Page 110 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

CHAPTER X
DESTRUCTION OF WILD LIFE BY THE ELEMENTS
It is a fixed condition of Nature that whenever and wherever a wild species exists in a state of nature, free from the trammels and limita- tions that contact with man always imposes, the species is fitted to surviveallordinaryclimaticinfluences. Freedomofaction,andtheex- ercise of several options in the line of individual maintenance under stress, is essential to the welfare of every wild species.
A prong-horned antelope herd that is free can drift before a blizzard, can keep from freezing by the exercise, and eventually come to shelter. Let that same herd drift against a barbed-wire fence five miles long, and its whole scheme of self-preservation is upset. The herd perishes then and there.
Cut out the undergrowth of a given section, drain the swamps and mow down all the weeds and tall grass, and the next particularly hard winter starves and freezes the quail.
Naturally the cutting of forests, clearing of brush and drainage of marshes is more or less calamitous to all the species of birds that inhabit such places and find there winter food and shelter. Red-winged black- birds and real estate booms can not inhabit the same swamps contem- poraneously. Before the relentless march of civilization, the wild In- dian, the bison and many of the wild birds must inevitably disappear. We cannot change conditions that are as inexorable as death itself. The wild life must either adjust itself to the conditions that civilized man imposes upon it, or perish. I say "civilized man," for the reason that the primitive races of man are not deadly exterminators of species, as we are. I know of not one species of wild life that has been extermi- nated by savage man without the aid of his civilized peers.
As civilization marches ever onward, over the prairies, into the bad lands and the forests, over the mountains and even into the farthest corner of Death Valley, the desert of deserts, the struggle of the wild birds, mammals and fishes is daily and hourly intensified. Man must helpthemtomaintainthemselves,oracceptalifelesscontinent. The best help consists in letting the wild creatures throughly alone, so that they can help themselves; but quail often need to be fed in critical periods. The best food is wheat screenings placed under little tents of straw, bringing food and shelter together.
In the well settled portions of the United States, such species as quail, ruffed grouse, wild turkey, pinnated grouse and sage grouse hang to life