Page 308 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

286 OUR VANISHING WILD LIFE
with extinction at an early date. In northern Minnesota it is reported that much game is surreptitiously trapped and slaughtered. The bob white is reported as threatened with total extinction at an early date but I think the prairie chicken will be the first bird species to go. Moose will soon be extinct everj^where in Minnesota except in the game pre- serves. ApparentlythereisnowaboutoneduckinMinnesotaforevery ten ducks that were there only ten years ago.
Now, what is Minnesota going to do about all this? Is she willing through Apathy to become a gameless state ? Her people need to arouse themselvesnow,andpassseveralstronglaws. Herbaglimitofforty-five birds per day of quail, grouse, woodcock and plover, and fifty per day of the waterbirds, is a joke, and nothing more; but it is no laughing matter. It spells extermination.
Mississippi:
The legalized slaughter of robins, cedar birds, grosbeaks and doves should cease immediately, on the basis of economy of resources and a square deal to all the states lying northward of Mississippi.
The shooting of all water-fowl should cease on January 1
A reasonable limit should be established on deer.
A hunting license law should be passed at once, fixing the fee at $1 and devoting
the revenue to the pay of a corps of non-political game wardens, selected on a basis of ability and fitness.
The administration of the game laws should be placed in charge of a salaried game commissioner.
It is seriously to the discredit of Mississippi that her laws actually classify robins, cedar-birds, grosbeaks and doves as "game," and make them killable as such from Sept. i to March i! I should think that if no economic consideration carried weight in Mississippi, state pride alone would be sufficient to promote a correction of the evil. If we of the North were to slaughter mockingbirds for food, when they come North to visit us, the men of the South would call us greedy barbarians; and they would be quite right.
Missouri:
The Missouri bag limits that permit the killing or possession of fifty birds per day are absurd, and fatally liberal. The utmost should be twenty-five; and even that is too high.
Doves should be taken off the list of game birds, and protected throughout the year; and so should all tree squirrels.
Spring shooting of shore birds and waterfowl should be prohibited without delay.
A law against automatic and pump guns should be enacted at the next legislative session, as a public lesson on the raising of the standard of ethics in shooting.
The state of Missouri is really strong in her position as a game- protecting state. She perpetually protects such vanishing species as the ruffed grouse, prairie chicken (pinnated grouse), woodcock, and all her shorebirdssavesnipeandplover. Sheprohibitsthesaleofnativegame and the killing of female deer ; but she wisely permits the sale of preserve-
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