Page 388 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

366 OUR VANISHING WILD LIFE
THE MOST IMPORTANT GAME PRESERVES OF AFRICA The Numbers Refer to Corresponding Numbers in the Text
"It is idle to say that the advance of civiHzation must necessarily mean the total disappearance of all wild animals. This is one of those glib fallacies which flows only too readily from unthinking hps. Civili- zation in its full sense—not the advent of a few scattered pioneers—of course, implies their restriction, especially as regards purely grass- feeding species, within certain definite bounds, both as regards numbers and sanctuaries. But this is a very different thing from wholesale destruction, that a few more or less deserving individuals may receive some small pecuniary benefit, or gratify their taste for slaughter to the detriment of everyone else who may come after. The fauna of an empire is the property of that etnpire as a whole, and not of the small portion of it where the animals may happen to exist; and while full justice and encourage- ment must he given to the farmer and pioneer, neither should he permitted to entirely demolish for his own advantage resources which, strictly speaking, are not his own.'"—("Animal Life in Africa," p. 24.)