Page 312 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

290 OUR VANISHING WILD LIFE
and there is no "model law" protecting the non-game birds. The sale of game will not trouble New Mexico, because the present laws prevent the sale of all protected game except plover, curlew and snipe,—all of them
• speciesbynomeanscommoninthearidregionsoftheSouthwest.
A law prohibiting spring shooting of shore birds and waterfowl should be passed at the next session of the legislature.
The enactment of the "model law" should be accomplished without delay to put New Mexico abreast of the neighboring states of Colorado, Oklahoma and Texas.
The term of the State Warden should be extended to four years.
New York:
In the year of grace, 1912, I think we may justly regard New York as the banner state of all America in the protection of game and wild life in general. This proud position has been achieved partly through the influence of a great conservation Governor, John A. Dix, and the State Conservation Commission proposed and created b}^ his efforts. In these days of game destruction, when our country from Nome to Key West is reeking with the blood of slaughtered wild creatures, it is a privilege and a pleasure to be a citizen of a state which has thoroughly cleaned house, and done well nigh the utmost that any state can do to clear her bad record, and give all her wild creatures a fair chance to survive. ThepeopleoftheEmpireStateliterallycanpointwithpride to the list of things accomplished in the discharge of good-citizenship toward the remnant of wild life, and toward the future generations of NewYorkers. Thatweofto-dayhaveborneourshareoftheburdenof bringing about the conditions of 1912, will be a source of satisfaction, especially when the sword and shield hang useless upon the walls of Old Age.
New York began to protect her deer in 1705 and her heath hens in 1708. In1912shestoppedthekillingoffemaledeer,andofbuckshaving hornslessthanthreeinchesinlength. Springshootingwasstoppedin 1903. Acomprehensivelawprotectingnon-gamebirdswasenactedin 1862. NewYork'sfirstlawagainstthesaleofcertaingameduringclose seasons was enacted in 1837.
In 1911 New York enacted, with only one adverse vote, a law pro- hibiting the sale of all native wild game throughout the state, no matter where killed, and providing liberally for the encouragement of game- breeding, and the sale of preserve-bred game.
In 1912 a new codification of the state game laws went into effect, through the initiative of Governor Dix and Conservation Commissioners Van Kennen, Moore and Fleming, assisted (as special counsel) by Mar- shall McLean, George A. Lawyer and John B. Burnham. This code contains many important new provisions, one of the most valuable of which is a clause giving the Conservation Commission power, at its dis- cretion, to shorten or to close any open season on any species of game in any locality wherein that species seems to be threatened with extermina- tion. Thisveryvaluableprincipleshouldbeenactedintolawineverystate
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