Page 315 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

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NEW LAWS NEEDED IN THE STATES 293
Prepare to protect, at an early date, the wild turkey and quail ; for soon they will need it. Moreover, enact a law prohibiting the use of automatic and pump guns in hunting, covering the entire state.
Provide a resident-license system and thereby make the game department self- sustaining, and render it possible to employ a salaried State Game Commissioner.
It is quite wrong for the people of North CaroHna to hold grudges against northern members of the ducking clubs of Currituck for the passage of the Bayne law. They had nothing whatever to do with it and I can say this because I was in a position which enabled me to know.
North Dakota:
In 1911, this sovereign state enacted a law prohibiting the use of auto- mobiles in hunting wild-fowl; also rifles. North Dakota was the first state to recognize officially the fact that the use of automobiles in hunt- ing is a serious m.enace to some forms of wild life. Beyond all question, the machines do indeed bring an extra number of birds within reach of the gun ! They increase the annual slaughter ; and it is right and neces- sary to prohibit by law their use in hunting game of any kind.
InPutmanCounty,NewYork,Ihaveseentheminaction. Aload of three or four gunners is whirled up to a likely mountain-side for ruffed grouse,andpresentlythebangingbegins. Afteranhourorsospentin combing out the birds, the hunters jump in, whirl away in a dust-cloud to another spot two miles away, and "bang-bang-bang" again. After that, a third locality; and so on, covering six or eight times the territory that a man in a buggy, or on foot, could possibly shoot over in the same time!
North Dakota has done well, in the passage of that act. On certain other matters, she is not so sound.
For instance
The killing of pinnated grouse should be stopped for ten years; and it should be done immediately.
Thekillingofcranesas"game"shouldstop,instantlyandforever. Itisbarbarous.
Fifty dead birds in possession at one time is fully thirty too many. The game cannot stand such slaughter
All shore birds (Order Limicolae) should have at least a five-year close season, before they are exterminated.
The use of machine guns in hunting should be stopped, forever.
It is to the credit of the state that antelope are absolutely protected until 1920, and an unlimited close season has been accorded the quail, dove and swan.
Ohio:
I think that Ohio comes the nearest of all the states to being gameless. With but slight exceptions her laws are about as correct as those of most other states, but the desire to "kill " is so strong, and the majority of her gunners are so thoroughly selfish about their "rights" that the game has