Page 303 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

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NFAV LAWS NEEDED IN THE STATES 281
The killing of all tree squirrels and chipmunks should cease.
All shore birds that visit Iowa deserve a five-year close season.
Especially is the shooting of plover, sandpiper, marsh and beach birds, rail, duck,
geese and brant from September 1, to April 15, an outrage.
Iowa should prohibit the use of the machine guns, and it is to be hojied that she
will awaken sufficiently to do so.
It is said that the Indian word " Iowa " means "the drowsy, or sleepy ones." Politically, and educationally, Iowa is all right, but in the pro- tection of wild life she is ten years behind the times, in almost everything savetheprohibitionofthesaleofgame. Iowaknowsbetterthantopursue thecoursethatshedoes! Sheboastsabouthercornandhogs,butsheis deaf to the appeals of the states surrounding her on the subject of spring shooting. ForyearsMinnesotahassetheragoodexample; butnothing moves her to step up where she belongs in the phalanx of intelligent game- protecting states.
The foregoing may sound harsh, but in view of what other states have endured from Iowa's stubbornness regarding migratory game, the time forsilenttreatmentofhercasehasgoneby. Sheisto-dayinthesame class as North Carolina, South Carolina and Maryland,-—at the tail end of the procession of states. She cares everything for corn and hogs, but little for wild life.
Kansas:
Spring shooting should be stopped, at once; with apologies for not having done so long ago.
The continued shooting of prairie chickens when the species is near extermination is outrageous, and should be prohibited for ten years.
Doves should be removed permanently from the game list, partly as a measure of self respect.
Kansas should treat herself to a force of salaried game wardens rendering real service. vSlie should bar out the machine guns as unfit for use in a well-regulated State.
Kansas has calmly witnessed the extermination of her bison, elk, deer, antelope, wild turkeys, sage grouse, whooping cranes, and the be- ginningoftheendofherpinnatedgrouse,withoutapang. Whatiswild game in comparison with fat hogs, and seventy-bushels-to-the-acre
Draw a line around the hog-and-corn area of the United States, and within it you will find more spring shooting, more sale of game and more exterminationofspeciesthaninanyotherareaintheUnitedStates. I refer to Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. In not one of these states except Missouri is there any big game hunting, and in the majority of them spring shoot- ing is la\vful
In the Island of Mauritius, it was swine that exterminated the dodo. In the United States, hogs and game extermination still go hand in hand. Since the days of the dodo, however, a new species of swine has been developed. Itisnowwidelyknownasthe"game-hog,"andithasbeen officially recognized by both bench and bar.