Page 111 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

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DESTRUCTION BY THE ELEMENTS 89
byslenderthreads. Awinterofexceptionallydeepsnows,muchsleet, and a late spring always causes grave anxiety among the state game wardens. In Pennsylvania a very earnest movement is in progress to educate and persuade farmers to feed the quail in winter, and much good is being done in that direction.
Mr. Erasmus Wilson, of the Pittsburgh Gazette-Times is the apos- tle of that movement.
Quail should he fed every winter, in every northern state. The methods to be pursued will be mentioned elsewhere.
By way of illustration, here is a sample game report, from Las Ani- mas, Colorado, Feb. 22, 1912:
"After the most severe winter weather experienced for twenty years we are able to compute approximately our loss of feathered life. It is seventy-five per cent of the quail throughout the irrigated district, andabouttwentypercentofmeadow-larks. Intheroughcedar-covered sections south of the Arkansas River, the loss among the quail was much lighter. The ground sparrows suffered severely, while the English sparrow seems to have come through in good shape. Many cotton-tail rabbits starved to death, while the deep, light snow of January made themeasypreyforhawksandcoyotes." (F.T.Webber).
It would be possible to record many instances similar to the above, but why multiply them ? And now behold the cruel corollary
At least twenty-five times during the past two years I have heard and read arguments by sportsmen against my proposal for a 5-year close season for quail, taking the ground that "The sportsmen are not wholly toblameforthescarcityofquail. Itisthecoldwintersthatkillthemoff!''
So then, because the fierce winters murder the boh white, wholesale, theyshouldnothaveachancetorecoverthemselves! Couldhumanbeings possibly assume a more absurd attitude?
Yes, it is coldly and incontestably true, that even after such winter slaughter as Mr. Webber has reported above, the very next season will find the quail hunter joyously taking the field, his face beaming with health and good living, to hunt down and shoot to death as many as possible of the pitiful 25 per cent remnant that managed to survive the pitiless winter. How many quail hunters, think you, ever stayed their handsbecauseof"ahardwinteronthequail?" Iwarrantnotoneout ofeveryhundred! HowmanystatesinthisUnioneverputonaclose season because of a hard winter? I'll warrant that not one ever did; and I think there is only one state whose game commissioners have the power to act in that way without recourse to the legislature. This situa- tion is intolerable.
Thanks to the splendid codified game laws enacted in New York state in 1912, our Conservation Commission can declare a close season in any locality, for any length of time, when the state of the game de- mandsanemergencymeasure. Thisactisasfollows;anditisamodel law, which every other state should speedily enact