The independent-reporter. [volume] (Skowhegan, Me.) 1909-1955, 1913-05-01
Stop the Importation OF Wild Birds
PIumage

This is a call to action-urgcnt! I'M
mediate NOT merely a helpless wall,
but so move to remedy great evil
! Strike now while the iron is hot,
Bird slaughter today is greater than
ever before in the history of the world
For centuries the Christian nations
have permitted the killing of useful
and beautiful wild birds to go on al
most unchecked in thinly peopled or
unsettled regions, that feather dealers
might line their pocketbooks and that
women might adorn themselves.
: DO you realize what the present
privileges of the importers mean to
our own birds? DR.. George w. Field
Chairman of the Massachusetts Com
missioners on Fisheries & Game, stat
ed before a congressional committee
that during the past six years the COM
mission had been obliged to prosecute
more than seventy-five prominent
milliners for the sale of plumage of
native birds. spoke of many in
stances where wild birds, from gulls
down to swallows and bluebirds
Matched in this country, had been kill
ed in quantities and the feathers ship
ped to London and Paris and there
manufactured and returned to the
United States to be sold.
The chief argument of milliners in
justification of the trade was that it
was difficult, if not impossible for
them to distinguish between native
! plumage and imported, and that as the
national government had taken the
duties on these feathers they were
justified in offering them for ssle.
Within the last quarter century this
trade has become serious menace to
the birds of the world 1t is now so
well organized that no country, how
ever remote and inaccessible, is safe
from the plume hunter. Naked saw
ages in tropical jungles, half savage
Indians and negroes are engaged in
the work of destruction. Scores of
species are menaced with extinction.
No bird that the trade calls for can
escape the destroyer. The United
States now furnishes the greatest mar
ket for plumage on this planet. From
the Great Condors, Vuuures, Eagles
and Albatrosses-the largest birds
that fly--down to the tiniest humming
birds, no fine or beautiful species that
can be utilized is spared, except where
it is fully protected by law.
This repulsive and horrible slaught-
er leading quickly to determination
must be stopped. Its victims are dis
appearing so fast that the matter can
be neglected no longer. No govern
ment has a right to promote such un
justifiable destruction by maintaining
a market for the products. The duty
of a Christian nation in such case Is
as much greater and more imperative
than that of the state or individual
as the nation is greater than the in
dividual or State. This great wrong
can be righted in only two ways, both
of which are essential. ID BY prohibi-
tive laws sternay enforced. CO BY
closing the markets to the sale of the
plumage of wild birds. The Mclean
bill. recently passed by Congress, pro-
vides for the first. Let Congress now
provide for the second
No argument can be advanced in be-
half of this feather business except that
the trade wants the money. The same
plea can be made in behalf of every
importer of opium and every maker
of counterfeit money, but opium selling
and counterfeiting are forbidden, as
the importation and use of wild birds
plumage must be. A worldwide
movement has begun. Let the United
States be one OF the leaders. A year
ago Australia forbade the importation
of plumage as she already had forbid
den export. In response to the urgent
personal appeals made by representa-
lives of the National Association of Au-
dubon Societies and the New York
Geological Society, there has been in
cluded in the Tariff Bill, now pending
in Congress, a proviso to prohibit the
importation of the feathers of wild
birds. The following is the wording