Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1909-01-08
Plans to Measure Its Con
tents for 1909.
Sportmen and Audubon Work
erS Join Forces.
4 Census Proposed Of the Dying
Races Of Game.

| contents oil Uncle SANS game Dag
during the new year is the object of a
concerted effort IN which sportsmen
| from every section of the country are
| joining the National Association of
Audubon Societies in this city today.
| Detailed records of each days shoot
are to be secured from every true
sportsman and required by law of
every one else, it is proposed, in all
states where the Audubon and sport
ing interests will urge the crying need
of legislation to this effect. Unless the
annual inroads upon the rapidly de-
creasing game of America are>thus de-
termined, the leaders of the new move
ment declared today, shooting as a
healthy recreation will soon be killed
in almost every region of the CONT
| nent
| That the health, crops and woods, as
we'll as the sport of many extensive
localities are today seriously menaced
BY the extinction of game birds will be
demonstrated by the latest results of
the scientific Investigations of govern
ment authorities at Washington.
Water fowl and shore birds will be
shown in their natural capacity of
destroying the anopheles mosquito as
| well as many other recognized dis
tributors of deadly germs. Gulls and
MANY other varieties of sea and inland
water birds will be proven by orni-
theological experts to be wholesale
| destroyers of grasshoppers and null
titude of the insects which cause an
annual crop and forest loss of nearly a
billion dollars. or more than the entire
1DI announced
according to the most recent calcula-
tons of the government Bureau OF
| Entomology The case of Salt Lake
City, whose people have erected
monument to the gulls that saved all
their crops from destruction by an IN
sect plague will also be cited.
In every one of the forty-four state
legislatures which are beginning 70
| convene for the new year special Ell
! forts to obtain legal provision Tor TINS
game census are being planned among
organized spOrtSmen and AUDUBON
| workers. Where a hunters license
law is already in force the addition OF
law to enforce the recording of an
game birds and animals shot VIII be
urged. 1t is proposed, in order to pro-
| tect the true sportsmcn and to detect
| market hunters, to punish failure to
renort the seasons shoot by for
| feiture of license and false returns by
nroceedinp as against perjury. Special
blanks for the purpose are being pre-
| nared as an attachment to all hunters
license cards.
| When the purpose and necessity OF
this widespread checking up of the ma
| TONS game bag is realized by the peo-
| ple at large, the labor of compiling
the records of the individual proWess
| of millions Of hunters will be begun.
In this gigantic task the officers OF inc
| National Association of Audubon so
cieties have been promised the hearty
| assistance of the director Of the Ma
tional Conservation Commission, CO.
ordinate branch of which their organi-
| zation has become by the special IN
vitation of the authorities at Washing
ton. This conservation movement
they will forward as one of their prlh-
cjpal activities for the new year, to-
gether with their regular work OF edu-
cation, bird care on reservations and
legislative campaigning for general
bird protection
.The conservation Of the dying races
of TIE game birds and animals of this
| continent is an object for which we are
finding every true sportsman ready and
eager to cooperate with u.s. said Will
liam butcher. president of the Ma
tional Association OF Audubon S0c1c-
ties. at it's headquarters, al Broadway,
today. "The proposed census is the
only sure way of determining the "X-
tent of the existing commercial bird
butchery and the means to check 1T
Though we shall, of course, have to
fight the organized and financially
powerful market hunters at every step
toward this end feel sure that the
support of the sportsmen will help US
greatly and that we may rely upon the
support Of every patriotic American ,as
we'll. The whole public debt of this
nation has just been reported as $780,
3i3,7E1 With known annual loss of
many millions more than this due to
the growing inroads of the insects
which our game birds destroy. do not
think Americans can ignore this sub
ject much longer