38 THE AUDUBON BULLE Ties 

Fuertes Defends the Crow 
(From the Cornell Alumni News of June, 1912) 
OUIS A. FUERTES ’97 has written a letter to E. I. du Pont de 
Nemours and Company protesting against the shoot-the-crow 
campaign conducted by that company, apparently to increase 
the sale of cartridges. The letter follows: 
“T have just received your ‘Truth about the Crow’ and the letter 
requesting opinions concerning it. I don’t agree with it in many ways, 
while holding no brief for the crow. While I know that all in the little 
booklet is more or less true, I think that like all propaganda, it is pre- 
judiced and, therefore, to the uninformed whom it seeks to inform it is 
dangerous. The crow, if you follow the Biological Survey’s estimates 
and investigations honestly and without prejudice, has many features 
and characteristics and habits of considerable merit, judging from our 
somewhat arrogant attitude of whether he is ‘any use’ or not. Even 
ignoring that, I don’t worry much about him, as he has always been 
and probably always will be able to shift for himself against all the ran- 
dom persecution men can direct against him, and he is frequently too 
numerous for the good of the other life trying to maintain in the same 
competition. So much for the crow. What I do seriously worry about 
and condemn is the propaganda against hawks and owls in general, and 
against ‘blackbirds,’ herons, cranes, and kingfishers, which is nothing 
short of ignorant, and directly in the face of evidence of their value to 
man, and the appropriate place in the general association of animal life 
in which they naturally belong. 
“The goshawk, great horned owl, cooper, and sharpshinned hawks 
are the only ones of the whole raptorial group whose activities are of 
economic importance on the wrong side of the ledger, the few other 
species living mostly on birds or game being too rare and local to merit 
persecution. But all the other little hawks and owls, like the screech 
owl, short-ear, barn owl, long-ear, barred owl, the sparrow hawk, red- 
shoulder, red-tail broadwing, and rough-legged hawks are of inestimable 
value to agriculture by virtue of their tireless warfare upon field and 
pine mice, grasshoppers, locusts, and other insects sufficiently large and 
numerous to be of serious danger to man’s interest unless held in check. 
‘Blackbirds’ cover a multitude of virtues as well as sins, and your 
careless and blanket designation includes the valuable as well as the per- 
haps slightly destructive species. 
‘T hold that the control of these things lies, or should lie, with a well- 
informed government bureau, and should under no circumstances be 
turned over to the general public, under the direction and encourage- 
ment of an ammunition company anxious to equalize its business through 
