The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1909-01-14
TO COUNT NATIONS GAME BAG
sportsmen Will Aid Audubon Workers
to Check Market Hunters.

To measure the contents OF Uncle
Sans game bag during the new year
in the object Of a concerted EFFORT
in which sportsmen from every sec
ton Of this country are joining the
National Association Of Audubon Soc
ieties. Detailed records OF each days
shoot are to be secured from every
| true sportsman and required Dy law
CT everyone 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
decreasing game of America are thus
determined, the leaders Of the new
movement declare. shooting as heal
thy recreation will soon be killed in
almost every region of the continent.
That the health. crops and woods,
as we'll as the sport of many extensive
localities are 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.
| W uINA AOhA anu oliOAG blAuo al UE
shown in their natural capacity of des-
troying the anopheles mosquito as
we'll as many other recognized distrib-
utors of deadly germs. Gulls and
many other varieties of sea and in
land water birds will be wholesale
destroyers of grasshoppers and a null
titude of the insects which cause an
annual crop and forest loss of nearly
a billion dollars or more than the
entire national debt as recently an
nounced, according to the most recent
calculations of the government bur
eau of entomology. The case Of Salt
Lake City whose people have erected
a monument to the gulls that saved all
their crops from destruction by an in
sect plague, will be cited
In every one of the A state legisla-
lures which are beginning to convene
for the new year. special efforts to OBJ
tain legal provision for this game cen
sus are being planned among organ
lied spOrtsmen and Audubon work
ers. Where a hunters license law is
already in force the addition OF a law
to enforce The recording of all game
birds and animals shot will be urged
1t is proposed in order to protect the
true sportsmen and to de ect ma ket
hunters, TO punish failure to report the
seasons shoot by a forfeiture Of IL
cense and false returns by proceeding
as against perjury. Special bl nks
for the purpose are being prepared as
an attachment to all hunters Tense
cards.
When the purpose and necessity o
this widespread checking up Of the ma
tons game bag is realized by the
, people at large. the labor OF compiling
the records of the individual proves
of millions of hunters will be begun
In this gigantic task the officers Of III
= National association of Audubon soci
> ties have been promised the heart
assistance of the director of the Nat
ional Conservation Commission. a &C
ordinate branch of which their organ
} cation has become by the special In
I yitation of the authorities at Washin
ton This conservation mOvemen
they will forward as one of their priT
cipal activities for the new year, tC
! gether with their regular work of eC
ucation bird care on reservations an
legislative campaigning for genera
bird protection.