Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial., 1920-02-12
DOOM Of FURBEARERS
DECREED BY FAS R|ON
Slaughter Of Wild Animals Goes
on So Fast They May Soon
Become Extinct.

All over the world, or in those co,ln-
tries of Il which are classified as civ
ilized. the ptiless pursuit of furbearlng
animals of every kind threatens their
early extinction. Never before was
there such concerted attack on the
lower forms of life, the joint inheritors
with man of the world in which they
live. The humber species, "the little
brothers" of field and forest, as the low
able St Francis of Assist called them,
tiny, harmless crraturey whose furry
coats are hardly bigger than a woman's
hand, are being hunted 10 death with a
ferocious relentlessness. For the decree
Of fashion, the craze OF fcmininitv for
furs and the bo,indless extravaganza of
this epoch have put a heavy price upon
the head Of every little animal whom
nature has gwen a glossy, warm, at
tractive coat
In his need of land for his own uses,
man has crowded out or recklessly de-
stroyed the resident animals. All over
America this has been true; and human
necessities may be held in many cases
to have justified their dispossession or
extirpations But the smaller species
who made the woodland or the waste
land their habitat have been tolerated to
q certain extent and permitted to re-
main. But now their skins are worth so
much money that war 20 the bitter end
is waged upon them. No sanctuary or
city of refuge is left them. Every device
and appliance for their destruction
which man has been able 20 invent is
turned against them; and If the unequal,
unchivalrous. un-Christian contest goes
on, the land viii be denuded of many
beautiful, useful, harmless forms OF life
that man should cherish and protect and
teach To regard him as friend.
In this State the beaver is nomInally
at least protected by law; but the rae
coon. marten, fisher, weasel mink, fox,
skunk, muskrat, squirrel, rabbit, wood
chuck and many other species are being
remorselessly pursued. The large ami
mails of the West are vanishing very
fast. The northwest has lost heavily
In deer and elk within the last few years
and the slaughter of big game near the
Yellowstone Park has been terrific OF
late. The sea otter was once incredibly
abundant in our Pacific waters and was
the most valuable furbearing mammal
in the world. In ons year $4,000 of
them were collected on the California
coast for the Chinese trade; and the
skins at about that tins brought from
81 10 %. III 1cSb tilt tftfdRt Shltf
brought $50 In 1910 the London aver
age price was s1,703, and nobody knows
to what it has risen now that the otter
has practically disappeared. But for
attempts at protection more or less sue
cessful the seal would have followed the
buffalo into memory land; and the
beaver also would have become extinct.
What the annihilation of our minor
land mammals will mean for the country
nobody knows. 1t may be that they
keep, as the birds do, pestiferous lesser
forms of life in check There are some
people who feel so deeply the injustice
of slaughtering our animal mnocents
that they viii not sanction it by wearing
furs. But these are too few to have any
appreciable effect; and it looks just now
as though various species OF which our
State has a remnant left were about TO
be hunted, poisoned, trapped and shot
to extermination.-Roch Post Ex-
nrpeS