FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   >>  
r part of the Gulf coast, where the need of protection is much greater than on the Labrador. That is the interior of the Gaspe peninsula. A certain region in the interior has been set aside as a park, but it is quite unprotected. Here, we have moose, woodland caribou and the red deer, besides nearly all the fur-bearing animals that we find on the Labrador. There is no game protection whatever. Moose and caribou are killed mostly out of season--when they are yarded, or when it is easy to run them down. In many cases the meat is left in the woods, the hide only being wanted. Lumbermen are penetrating up the rivers, further into the interior--every lumber camp is a centre from which the game laws are persistently violated.... the game, both fur and feather, (particularly the ruffled grouse) is rapidly disappearing before their pitiless onslaughts. Lumber camps are opened much earlier in the season than they used to be; so that the interior lakes and head waters of the rivers are being cleaned out of fish taken while in the act of spawning. All this may seem very strong language; but it is really not exaggerated. It may help to show the need of more and better conservation.... Mr. Alfred Russell Wallace, the founder and exponent of the science of zoo-geography, writes: ... your address on "Animal Sanctuaries" in Labrador, which I have read with the greatest interest and astonishment. Such reckless destruction I should hardly have thought possible. There is a considerable public opinion now against the use of feathers as _ornaments_[A] because it inevitably leads to the extermination of some of the most beautiful of living things; but I think the attempts to stop it by legal enactments begin at the wrong end. They seek to punish the actual collectors or importers of the plumes, who are really the least guilty and the most difficult to get at. It is the actual _wearers_ of such ornaments who should be subject to fines or even imprisonment, because, without the _demand_ they make there would be no supply. They also are, presumably, the most educated and should know better. If it were known that any lady with a feather in her hat (or elsewhere) would be taken before a magistrate and _fined_, and, on a second offence, _imprisoned_, a
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   >>  



Top keywords:

interior

 

Labrador

 
actual
 

protection

 
season
 

rivers

 

feather

 

caribou

 

ornaments

 

opinion


considerable

 

extermination

 

inevitably

 

feathers

 

public

 

greatest

 

geography

 

writes

 

science

 

exponent


Alfred

 

Russell

 

Wallace

 

founder

 
address
 
Animal
 

reckless

 

destruction

 

thought

 

astonishment


Sanctuaries

 

interest

 

importers

 

educated

 
supply
 
imprisonment
 

demand

 

offence

 

imprisoned

 
magistrate

enactments
 

living

 
things
 
attempts
 
punish
 
wearers
 

subject

 

difficult

 

guilty

 
collectors