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BY PRS eet ae STR, oe aes peer ERT neem 
Pweg te Octet Fy ol Ut Cs, shot ART ic benbtiel 
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Louisiana Gulf Coast Club 
S every reader of FOREST AND 
STREAM knows, the Gulf Coast of 
Louisiana is the only section of 
the United States in which a wide va- 
riety of furred and feathered game is 
still found in great abundance. 
The climate and the nature of the 
section have made it so. There are 
hundreds of square miles of dense 
woods and undergrowth and of 
swamps, with innumerable pools and 
lagoons that have not changed since the 
day when the first white man stood 
upon the soil. Every variety of fur- 
bearing animal indigenous to the sec- 
tion is found there today in great num- 
ber. It is the winter home of myriads 
of wild fowl and other migratory birds. 
So it has been from the beginning, and 
so it is today. 
It does not need to be said that this 
condition has been taken advantage of 
by thousands of hunters every year for 
generations past. Nor does it need to 
be said that a very large part of their 
tremendous annual destruction of game 
has always been done in direct viola- 
tion of law. 
More than ten years ago the situa- 
tion has become extremely serious. 
Some species of birds, notably the 
egret, had already been all but exter- 
minated. Other species, including mi- 
gratory game birds, were certain to be, 
sooner or later, if nothing were done 
to help them. 
It was through the efforts of myself 
and of Mr. Charles Willis Ward, of 
Michigan, that this deplorable condi- 
tion was largely remedied by the estab- 
lishment in 1910 of the first publicly 
owned wild-life refuge, the tract now 
known as the Louisiana State Game 
Preserve of 13,000 acres, two-thirds of 
which were paid for by Mr. Charles 
Willis Ward and one-third by me, and 
the land donated to the state of Louisi- 
ana as a wild-life refuge in perpetuity. 
During the next three years I advo- 
cated and succeeded in the establish- 
ment of the Marsh Island Refuge do- 
nated by the generosity of Mrs. Russell 
Sage and the Rockefeller Foundation 
Wild Life Refuge donated by the gen- 
erosity of the Rockefeller Foundation. 
Both of these tracts have since been 
donated to the state of Louisiana as 
permanent wild-life refuges. The Sage 
Refuge contains 79,300 acres, and the 
Rockefeller Refuge 85,000 acres, both 
in the heart of this great gulf coast 
game section. 
Both the Sage and the Rockefeller 
refuges were dedicated permanent 
sanctuaries for game in which no kill- 
ing would be allowed at any time. Four 
years ago they were deeded to the state 
of Louisiana, and in accepting them 
one of the conditions agreed to and 
promises made by the state was that 
it would always afford ample police 
protection to prevent violation of the 
sanctuaries by any hunters at any 
time. I may say, in passing, that this 
promise has not been kept, and that I 
have for some time been paying out 
of my own pocket the salaries of seven 
wardens. 
The good that has been accomplished 
by these sanctuaries is beyond compu- 
tation. Every man in North America 
who finds health-giving enjoyment in 
the hunting of wild fowl and other 
migratory game birds is in their debt. 
Not only have the nearly extinct spe- 
cies referred to above multiptied to 
large numbers, but the wild fowl and 
migratory game birds which winter in 
the sanctuaries, and breed there and 
wax and grow fat, can be counted only 
in the millions. It is the North Amer- 
ican continent’s principal place of re- 
plenishment of these species. 
The Sage Refuge and the Rockefeller 
Refuge lie several miles apart. Be- 
tween them is a large tract of land, 
extending some miles back from the 
coast, which is not a refuge and never 
has been. It has always been privately 
owned. It has always been a favorite 
ground of hunters. By hunters I do 
not mean only the sportsmen of Louisi- 
ana and other states who scrupulously 
obey every game law, but hundreds of 
men who hurl whenever and however 
they feel like it and kill all they please 
or can. It makes a bad and dangerous 
situation. 
It is interesting to note that two 
attempts have been made to interest 
financiers in acquiring the property 
now owned by the club as a wild-life 
refuge. First, about seven years ago 
it was offered to the Rockefeller Foun- 
dation by my attorney, Mr. John Dy- 
mond, Jr., of New Orleans. Second, it 
was offered to Mr. Henry W. DeForest 
in August of this year. Both offers 
were declined. It is also of interest to 
note that the Louisiana Coastal Devel- 
opment Corporation, with offices at 25 
Broadway, in the latter part of 1921 
and the early part of 1922, promoted 
the property lying between the wild- 
life refuges on the coast of Louisiana 
as a commercial proposition. When it 
seemed that they had a great possibil- 
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