The weekly Alaska citizen., 1919-10-27
HORNADAY'S DICTUM

last spring by AlaSka $ Old Irlenu LIT. W hl' T. Hornaday, of the wild game protective association, whom we encountered when wei made an effort thru late Delegate Sulzer to| have the existing game laws changed to bel adaptable to conditions which exist Tn the| North. The genial doctor, backed by al most effective lobby and possibly mir aculous pocketbook, was easily able to de- feat the bill introduced by MT. Sulzer.
 It is not the intention of The Citizen to make a personal criticism of the noted zoologist. at least he is director of zoo- logical garden which would imply that he either knows something or like w. R. Hearst, has sense enough to hire workmen that do. Like all other riders of hobbies, Dr. Hornaday allows his zeal for the chase to expose his ignorance. In seeking to perpetuate wild life in the Arctic, he Is at tempting to enact legislation for country about which he apparently has but the haziest of ideas. He knows that he wants to preserve the game and that's about all he does know. It matters not to him Ii in so doing he makes a mere game preserve out of Alaska, in which the game has prior ity over every living thing, even human beings
 That this is true can be shown by an incident which happened in recent months. Four men recently asked Delegate Grigsby to get them permit from the department of agriculture to allow them to prospect on the island of Unalaska, in the Aleution chain. Mr. Grigsby tried to get it but was denied his request.
 Why?
 Because it is bird reserve!
 In letter written to Delegate Grigs- by, the department says that it is unwilling to have those men go on the island with ammunition or guns for fear they might kill some of the wild life. It is of no in terest to the department that those four men, three of whom fought in the late war, were trying to develop the country. For all it knows, there may be mineral riches in abundance on the island. All it knows or cares is that it is bird reserve and few birds might be killed if human being went on it to prospect for minerals.
 We have no doubt that Dr. Hornaday would heartily approve of the action of the department in this instance. In case of doubt, which he never seems to experience, he chooses the wild life in preference to that of human beings.
 Is there any reason to wonder that AL askans oppose the efforts of the speech making protector of wild life to legislate for the North from the standpoint of game o1o l,o fo 1o foi,, b,1f he is too biased he is too ignorant of con- ditions surrounding both wild animals and the human one to provide an intelligent solution for the problem.
 For example, he asserts that 5000 pounds of wild game meat was lawfully fed to laborers employed in the construction of the Alaska Central railway during the open season of 1917. It is probable that he refers to the government railway as he gives Governor Riggs as his authority. He refers to it as this "LARGE figure" Un- der other circumstances the doctors con- ception of magnitude would be laughable. It is probable that the laborers to whom the meat was fed were made up of not less than 200 persons, most of whom were old timers in the country, who, if they had not been employed on the railroad, would for the most part have been in the hills pros pecting. They would have been entitled to kill three caribou each, in addition to oth- CT animals. In order to be conservative, estimate each caribou at 100 pounds each, the amount of game that could thus have been lawfully killed by those laborers would amount to 6O,OOO pounds, or ten times the amount consumed hv them as en-