The daily banner. (Cambridge, Md.) 1897-2008, 1916-01-15
A Heritage Of Slaughter

hunted at 40 is broadly enough cast,
but how much scarcer and whittier
headed not many are aware. The
story is fairly startling.
But it is more than a story. 1t is a
matter of tampering with trust. 1t
is a question of whether man whom
| his parents have wronged shall take
it out ON his own children. Every
! decent father and mother knows how
/ the center of life's gravity shifts
hearthstone. The master wish then is
that we may find for their feet a
happier path than we have followed.
Now, our forbears have squandered
nine-tenths of a wild estate that by
every law of honor should have been
ours in turn to enjoy. Furthermore,
they have set in our blood a mad de-
sire to kiln and bequeathed the para
phernaka of slaughter, so that it
takes a wrench to face about and set
to conserving our wretched remnant
and hand it down growing to those
whom we Send on after us. The cost
of living ik at stake and the delight
they are I'd find in the open world. A
decade. of clean, heroic action now
may se worth century 10 years
from aow. 4
Ars7rica, as found by Pilgrim and
Puritan, was blest of heaven in re-
spect Of Wild life. Shore, river, lake,
forest. mountain and even the
arboreal desert teemed with living
creatures - diversified, well-distrib-
uted and abundant. Big meat and
birds at hand everywhere the pioneer
had fer the taking as he cut his way
to Westernt empire. The Indian lived
on it, but he did not kill wantonly,
and SO nature had not been impover-
ished nor her balance disturbed. Nox-
ious animals which imperiled the set
tiers life OF took heavy toll of his
husbandry had, of course, to fall be-
fore our inexorable law of overlord-
ship. Extension of tillage, too, neces-
sarily contracted the range and so re-
duced the Numbers of even useful
species. But the lesson of slaughter
was learned too we'll, and when into
some hot brain there broke the idea
of turning blood to moneyed account
from that time forth the curse of ex-
tinction wRs pronounced against
every species of mammal, bird or
fish which he should set forth to
hunt. The history of the last fifty
years shows with no shadow of doubt
that any wild creature upon the head
of which commercialism sets a price
is doomed to determination. Beauty
of the animal, interesting habits,
countless numbers, inaccessible hab-
itat constitute no barrier.
AS late as 1868 the buffalo, the
most numerous, conspicuous and val
liable land animal in North America,
roamed in millions over the Western
plains from the Missouri to the Roc
ky Mountains, from the Dakotas to
Texas. But in 1912 there were only
2907, according to w. P. Wharton's
census, and five-sixths of these were
in captivity.
What had happened? In the year
named the Union Pacific railroad
sac The buffalo was di-
yssla into two great herds. The
hunter got access and market. In
six years he had cleaned up the
Southern herd, and seven years af-
ter the Northern Pacific railroad was
finished, in 1881, the Northern herd
was forced to practical extinction.
The plains were paved with fostering
carcasses, as the hides were stripped
and shipped. Only by a laudable
outburst of sentimentality on the
part of Congress and the Canadian
Government was the species saved at
all to our fauna. Rightly conserved,
buffalo would vie with beef in Lex
ingtOn market.
The elk, formerly abundant in
Western Maryland and Pennsylva-
mia, has been exterminated over nine
tenths of it's former range of $780,
900 square miles, and the 100000
head in E. T. Seton's estimate had
been cut to less than 900 by 1912.
Yellowstone Park and vicinity holds
$4,000 of these. In the opinion of
DR.. w. T. Hornaday, curator of the
New York Geological Park, 100000
elk ought to be living in the Allie
gheny Mountains, furnishing each
year $4,000 3-year-old males as free
food for the people.
The same dark story of greed,
cruelty and waste might be told of
the countless herds of carbon and
moose, of mountain sheep and goats,
of antelope and deer and the whole
register of creatures in the wild.
OF big game Maryland has now a
few deer only. Upon this miserable
little residue gunners are turned
loose annually from November 10 to
December "a with permission to take
one apiece, no matter what the age
or sex. The chance of bringing down
a hunter, however, is not appreciate
ly less than that of bagging a deer,
since, according to the statistics kept
by DR.. T. S. Palmer, the nations
greatest game law expert, Maryland's 8
toll for 1908 was 16 head, for 1909,
Is, and for 1910, 6. What a pitiable
spectacle great State presents when
it cannot withhold it's fire from a
handful of harmless, covering crea-
lures which are not even enough for
seed stock! Vermont has set an ex-
ample for every State. In 1870 it's
deer were practically extinct. A few
gentlemen of Rutland brought in Is
head from the Adirondacks in 1875
and turned them loose in the woods
near that city. For % years they
were given absolute protection. Kill
ing under strict control was resumed
in 1897. In the two years, 1908 and
1903, 7186 deer were taken without
injury to the stock. That represents
over 100000 in meat. Hunting Ii
censes paid for the warden service,
and in it's wise policy of having coun-
ties recompense farmers for damage
to crops less than $4,000 was spent.
How is that for an investment? DR..
Hornaday estimates that there is
room in America today on untillable
lands for a stock of deer large
enough to allow 100000 head to be
taken annually. e., at least $780,
100000 worth of venison to help
tighten the demand on beef.
The State of Maryland should STOP
the slaughter of deer at once, stock
it's available ranges, inaugurate a
long closed season and establish
areas of permanent refuge. Oul
children will then rightly rise uI
and call us blessed.
| M. Llewellyn Raney,
Johns Hopkins University