Gloucester County Democrat., 1907-01-17
TO MAKE THE HUNTERS PAY.

Not a single year passes without wit
Messing some effort to amend or mutilate
the game laws. they never seem TO suit
everybody, and though score or more
of Legislatures have experimental with
game protecting statutes, they haye failed
to devise anything that applies with equal
satisfaction TO Sussex in the north, Cape
May in the south and all the counties in
tervening. New Jersey isn't large, only
about 165 miles long and an average OF
less than fifty miles wide, yet it seems
almost impossible to properly regulate
hunting and adequately protect the game.
1t costs the State enormously to do what
it does in this direction. 1t has complete
Fish and Game Commission, and at the
last session OF she Legislature $500 was
appropriated for the wardens, SIS, 100 for
their expenses, S., 600 for stocking the
waters with good fishes and defraying the
cost of maintenance Of hatchery and for
the protecting and propagating of birds and
game animals, $1,000 for commissioners
expenses, and $3.50 for printing In addi-
tion there was an unusual appropriation of
So, 500 for stocking the Delaware RIVER, so
that the total aggregates $29, $50.
Every year new supply Of birds and
fishes has to be obtained, and every year
the hunters destroy pretty much all the
quail with which the State has stocked the
woods and fields. The work of restocking
is continuous Already New Jersey has
spent quarter Of million dollars or more,
and the chief result is the furnishing of
birds for gunners and the filling of the fall
markets with game that has been imported
in the spring from the far West at great
expense. The work Of the States Com
mission has not been barren of some good
accomplishments, but they have been so
inadequate in proportion TO the expense
that some citizens have advised the COM
plete abolition of the whole commission.
Now it is proposed to make the COM
mission self-supporting At the recent
dinner given under the auspices of the Es-
sex Fish and Game Protective Association,
the League of American Sportsmen, the
Passaic County Fish and Game Protective
Association and the Troy Meadow Club. 1t
was urged that the law be changed once
more; that every resident gunner be taxed
81 license fee; every nonresident $40, and
aliens $50. The sportsmen, it was said,
- fau -f ar,1 90
sure the State $25, 900 a year. Another
proposal was that the sale of game in the
open market be prohibited and hunters be
allowed to kill only what they wanted for
their own use. This would prevent pot
hunting and hunting for markets, and the
great annual slaughter which makes re-
stocking almost useless.
Manifestly the State has other and far
better ways of spending from $4,000 to
$780, 900 year than in importing game
birds and animals for gunners TO shoot and
sell in the markets. The only valid reason
for restocking the woods and fields with
birds is the economic one that they are Of
some use to agriculture and of great value
in keeping down noxious seeds and insects.
Sport in itself is not in need of State APP
propriations and is not subject for favor
able legislation. If the gunners want to
kill birds they should pay whatever it
costs to keep the woods stocked with them.
Since they are willing to do this, the State
is hardly warranted in goirg to further
expense on its own account.