Page 225 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

CHAPTER XXI
THE SAVAGE VIEW-POINT OF THE GUNNER
The mental attitude of the men who shoot constitutes a deadly factor in the destruction of wild life and the extermination of species. Fully ninety-five per cent of the sportsmen, gunners and other men and boys who kill game, all over the world and in all nations, regard game birds and mammals only as things to be killed and eaten, and not as creatures worth preserving for their beauty or their interest to mankind. This is precisely the viewpoint of the cave-man and the savage, and it has come down from the Man-with-a-Club to the Man-with-a-Gun absolutely un- changed save for one thing: the latter sometimes is prompted to save to-day in order to slaughter to-morrow.
The above statement of an existing fact may seem harsh; and some persons may be startled by it; but it is based on an acquaintance with thousandsofmenwhoshootallkindsofgame,allovertheworld. My critics surely will admit that my opportunities to meet the sportsmen and gunners of the world are, and for thirty-five years have been, rather favorable. Asamatteroffact,Ithinktheeffortsofthehuntersofmy personal acquaintance have covered about seven-tenths of the hunting groundsoftheworld. IftheestimatethatIhaveformedoftheaverage hunter's viewpoint is wrong, or even partially so, I will be glad to have it proven in order that I may reform my judgment and apologize.
In working with large bodies of bird-shooting sportsmen I have steadily—and also painfully—been impressed by their intentness on killing, and by the fact that they seek to preserve game only to kill it! Who ever saw a bird-shooter rise in a convention and advocate the preserva- tion of any species of game bird on account of its beauty or its esthetic interest alivef I never did; and I have sat in many conventions of sportsmen. Allthetalkisofopenseasons,baglimitsandkillingrights. The man who has the hardihood to stand up and propose a five-year close season has "a hard row to hoe." Men rise and say: "It's all nonsense! There'splentyofquailshootingonLongIslandyet."
Throughout the length and breadth of America, the ruling passion is to kill as long as anything killable remains. The man who will openly advocate the stopping of quail-shooting because the quails are of such great value to the farmers, or because they are so beautiful and compan- ionable to man, receives no sympathy from ninety per cent of the bird- killing sportsmen. The remaining ten per cent think seriously about thematter,andfavorlongcloseseasons. Itismyimpressionthatof the men who shoot, it is only among the big-game hunters that we find