Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1891-01-21
ANIMAL EXTINCTION.
The Different Species Which Are Rapid
Disappearing from the Earth.


Disappearing from the Earth.
startling publication is issued by
the Smithsonian Institution, which
shows that many of the most valuable
species of animals at present inhabit-
ing the world will inevitably be driven
off the face of the earth and rendered
absolutely extinct within few years to
come. For example, the elephant is
already doomed. Each year 10O,-
600 of these pachyderms are
slaug to supply the market
with ivory. Up to within compare
lively recent period commerce drew
chiefly upon the great stores of dead
ivory in possession of the African ma
tlves, which had accumulated for centu-
ries; but now this reserve stock has
been exhausted, and all the tusks ex-
ported from the dark continent must be
got green" by hunting live elephants.
Thus the herds are being rapidly wiped
out, not to mention the incidental fact,
according to Explorer Stanley. that
every pound of ivory that reaches
Europe costs the life of a man,
woman or child, while every
twenty tusks are secured at the
price of an entire district, with all its
people, villages and plantations. This,
of course. is due to the intimate connec-
ton which exists between the ivory
gathering business and the slave trade.
You will get some notion of what 1OO,.
600 elephants mean if you will consider
that, placed in line, that number would
stretch $50 miles. AS for the slaves,
they are secured for the purpose of car
rying big ivory to the coast by the
Arabs, who attack and destroy the
native villages, carrying off into cap
tivity those of the inhabitants who are
serviceable as porters, and killing the
rest In this way whole regions in
Africa have been depopulated and laid
waste.
1t is fashion, however, that is most
Importantly responsible for the threat
ened extinction of animals we'll worth
preserving. To prove this statement,
reference is made to single recent
auction sale in London, at which were
disposed of, under the hammer, 80, 600
monkey skins, $50, 600 Australian opos-
sums skins, 400, 900 humming birds
skins, 5000 skins of birds of paradise,
and 100000 assorted birds skins from
India. In all the collections in the
world, public and private, there does
not exist so mauy birds skins, stuffed
or otherwise, as the total of these
amounts to. Evidently the beautiful
birds OF the earth must go, and Aus
tralian oppossums and monkeys have
no show whatever. One dealer last
year sold 1000, 900 skins of birds.
Every one knows by this time that
the fur seals are also doomed. Having
been altogether exterminated from the
rookeries of the Southern seas, where
they used to congregate in such count
less myriads, they are now being wiped
off from their last resting place on the
two Pribylov islands in Behring sea by
remorseless pirates in schooners who
kill ten for every one they get. like
fate awaits the hair seal 875, 600 of
which were slain last year for leather
and oil. Even the alligators, croco-
diles and other reptiles are not spared.
Even they must disappear, because
their hides are wanted for retieules,
pocket-books and other fancy articles"
Man-more particularly the eau
casian-is the most destructive Of ami
mails His appetite for killing is in
satiable, and to this mere taste for
slaughter for its own sake the marked
and rapid changes at present being
wrought IN the fauna of the world are
largely attributable. Among the yalu-
able beasts now swiftly succumbing to
the sportsman's rifle is the true zebra.
which is confined at this moment to a
small area in South Africa, while the
giraffe is quickly disappearing from the
same cause. Let loose white man with
an equipment of improved weapons in
the wilds, and he will call it
sport" to Stay wantonly every thing
that he can get pop at-not for food,
but simply for the sake of taking away
life. Mind you, it has been left for
civilization to thoroughly develop this
type OF savagery. The only parrot
known to this country, which was for
merly plentiful as far north as Kansas.
is now being finally extirpated in FIori,
da by visitors who kill the birds for
sport" They are naturally tame, and
it is easy enough to knock over half a
dozen at one bang. They are not good
to eat but then they make such pretty
mark for gun.
A while ago the so-called passenger
pigeon flew by millions in the Ohio
valley and as far East as Massachusetts,.
Now but very few of them are left.
They have been shot by wholesale, and
while they lasted were commonly util- |
lied by shooting from traps. 1t is great
sport to take q pigeon that has been |
captured in net put him In box and |
pop the poor creature at short range |
when he flies out at signal, with about
pns chance in fiftT Tor his life. IN this