FOREST AND STREAM 
23 
Another Illustration of Nature’s Prodigality in the Propagation, if Not the Perpetuation, of Wild Life. 
would further increase the high cost of 
food by eating the farmers out of house 
and home and prove worse than the lo¬ 
custs of Egypt. If such were the case 
would not a cry go out “Come and help 
us! Do something to rid us of this pest 
of birds.” 
But those days are past. The myriad 
of ducks is gone, almost. The billions of 
pigeons, entirely. Only a comparative few 
of one and none of the other remaining 
and although so have the forests, the shal¬ 
low lakes and the marshes we need have 
no worry about the feathered game in¬ 
creasing so its depredations will be seri¬ 
ous. Would that it might. It is to save 
what is left that we must bend our ef¬ 
forts. And right here let me remark that 
the shooter of today is—well, to a certain 
extent—as wanton in pursuit of game as 
the thoughtless club members and avari¬ 
cious market shooters of the seventies. 
For an illustration take the opening of the 
duck season this fall in California. The 
Federal law covering these parts makes 
shooting legal “from sunrise October i6th.” 
The State law “from half an hour be¬ 
fore sunrise October 15th.” That is on 
migratory birds. Now with this conflict 
of laws how many sportsmen do you sup¬ 
pose waited until sunrise the 16th so as 
to be sure and be right? If there was one 
I do not know his name or where he lives. 
True, some went after quail, which are 
not covered by the law from Washington, 
instead of the duck blinds; but a vast 
army, including many good sportsmen, ac¬ 
tuated by the spirit of the gunners of the 
long ago, the mad desire to kill, kill and 
keep on killing, went after web-footed 
game and followed the state instead of 
the federal law as to time of beginning 
and quitting, then when coming home hid 
their game after the manner of poachers 
of old, so that it might not be spied by 
inquisitive marshals. They had already 
been informed that the state authorities 
would do nothing. This is wrong—all 
wrong. The item of twenty-four hours 
one way or the other is nothing. It is the 
example set by those who care little about 
game preservation or game laws. It en 
ables them to say, “You did it. You broke 
one law. Why cannot we follow your 
lead and keep or break the stale law as 
we elect? Would it make us really any 
more guilty than you?” It savors too 
much of the schoolboy who is good only 
while the teacher is looking. 
I BELIEVE that a sportsman should when 
in doubt give the game the benefit. 
Should aim to spare rather than kill 
and instead of crowding the law to the 
breaking point as they did with what 
game laws they had forty years ago, be 
reasonable, remember how wild life is van¬ 
ishing and give the birds a chance. The 
game needs badly enough all the help it 
can get. Year by year in spite of what 
people say or papers print, I cannot help 
but notice its constant decrease here on 
the Pacific coast. I have tried to make 
myself believe it was holding its own, per¬ 
haps gaining a little, but I give it up. The 
ducks, the geese, as well as upland game 
are slowly but surely going the way of the 
moa, the auk and the pigeon, with the dredge 
and plow as much to blame as the gun. 
Coming right down to cases, something 
must be done to rescue the perishing; 
something more stringent than the present 
State and Federal laws; something more 
helpful than game farms and game sanc¬ 
tuaries, all of which are good as far as 
they go. Perhaps a nation-wide close sea¬ 
son on everything but aero-targets, for al¬ 
though these are not rapid breeders, there 
is no immediate danger of their becoming 
extinct through too much shooting. 
It is said there are five million licensed 
shooters in the United States. How many 
taking chances and neglecting the formal¬ 
ity of a license, goodness knows. Certain¬ 
ly many a farmer, many a farmer’s son, 
and many an alien ranch hand, but call 
the total five million, that’s a plenty. A 
careful estimate made several months ago 
by the writer gave the average of each li¬ 
cense holder in the State of California as 
about nineteen pieces of game the season. 
In some states it may be less, in others 
more, but assume that for the entire coun¬ 
try the number named is nearly correct. 
Then let us see: 5,000,000 shooters, at nine¬ 
teen head of game each, equals 95,000,00 
for the total kill. Add the toll of the pre¬ 
dacious, furred and feathered, the victims 
of storm and flood, and it seems remark¬ 
able that the ten billion waterfowl of the 
seventies has not dwindled even lower 
than it has, and certainly is a strong argu¬ 
ment against crowding the law and taking 
every last advantage possible of the poor 
birds, for even as I have seen a billion 
pigeons vanish from the face of the earth, 
so unless radical measures are taken and 
quickly taken, there are those living today 
who will see the ten billion waterfowl of 
the long ago disappear into nothingness. 
