The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1934-02-10
- Conservation
HEAVY TOLL OF
BIRDS TAKEN BY
DEATH IN EGGS
Nearly Half of Upland Game
Species Falls Victim
of DeStroyerS.
BY WILLIAM +. COLLINS
Times Special Writer

F'orty-one per cent OF our upland
game birds are killed in the egg.
The reaper passing through the
meadows during the nesting season;
the skunk questing after darkness
through the underbrush; the black
snake and the blue racer slithering
through the fence rows, and finally
the omnipresent crow winging back
and forth over every square yard Of
land account for nearly one-hah
of all the eggs laid by our game
birds before they have an oppor-
tunity to hatch
This is a part of the vast plan of
nature, demonstration of Darwin's
original theory, a struggle for sur
vival that gives life to the fttest.
Under primitive conditions a
marvelously sensitive balance was
struck between the living host of
animals. About so many Of each
kind existed in any given area 70
which it YVES INDECENT and over a
period of years no noticeable change
took place in the number Of the
species. But after man arrived on
the scene the story changed.
Man Started Destruction
Always a destroyer, with a killing
nature resembling that of a mink,
he set about unconSciously to alter
the face of the earth to conform
fO hic Gncirpc nT1d f11n
ricdS to satisfy his hunting instinct,
his mink-like proclivities, by killing
as many things as possible in the
name of sport.
A land filed to overflowing with
wild life stood it just so long, about
seventy years, approximately, and
then began to succunb.
One after the other, the species
dwindled, some became utterly eX-
tirct, some saved from the abyss
of oblivion by higher purposed and
unselflSh individuals with a vision.
But the balance had been upset.
the fine adjustment of cause and
effect overturned. Wire fences
killed the buffalo. Deforestation
killed the wild turkey. Cultivation
killed the upland birds. Less de-
sirable but biologically more capable
forms of wild life started to
multiply.
Because the change occurred over
a period of several generations it
did not alarm many persons. What
they saw today, they believed must
have been here forever. They grew
used to it. When persons are ac-
customed to a thing they seldom
complain. Not knowing anything
better, they make no effort to
achieve the better.
Indiana's Losses Listed
Thus we enter the last decade.
Let us enumerate some of the
things lost to Indiana that was
part Of the apple Of our fathers
or grandfather's eye.
We lost our forests and with them
lost our clear streams and deep
rivers. Sitting killed the water flow
and decimated the fish. We lost
our deer and turkey and with the
drying up of the surface waters due
to deforestation and drainage, we
lost our ducks and geese and our
breeding grounds for myriad fish.
We lost our forest owls and the
arboreal life that kept the crow
Suhdued by feasting on the eggs or
the young. We gained by the crow
millions of this undesirable pest
and with the gaining we lost by
his depredations more desirable
forms of bird life. We destroyed
one form of animal or vegetable
life and had springing into it's
place something we never wanted.
And this change is still going on
all about us if we but stop and
observe.
A British sea captain brings
pair of starlings to Baltimore. In
twenty years they overrun the east
and in another twenty years will
become a desperate nuisance.
Squirrels Overrun England
This but repeats the English SPAR
row tale you all know. On the
other hand fifty years ago, some
kindly soul sent the London, Eng
land, ZOO a pair of American gray
squirrels. They multiplied. Today
they overrun $4,000 square miles of
England and a bounty is on them.
The English complain they cut the
standing grain, eat the flower oulbs,
kill the pheaSantS, take the heart
out of cabbages and strange as it
may sound to us, are decreasing
the country. More newspaper pub
LEFTY is given to killing them than
we give TO our crow killing contests.
I am half convinced the English
are right about the decreasing ac-
Invites. I have protected the oquir-
rel on my farm for several years.
By the coming spring, every acorn,
walnut, hickory nut, ash, maple and
other winged seed has been eaten
by the squirrels and there is not
enough sod left to provide for nat
ural reforestation.
Gopher Slaughter Recalled
VII I14C OGA1CI 1ldAAN, 44oNO OA4S
fine stand of young walnuts that
believe must have been planted by
squirrels that afterward lost track
of the place where they buried the
nuts.
1t is not possible for us to know
if we err or are wise in destroying
any form Of wild life.
We can kill our crows because we
know they are a devilish pest now
just as the biological survey killed
the pocket gophers out west several
years ago because they destoyed
crops But the following year,
locusts released from egg clusters
the pocket agophers ate in the winter
months nearly ruined the west by
eating more crops than all the
gopherS together had consumed in
ten years. What will spring up after
the crow is killed, no one knows.