Page 344 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

322 OUR VANISHING WILD LIFE
During the period preceding that fatal date, the living chamois, grown half tame by years of immunity from the guns, were all carefully located andmarkeddownbythosewhointendedtohuntthem. Atdaybreak onthefatalday,theonsetbegan. Gunsandhunterswereeverywhere, and the mountains resounded with the fusillade. Hundreds of chamois were slain, by hundreds of hunters; and by the close of that fatal "open season" the species was more nearly exterminated throughout that regionthaneverbefore. Oncemorethosemountainswereniceandbarren of game.
Let that bloody and disgracefiil episode serve as a warning to Ameri- cans who are tempted to demand an open season on game that has bred back from the verge of extinction. Particularly do we commend it to the notice of the people of Colorado who even now are demanding an open season on the preserved mountain sheep of that state. The granting of such an open season would be a brutal outrage. Those sheep are now so tame and unsuspicious that the killing of them would be cold-blooded murder!
The Logical Conclusion.—Within reasonable limits, any partly- destroyed wild species can be increased and brought back by giving absoluteprotectionfromharassmentandslaughter. Whenaspeciesis struggling to recuperate, it deserves to be left entirely unmolested until it is once more on safe ground.
Every breeding wild animal craves seclusion and entire immunity fromexcitementandallformsofmolestation. Naturesimplydemands this as her unassailable right. It is my firm belief that any wild species will breed in captivity whenever its members are given a degree of seclusion that they deem satisfactory.
With species that have not been shot down to a point entirely too low, adequate protection generously long in duration will bring back their numbers. If the people of the United States so willed it, we could have wild white-tailed deer in every state and in every county (save citycounties)betweentheAtlanticandtheRockyMountains. Wecould easilyhaveonethousandbobwhitequailforeveryonenowliving. We could have squirrels in every grove, and songbirds by the million, —merely byprotectingthemfromslaughterandmolestation. FromOhiotothe great plains, the pinnated grouse could be made far more common than crows and blackbirds.
Inasmuch as all this is true,—and no one with information will dis- pute it for a moment,—is it not folly to seek to supplant our own splendid native species of game birds {that we never yet have decently protected!) with foreign species ? Let the American people answer this question with "Yes" or "No."
The methods by which our non-game birds can be encouraged and brought back are very simple: Protect them, put up shelters for them, give them nest-boxes in abundance, protect them from cats, dogs, and all other forms of destruction, and feed those that need to be fed. I should think that every boy living in the country would find keen pleasure in