Page 372 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

CHAPTER XXXVII
GAME PRESERVES AND GAME LAWS IN CANADA
As now set forth on the map of North America, Canada is a vast country. WemustnolongerthinkofOntarioandQuebecas"Canada West" and "Canada East," because the new assistant-nation owns and rules everything from Labrador to British C( Jumbia, and all the north- ern mainland save Alaska.
Although the fauna of Canada is strictly boreal, it is sufficiently dis- persed and diversified to demand wise legislation, and plenty of it. For a nation with an outfit of provinces so new, Canada already is well advanced in the matter of game laws and game preserves, and in some respects she has set the pace for. her southern neighbors. For example, in New Brunswick we see the lordly moose successfully hunted for sport, not only without being exterminated but actually on a basis that permits it to increase in number. In Nova Scotia we see a law in force which successfully prohibits the waste of moose meat, a loss that characterizes moose hunting everywhere else throughout the range of that animal. All over southern Canada the use of automatic shotguns in htmting is strictly prohibited.
On the other hand, the laws of the Canadians are weak in not pre- venting the sale of all wild game and the killing of antelope. In the matter of game-selling, there are far too many open doors, and a sweeping reform is very necessary.
Speaking generally, and with application from Labrador to British Columbia, the American process of game extermination according to law is vigorously and successfully being pursued by the people of Canada. The open seasons are too long, and the bag limits are too generous to the gunners. As it is elsewhere, the bag-limit laws on birds are a farce, be- cause it is impossible to enforce them, save on every tenth man. For example, in his admirable "Final Report of the Ontario Game and Fisheries Commission" (1912), Commissioner Kelly Evans says:
"The prairie chicken, which formerly was comparativel}'' plentiful throughout the greater portion of the Rainy River District, has now become practically extinct in that region. Various causes have been assigned for this, but it would seem, as usual, to have been mainly the fault of indiscriminate and excessive slaughter." (Page 226.)
Like the United States, the various portions of Canada have their variouslocaltroublesinwild-lifeprotection. Ithinkthegreatestprac- tical difficulties, and the most real opposition to adequate measures, is foundintheProvincesofQuebecandOntario. IsitbecausetheFrench-