The Bourbon news., 1913-03-18
TO STOP SLAUGHTER
Audubon Societies Want Tariff
Wall to Bar Out AigretteS.
National Association Demands Action
on Part of Ways and Means Com
mittee-Seek to End Destruc-
tion of Beautiful Herons.

New York-Backed by farmers,
sportsmen and women's clubs in
every section of the country, officers
of the National Association of Audu-
bon Societies have demanded of the
ways and means committee of con-
gress an opportunity to urge prohib-
tive tariff on aigrette feathers at the
on schedule N, which will be
held before the end of this month.
Opposing the moneyed interests of
the millinery wholesalers, whose in
roads on the valuable bird life of New
York, Louisiana, Missouri, New Jersey,
Oregon and California have already
forced these states to pass laws ma
king contraband the sales of these
plumes. the national Audubon delega-
tiOn viii ask that they be excluded
from the whole country in the interest
of everyone dependent upon it's agri-
cultural prosperity.
The Federation of Women's Clubs
and organizations Of grangers in al
most every state, as we'll as the Camp
fire club, the New York Geological So
ciety, the Long Island Sportsmen's as
sociation, the American Game Protec-
tive association and other bodies of
sportsmen, have pledged their support
to this movement
Data, compiled from scientific obser-
vation of flock of the few herons
that still survive the wholesale butch
cry of professional plume hunters in an
Audubon breeding rookery in Florida,
are being prepared to demonstrate to
congress that these rare birds are a
considerable factor in the destruction
of field mice, gophers, grasshoppers
and other agricultural pests.
While in some instances they have
been found to devour an occasional
trout, their regular diet is proved to
consist principally of minnows, suck
ers and other useless fish, as well as
water snakes, that are known to de
| stroy great quantities of trout eggs
and valuable young fish. Other proof
of the natural need of farmers and
fishermen for the beautiful birds that
the milliners have almost driven tc
extinction will be presented by repre-
sentatives of these interests.
| Following the recent introduction
by Senator Root of resolution EN-
powering the president of the United
I States to call an international con
gress on bird protection, representa-
tives Of the world powers actively en-
gagged in saving the rare species tha
is being massacred for their aigrett'
plumes are now expressing to the Au
dubon organization their support o
this movement.
While the whole globe is at presen
secured for these trophies, taken from
butchered mother birds for marke
here, a tariff ban would do much tc
ward saving the beautiful heron fror
worldwide destruction, 1t is asserted
With the people of the Unite
States of almost every class united t
bar from our country the aigrettes G
the unfortunate heron, we expect t
meet the big millinery interests i
sole opposition before the congre'
sional committee said T. Gilbe1
Pearson, secretary of the National Al
sociation Of Audubon Societies, at II
headquarters, 1874 Broadway.
"The slaughter of these useful an
beautiful birds is a commercial matte
only to the men who sell their SCALP
in those states where this shamef'
traffic is not already forbidden by Law
Congress should certainly recogniz
the sentiment and interests of tn
whole people, who ask 1t to end tn
|, importation as matter of humanit
as well as economic and agricultur
he.afit-"