Page 413 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

DUTY OF ZOOLOGISTS AND EDUCATORS 391
The Field Museum of Chicago is a great institution, but it appears to be inactive in wild-life protection, and indifferent to the fate of our wild life. Its influence is greatly needed on the firing line, especially in Illinois,Wisconsin,IowaandnorthernMinnesota. Firstofalltheodious sale-of-game situation in Chicago should be cleaned up!
The Philadelphia Academy of Sciences has been represented on the A.O.U.CommitteeonBirdProtectionbyMr.WitmcrStone. Thetime has come when this Academy should be represented on the firing line as a virile, wide-awake, self-sacrificing and aggressive force. It is perhaps theoldestzoologicalbodyintheUnitedStates! Itsscientificstanding isunquestioned. Itsmembersmustknowofthecarnagethatisgoing onaroundthem,fortheyarenotignorantmen. ThePennsylvaniavState Game Commission to-day stands in urgent need of active, vigorous and persistent assistance from the Philadelphia Academy in the fierce cam- paignalreadyinprogressforadditionalprotectivelaws. Willthathelp be given?
The Carnegie Institute of Washington (endowment $22,000,000) un- questionably owes a great duty toward wild life, no portion of which hasyetbeendischarged. Academicresearchworkisallverywell,but it does not save faunas from annihilation. In the saving of the birds and mammals of North America a hundred million people are directly interested, and the cause is starving for money, men and publicity. Education is not the ONLY duty of educators!
The Carnegie Museum at Pittsburgh should be provided by Pitts- burgh with sufficient funds that its Director can put a good man into the field of protection, and maintain his activities. The State of Penn- sylvania, and the nation at large, needs such a worker at Pittsburgh; and this statement is not open to argument!
The California Academy of Sciences The Chicago Academy of Sciences;
The New York Academy of Sciences;
The National Academy of Sciences \ ;
The Rochester Academy of Sciences The Philadelphia Zoological Society The National Zoologfical Park;
Appear to have done nothing noteworthy in promoting the preservation and in crease of the wild life of Aincrica.
A Few of the Instititions of Learning Which Shoild Each De- vote One Man to this Cause.
Columbia University, of New York, has a very large and strong corps ofzoologicalprofessorsinitsDepartmentofBiology. Nolivingorganism is too small or too worthless to be studied by high-grade men ; but does any man of Columbia ever raise his voice, actively and determinedly, for the preservation of our fauna, or any other fauna? Columbia should give the services of one man wholly to this cause.
There are men whose zoological ideals soar so high that they can not see the slaughter of wild creatures that is so furiously proceeding on
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