Page 86 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

64 OUR VANISHING WILD LIFE
A MARKET GUNNER AT WORK OX MARSH ISLAND
KillingMallardsfortheNewOrleansMarket. ThePurchaseofThisIslandbyMrs.RussellSagehasnow Converted it Into a Bird Sanctuary.
containingagoodsupplyofgamehasescaped. IntheUnitedStatesthe great slaughtering-grounds have been Cape Cod; Great South Bay, New York; Currituck Sound, North Carolina; Marsh Island, Louisiana; the southwest corner of Louisiana; the Sunk Lands of Arkansas; the lake regions of Minnesota ; the prairies of the whole middle West ; Great Salt Lake; the Klamath Lake region (Oregon) and southern California.
The output of this systematic bird slaughter has supplied the greedy game markets of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Balti- more, Chicago, New Orleans, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle. The history of this industry, its methods, its carnage, its profits and its losses would make a volume, but we can not enteruponithere. Beyondreasonabledoubt,thisawfultrafficindead game is responsible for at least three-fourths of the slaughter that has reduced our game birds to a mere remnant of their former abundance. There is no influence so deadly to wild life as that of the market gunner who works six days a week, from sunrise until sunset, hunting down and killing every game bird that he can reach with a choke-bore gun.
During the past five years, several of the once-great kilHng grounds have been so thoroughly "shot out" that they have ceased to hold their formerrank. ThisisthecasewiththeMinnesotaLakes,theSunkLands of Arkansas, the Klamath Lakes of Oregon, and I think it is also true of southernCalifornia. TheKlamathLakeshavebeentakenoverbythe Government as a bird refuge. Currituck Sound, at the northeastern corner of North Carolina, has been so bottled up by the Bayne law of New