Page 408 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

CHAPTER XLIir
THE DUTY OF AMERICAN ZOOLOGISTS AND EDUCATORS TO AMERICAN WILD LIFE
The publication of this chapter will hardly be regarded as a bid for fame, or even popularity, on the part of the author. However, the subject can not be ignored simply because it is disagreeable.
Throughout sixty years, to go no further back, the people of America have been witnessing the strange spectacle of American zoologists, as a mass, so intent upon the academic study of our continental fauna that they seem not to have cared a continental about the destruction of that fauna.
During that tragic period twelve species of North American birds have been totally exterminated, twenty-three are almost exterminated, and the mammals have fared very badly.
If "by their works ye shall know them," then no man can say that the men referred to have been conspicuous on the firing line in defense of assaulted wild life. In their hearts, we know that in an academic way the naturalists of America do care about wild-life slaughter, and the extermination of species ; and we also know that perhaps fifty American zoologists have at times taken an active and serious interest in protection work.
I am speaking now of the general body of museum directors and
—a legion in themselves; teachers of nature study in our secondary schools; investigators and specialists in state and government service; the taxidermists and osteologists; and the array of literary people who, like all the foregoing, make their bread and butter out of the exploitation of wild life.
Taken as a whole, the people named above constitute a grand army of at least five thousand trained, educated, resourceful and influential persons. They all depend upon wild life for their livelihood. When they talk about living things, the public listens with respectful attention. Their knowledge of the value of wild life would be worth something to our cause; but thus far it never has been capitalized!
These people are hard workers; and when they mark out definite courses and attainable goals, they know how to get results. Yet what do we see?
For sixty long years, with the exception of the work of a corporal's guard of their number, this grand army has remained in camp, partly
curators professorsandteachersofzoologyinourinstitutionsoflearning ;