12 T HE -A-U/ DU. BOON) B70 bE Bea 
National Conservation News and Notes 
By Dr. R. M. STRONG 
Conservation unpopular with the general public. Apathy, ignorance, and 
greed are the enemies of conservation. Speakers tell us that the average 
person is bored by talks on “conservation.” It has often been found de- 
sirable to avoid the use of the word in talks before general audiences and 
nearly always with children. Even some of the societies that were originally 
founded to support conservation of wildlife are inactive in such work, either 
through lack of knowledge by members or through inertia. 
It takes effort to write letters or make oral protests or commendations, 
but unless a lot of us do this, we cannot save our country from the 
machinations or neglect of those who seek immediate gain or personal pleas- 
ure without regard to the interest of others, of posterity or of their own 
future welfare. As conspicuous consequences of too much regard for im- 
mediate gain, we have worn-out farms, deserts replacing fertile fields, and 
dust storms. Less noticeable to the average person are the ravages of in- 
sects or of noxious rodents which might be kept in check if there had not 
been so much hunting. 
Failure of our courts to support game laws is discussed in an excellent 
article by Claude D. Kelley, president of the National Wildlife Federation, 
entitled, “What our courts must learn: Game laws are no joke.” Copies 
of this publication may be obtained by writing to the National Wildlife 
Federation, 3308 Fourteenth Street, N.W., Washington 10, D.C. It con- 
sists of four quarto-size pages with several forceful cartoons, and it tells 
an amazing story with numerous statistics of the failure of the great ma- 
jority of our courts to support our game laws adequately. The same could 
be said for support of the migratory bird act as regards non-game birds. 
Although some of our jurists have been conscientious in enforcement of 
these laws, the majority of them have given trivial sentences to law viola- 
tors or have even flaunted these laws. They have even criticized wardens 
for taking their time with game law violations. One federal judge told a 
public waterfowl forum that he saw nothing wrong in baiting ducks and 
that he had thrown out sixty-seven such cases a couple of months before. 
The following sentence is quoted from Mr. Kelley’s article: “There are 
hundreds of jurists who not only fail to give game laws the consideration 
they merit, but by their attitude on and off the bench actually encourage 
violations.” Another quotation follows: “I know of a prominent trial 
judge who for years maintained a baited dove field for the use of his po- 
litical cronies. He didn’t even bother to disguise his activity until a new 
federal game-management agent was assigned to the state; then he be- 
came a little more cagey.” 
Conservation is a relatively young movement in America. Some Eu- 
ropean countries saw the need of it many years ago. It is supposed to be 
the main object of our Audubon Societies, but this is not always the case. 
The aims of the Illinois Audubon Society are given in the first page of 
Mr. Decker’s ‘History of the Society” in the March number of the Bulletin. 
