Page 90 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

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OUR VANISHING WILD LIFE
SNOW BUNTING
A Great " Game Bird " ! Of These. 8,058 Were Pound in 1902 in one New York Cold-Storage Warehouse
i't.
illegally bought and shipped to Pittsburgh over 5,000 birds. Theobjectorliteral- ly threw up his hands, and said, "I have been wrong! Let the bill go through!" And it went.
Before the passage of the Bayne law, New York City was a "fence" for the sale of grouse illegally killed in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylva- nia, New Jersey and I know not how many other states. The Bayne law stopped all that business, abruptly and forever; and
if the ruffed grouse, quail and ducks of the Eastern States are offered for sale in Chicago, Cincinnati, Baltimore and Washington, the people of New York and Massachusetts can at least be assured that they are not toblame. Thosetwostatesnowmaintainno"fences"forthesaleof game that has been stolen from other states. They have both set their houses in order, and set two examples for forty other states to follow.
The remedy for all this miserable game-stealing, law-breaking busi- nessissimpleandeasilyobtained. LeteachstateoftheUnitedStates and each province and Canada enact a Bayne law, absolutely prohibiting the sale of all wild native game, and the thing is done ! But nothing short ofthatwillbereallyeffective. Itwillnotdoatalltoletstatelawsrest with merely forbidding the sale of game "protected by the State;" for thatlawisfullofloop-holes. Itdoesmuchgoodservice,yes;butwhat earthly objection can there be in any state to the enactment of a law that is sweepingly effective, and which can not be evaded, save through the criminal connivance of officers of the law ?
By way of illustration, to show what the sale of wild game means to the remnant of our game, and the wicked slaughter of non-game birds to which it leads, consider these figures:
Dead Birds Found in one Cold Storage House in New York IN 1902.
Snow Buntings Sandpipers Plover
Snipe Yellow-legs
8,058 Grouse 7,607 Quail 5,218 Ducks 7,003 Bobolinks
7,560 4,385 1,756
288 96
788 Woodcock
The fines for this lot, if imposed, would have amounted to $1,168,316