Page 327 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

NEW GAME LAWS THAT ARE NEEDED 305
Union, nor a single province in Canada, in which the game birds, and other birds criminally shot as game, are not being killed far faster than they are breeding, and thereby being exterminated.
Several states are financially unable to employ a force of salaried gaine wardens; and wherever that is true, the door to universal slaughter iswideopen. LethimwhoquestionsthistakeVirginiaasacaseinpoint. A loyal Virginian told me only this year that in his state the warden system is an ineffective farce, and the game is not protected, because the wardens can not afford to patrol the state for nothing.
This condition prevails in a number of states, north and south, espe- ciallysouth. Itismybeliefthatthroughoutnine-tenthsoftheSouth, the negroes and poor whites are slaughtering birds exactly as they please. It is the permanent residents of the haunts of birds and game that are exterminating the wild life.
The value of the birds as destroyers of noxious insects, has been set forth in Chapter XXIII. Their total value is enormous—or it would beifthebirdswerealiveandhereintheirnormalnumbers. To-daythere are about one-tenth as many birds as were alive and working thirty years ago. During the past thirty years the destruction of our game birds has been enormous, and the insectivorous birds have greatly decreased.
The damages annually inflicted upon the farm, orchard and garden crops of this country are very great. When a city is destroyed by earth- quake or fire, and $100,000,000 worth of property is swept away, we are racked with horror and pity; and the cities of America pour out money like water to relieve the resultant distress. We are shocked because we can see the flames, the smoke and the ruins.
And yet, we annually endure with perfect equanimity {because we can not see itf) a loss of nearly $400,000,000 worth of value that is de- stroyedbyinsects. Thedamageisinflictedsilently,insidiously,without any scare heads or wooden type in the newspapers, and so we pay the price without protest. We know—when we stop to think of it—that notallthislossfallsupontheproducer. Weknowthateveryconsumer ofbread,cereals,vegetablesandfruitpayshisshareofthisloss! To-day, millions of people are groaning under the "increased cost of living." The bill for the federal protection of all migratory birds is directly in- tended to decrease the cost of living, by preventing outrageous waste; but of all the persons to whom the needs of that bill arc presented, how many will take the time to promote its quick passage by direct appeals to their members of Congress? We shall see. .
The good that would be accomplished, annually, by the enactment of a law for the federal protection of all migratory birds is beyond com- putation; but it is my belief that within a very few years the increase in bird life would prevent what is now an annual loss of $250,000,000. It is beyond the power of man to protect his crops and fruit and trees as the bird millions would protect them—if they were here as they were in 1870. The migratory bird bill is of vast importance because it would throw the strong arm of federal protection around 610 species of birds.