Page 345 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

BRINGING BACK VANISHED BIRDS AND GAME 323
making and erecting nest-boxes for martins, wrens, and squirrels; in putting up straw teepees in winter for the quail, in feeding the quail, and in nailing to the trees chunks of suet and fat pork every winter for the woodpeckers, nuthatches, and other winter residents.
Will any person now on this earth live long enough to see the present all-pervading and devilish spirit of slaughter so replaced by the love of wild creatures and the true spirit of conservation that it will be as rare as it now is common?
But let no one think for a moment that any vanishing species can at any time be brought back; for that would be a grave error. The point is always reached, by every such species, that the survivors are too few tocopewithcircumstances,andrecoveryisimpossible. Theheathhen could not be brought back, neither could the passenger pigeon. The whooping crane, the sage grouse, the trumpeter swan, the wild turkey, and the upland plover never will come back to us, and nothing that we can do ever will bring them back. Circumstances are against those species, —and I fear against many others also. Thanks to the fact that the American bison breeds well in captivity, we have saved that species from complete extinction, but our antelope seems to be doomed.
It is because of the alarming condition of our best wild life that quick action and strong action is vitally necessary. We are sleeping on our possibilities.