New-York tribune., 1920-05-16
We Are Now at the End of Age
Of Mammals, " Says Professor
Henry Fairfield Osbom

the great mass of sportsmen as those
demands have been expressed in
the form of state laws. Thirty
four of our states have experienced
no difficulty whatever in making
their state laws synchronize with
the seasons and bag limits" Of the
Federal regulations.
When we sit down and for ten
minutes devote ourselves to the diff
ficult business of being honest and
square with our wild creatures, we
are compelled to admit ID the open
seasons and bag limits are fixed to
promote killing; (2) that we consult
the interests of the hunters much
more than the welfare of the game:
CD that the close seasons are made
dlsastrously long in order to give
every sportsman his annual oppor-
tunity to go afield and kill all that
he can kill of what the law allows.
Up to the Sportsman
With perfectly commendable eau
ton, and for justifable reasons, the
Department Of Agriculture has duly
noted the expectations of sportsmen
that bag limits and open seasons
shall be as large as possible, to give
every sportsman chance to go
hunting each year and kill what the
law permits him to kill. It is not for
the Federal government to take the
initiative in proposing sweeping new
restrictions on killing, even though
its agents know that they are neces-
sary. The brakes must be applied
from within the ranks of the hunt
ers of game or they will not work.
Now, what are to be the answers
to the questions raised by the three
sets Of conditions set forth above?
I will suggest them, but do not
intend to insist. To make active
campaigns for the quick correction
of these evil conditions is not for me.
The task would be forty-eight times
too great. like the American
sportsman and wish him we'll both
afield and afoat, but now he Is up
against series of situations that he
alone can mend. l have done what
could to help him to preserve his
/ sport, for himself and his sons and
mine. Now, all can do is to expose
the dangers that threaten all sport
in America with gun and rod.
If our sportsmen can endure the
extinction Of sport I cani
The Remedies
What is the inexorable logic of the
hard facts?
To me the answers seem so clear
as to be beyond the realm of contro-
versy. Are not these the logical con-
clusions?
/. From this time henceforward
all shooting of game must be dimin
ished at least so per cent!
2. This can best most easily and
most Justly be accomplished by per
mitting no man to have a license,
or to go hunting, even on his own
fand, more often than one year out
Of every two years.
8. All licenses Co hunt either small
game or large game now should be
doubled, or even tripled, in price
4. No state that maintains deer
hunting should license any man to
kill deer for a smaller fee than
$5.
s. A license fee should everywhere,
| save by bona fde explorers and na-
| tives in the Far North, be paid on
each big game animal killed; and Of
| all places in which this "a necessary
Alaska needs it most! The existing
(non-resident) license fees in Alaska,
| for everything except the shipment of
moose heads, are ridiculous and ex-
! terminatory, and If continued for the
future they would be crime. No
Alaskan will admit this, however,
even when the big game of that ter
ritory becomes extinct.
8, In view of the cost to the nation
of the adequate enforcement of the
Federal laws for the conservation
of wild life, after increasing its
rates, each state heDceforth should
turn over to the Federal govern
ment for conservation purposes only,
10 per cent of its annual receipts
from hunting licenses.
The Open Season Menace
In various states many open sea-
sons now should be closed from two
to ten years each. Full specifications
would make long chapter dealing
with each of the forty-eight states.
1t should begin with the upland
game birds and embrace many spe-
cies of birds-game and pseudo
I