Page 30 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

8 OUR VANISHING WILD LIFE
To-day, the thing that stares me in the face every waking hour, like a grisly spectre with bloody fang and claw, is the extermination of species. To me, that is a horrible thing. It is wholesale murder, no less. It is capital crime, and a black disgrace to the races of civilized mankind. I say "civilized mankind," because savages don't do it!
There are three kinds of extermination:
The practical extermination of a species means the destruction of its members to an extent so thorough and widespread that the species disappears from view, and living specimens of it can not be found by seeking for them. In North America this is to-day the status of the whooping crane, upland plover, and several other species. If any in- dividuals are living, they will be met with only by accident.
The absolute extermination of a species means that not one individual of it remains alive. Judgment to this effect is based upon the lapse of time since the last living specimen was observed or killed. When five years have passed without a living "record " of a wild specimen, it is time to place a species in the class of the totally extinct.
Extermination in a wild state means that the only living representa- tivesareincaptivityorotherwiseunderprotection. Thisisthecaseof theheathhenandDavid'sdeer,ofChina. TheAmericanbisonissaved from being wholly extinct as a wild animal by the remnant of about 300 head in northern Athabasca, and 49 head in the Yellow-stone Park.
It is a serious thing to exterminate a species of any of the vertebrate
animals. Thereareprobablymillionsofpeoplewhodonotrealizethat
civilized( ) manisthemostpersistentlyandwickedlywastefulofallthe !
predatoryanimals. Thelions,thetigers,thebears,theeaglesandhawks, serpents,andthefish-eatingfishes,alllivebydestroyinglife; butthey killonlywhattheythinktheycanconsume. Ifsomethingisbychance left over, it goes to satisfy the hunger of the humbler creatures of prey. In a state of nature, where wild creatures prey upon wild creatures, such a thing as wanton, wholesale and utterly wasteful slaughter is almost unknown!
When the wild mink, weasel and skunk suddenly finds himself in the midst of scores of man's confined and helpless domestic fowls, or his caged gulls in a zoological park, an unusual criminal passion to murder for the joy of killing sometimes seizes the wild animal, and great slaughter is the result.
From the earliest historic times, it has been the way of savage man, red, black, brown and yellow, to kill as the wild animals do,—only what hecanuse,orthinkshecanuse. TheCreeIndianimpoundedsmallherds, of bison, and sometimes killed from 100 to 200 at one time; but it was to make sure of having enough meat and hides, and because he expected to use the product. I think that even the worst enemies of the plains Indians hardly will accuse them of killing large numbers of bison, elk or deer merely for the pleasure of seeing them fall, or taking only their teeth.
It has remained for the wolf, the sheep-killing dog and civilized man to make records of wanton slaughter which puts them in a class together,