 
menace in its history. The market men, market 
hunters, certain hotels in San Francisco and res¬ 
taurants, have begun a mercenary, revolutionary 
and wholly unjustifiable, state-wide movement 
and campaign to revoke essential and righteous 
game laws. 
This society proposes to revoke the no-sale law 
and place all game on sale. The world’s experts 
say that this spells extinction. But let us see. It 
was tried up to 1913. How did it work? In 1910 
the vast army of market hunters of San Francisco 
shot half a million ducks for the markets of that 
city. In 1911 they shot 250,000 ducks. In 1912 
they shot only 150,000 ducks. In 1913, despite 
every effort and with the aid of murderous guns 
of large caliber, they only secured 85,000 ducks. 
At this point it was evident to the dullest com¬ 
prehension that ducks were being exterminated, 
so the intelligent people of the state of California 
ordered a halt, and a no-sale law was passed, de¬ 
spite the protest of the People’s Fish and Game 
“ Protective ” Association who wanted them all. 
But supposing there had been no intelligent peo¬ 
ple and no law had been passed, what would have 
happened? Taking the same ratio of decrease, 
the army of alien and other market hunters of 
the People’s Fish and Game Protective Associa¬ 
tion would have shot in 1914 50,000 ducks, in 1915 
20,000, in 1916 9,000, in 1917 1,800, and in 1918 
they would have shot the last one. 
In a word, any intelligent schoolboy sees that 
the ignorant market man would have extermi¬ 
nated all the ducks about San Francisco and 
wrecked his own business besides, in three or 
four years. Is this the type of a market hunter 
you would expect to find “protecting” birds, and 
an officer of a society devoted to “protecting” 
fish and game? Hardly. Yet Mr. L. A. Sischo, 
a market hunter, was last year, a member of the 
executive committee of the “People’s Fish and 
Game Protective Association of California,” and 
according to Mr. Newbert, president of the Fish 
and Game Commission of California, was more 
than once arrested for breaking the game laws. 
What a proposition for the state of California, 
and for its wild life, which is estimated by ex¬ 
perts to have an actual value of $200,000,000. If 
there was ever a market hunter really interested 
in “protecting” game, no one has ever heard of 
lnm, hence there is every reason to look with 
grave apprehension upon any “protective” move¬ 
ment advocated by the People’s Fish and Game 
Protective Association of California, whose 
founders are as follows: 
President, Hon. Barclay Henley, attorney for 
John F. Corriea, game and poultry dealer of San 
Francisco; vice-president, John F. Corriea, game 
and poultry dealer of San Francisco; secretary, F. 
M. Bailey, secretary of the Corriea Corporation. 
Executive Committee—Cecil Raymond, game 
and poultry dealer of San Francisco; L. A. Sis¬ 
cho, market hunter (shoots ducks and game for 
public markets) ; W. H. Maack, wholesale fish 
dealer, San Francisco; John B. Campodonico, 
game and commission merchant, San Francisco. 
Are not these so-called “protectionists” of fish 
and game realiy avaricious exterminators? Mr. 
Frank M. Newbert, president of the California 
Fish and Game Commission, says of them in a 
letter to the secretary of the Audubon Society: 
A state-wide campaign to revoke the fish and 
game laws of California is now being made by 
the so-called People’s Fish and Game Protective 
Association. Investigation will show that this 
“People’s Association” is composed almost en¬ 
tirely of market hunters, game dealers and hotel 
and restaurant men who are seeking an opportu¬ 
nity to exploit the fish and game of this state for 
their own pecuniary benefit. They contend that 
every man, with the price, has an inherent right 
to buy and have brought to him as much of the 
people’s game as he chooses to pay for; that be¬ 
cause the game belongs to all the people a few 
have the right to exploit it for their own benefit. 
Does such an argument sound logical? A city 
park belongs to all the people of that city and 
all have the right to enjoy its beauty and benefits, 
but how long would the masses tolerate a system 
whereby a few could daily gather the major por¬ 
tion of the flowers of the park to sell to the ex¬ 
clusive hotels and cafes to please the senses of 
those who have the -means to buy the people’s 
property, but who will not go to the park to enjoy 
it there as other people do? 
In comparison with the claim of the “People’s 
Association” that they will conserve the game 
with unflagging zeal, it is interesting to note the 
record of three of their officers. Director L. A. 
Sischo. a market hunter operating in the San 
Joaquin Valley, was arrested twice in 1910 for 
violating the fish and game laws. Director John 
F. Corriea and his company engaged in the sale 
of game, has been arrested twenty-one times in 
the past few years for fish and game law viola¬ 
tions- Director Cecil Raymond, and his compa¬ 
nies, also game dealers, was arrested thirty-one 
times in the past few years for fish and game law 
violations. Fine protectionists these who propose 
to fill the markets of our large cities with deer, 
duck, quail, grouse, dove, etc. When these have 
been exterminated they will want to legalize the 
sale of our song birds to stimulate the jaded ap¬ 
petites of the idle rich. As it is, the violator gets 
a fancy price for the innocent little California 
canary or gold finch, which they snare in nets and 
smuggle into the cities to be sold in the swell 
Cafes as “reed birds a la brochette.” 
You are at liberty to use this letter, or any 
parts thereof, for publication; in fact, would be 
Rocky Mountain Sheep—What Conservation is Doing in Colorado. 
