Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-07-08
GAME PROTECTION.
A SAN JOAQUIN CITIZEN WHO SEEKS
LIGHT ON THE SUBJECT.
Shooting Almost Thing of the
Past-Laws that Encourage the
Slaughter of Game.

1t is an encouraging sign to find men
sufficiently interested in the important
matter of game protection to ask for light
on the legal restrictions regarding the
taking OF game. In these days of almost
indiscriminate license to poachers there is
too little attention given to the subject,
which is of sufficient Importance to war
rant the active cooperation not only of all
true sportsmen but of those who have no
other interest in the matter beyond the
suppression of cruelty to the defenseless
denizens of the forest and meadow. The
RECORD UNION is in receipt of the follow
ing communication on the subject:
WOODBRIDGE, July 9th.
EDS. REooRD-UEIoH For the information of
your many readers who aspire TO be disciples
of Nimrod, and who yet desire to keep within
the bounds of the law, will you please publish
summary of the game laws of California.
A. L. CowELL.
For the benefit of all interested in the
subject the following brief summary of the
provisions of the law are given, it being
unnecessary to publish the entire Act.
which, like most others, is unnecessarily
wordy:' Doves are protected from Janu-
airy LIST 10 June LIST; quails and grouse,
from March 1st to September 10th; male
deer, from November LIST to July 1st.
These are the principal kinds of game pro-
tected, except that female deer, or does, are
protected at all seasons.
Ducks ere not protected at all, the Legis-
lature OF four years ago having somehow
become impressed with the idea that the
few mallards and teal that breed in our
tules commit terrible depredations upon
the graintields during the harvesting
season. AT least that is the only conclusion
on which their action can be based, as the
ducks that feed on the sprouting grain in
winter and early spring with the geese)
are but temporary sojourners mere and
leave for the Arctic regions as soon as they
complete their mischief. If the ducks that
breed in our marshes were protected dur
ing summer, there would again be some
weeks of fair shooting in the early fall,
before the northern contingent gets here.
But Legislatures do funny things some
times, especially when they begin to tinker
with game laws. What the average Tar
Flat statesman from San Francisco doesn't
know about the game of the uplands and
meadows would fill very big book.
While on this subject a word about the
dove law may be in order. The law per-
mits these birds to be killed after the 31st
OF May up to the first of the following
year. And what is the result? Already
the cry is, No doves !" Scores of Sacra-
mento sportsmen who were out after doves
during the last few weeks, have been in
terviewed On the subject, and they all have
the same story to tell-"no doves" 1t
could not well be otherwise A law that
permits or encourages the slaughter of
either bird or beast during the breeding
season simply offers q premium for their
determination If this result was the aim
of the men who framed and passed the
present law, they have the satisfaction of
knowing that their work is progressing
successfully. If it was not their aim, and
If they have sense enough to realize any
thing, they should feel like retiring to some
secluded spot and "bagging their heads"
The doves have been so persistently
slaughtered during the breeding season for
some years past that there are now but few
10 be had AT the proper season for shooting.
Not more than a half dozen wears ago
person could take his gun and walk out
mile or two from Sacramento, of an after
noon in July or August, and bag any
where from one to three dozen of these
delicate birds, and the next season would
find them just as plentiful again.
But all this has been changed. Men
who have no claim to the honorable dis
tlnction of being true sportsmen-they are
simply shooters hunted and slain
the mother-blrds from the moment the sun
rises on June 1st until the summer ends,
causing their young to starve to death in
the nests, until now they have practically
no doves 10 shoot. Aud this class of guer-
illas (for they are nothing less) would go
out and Stay the old birds as fast as the
latter put in an appearance-even in April
or May-if the law only gave them permits
sion; and il might as well do so, for all the
protection II now affords these birds.
What is true as regards the methods of
exterminating one class of game apply
with equal force to others. The men who
under cover of the forests seclusion-slay
deer Unfortunately at all seasons, spar
ing neither age nor sex, for the profits they
may reap from the sale of hides, will in a
few years find no deer to shoot the men
who are sharing quails for the market will
ere long have TO go to work at some honor
able occupation, or become sneak thieves,
for there will soon be no quails to snare;
the city shooter, who kills twenty or thirty
deer on his summer outing, and eats but
one, will in the sweet by and-by have to
content himself with killing jack-rabbits or
Chipmunks; the so-called angler" who
depletes the mountain streams of trout at
the rate of five hundred or thousand
day-just because the fish are there-will
be yanking catfish and carp from the tule-
sloughs before his head grows white with
age: and the class who slaughter ducklings
by the brood to tickle the palates of dys-
peptic city epiCures will have only mud
hens to excite his sportsman q ploclivities
in the coming years.