BRINGING BACK THE VANISHED BIRDS AND GAME
The most charming trait of wild-life character is the alacrity and
confidence with which wild birds and mammals respond to the friendly
advances of human friends. Those who are not very familiar with the
mental traits of our wild neighbors may at first find it difficult to
comprehend the marvelous celerity with which both birds and mammals
recognize friendly overtures from man, and respond to them.
At the present juncture, this state of the wild-animal mind becomes a
factor of great importance in determining what we can do to prevent the
extermination of species, and to promote the increase and return of wild
life.
I think that there is not a single wild mammal or bird species now
living that can not, or does not, quickly recognize protection, _and
take advantage of it_. The most conspicuous of all familiar examples are
the wild animals of the Yellowstone Park. They embrace the elk, mountain
sheep, antelope, mule deer, the black bear and even the grizzly. No one
can say precisely how long those several species were in ascertaining
that it was safe to trust themselves within easy rifle-shot of man; but
I think it was about five years. Birds recognize protection far more
quickly than mammals. In a comparatively short time the naturally wild
and wary big game of the Yellowstone Park became about as tame as range
cattle. It was at least fifteen years ago that the mule deer began to
frequent the parade ground at the Mammoth Hot Springs military post, and
receive there their rations of hay.
Whenever you see a beautiful photograph of a large band of big-horn
sheep or mule deer taken at short range amid Rocky Mountain scenery, you
are safe in labeling it as having come from the Yellowstone Park. The
prong-horned antelope herd is so tame that it is difficult to keep it
out of the streets of Gardiner, on the Montana side of the line.
But the bears! Who has not heard the story of the bears of the
Yellowstone Park,--how black bears and grizzlies stalk out of the woods,
every day, to the garbage dumping-ground; how black bears actually have
come _into the hotels_ for food, without breaking the truce, and how the
grizzlies boldly raid the grub-wagons and cook-tents of campers, taking
just what they please, because they _know_ that no man dares to shoot
them! Indeed, those raiding bears long ago became a public nuisance, and
many of them have been caught in steel box-traps and shipped to
zoological gardens, in order to get them out of the way. And yet,
outside the Park boundaries, everywhere, the bears are as wary and wild
as the wildest.
The arrogance of the bears that couldn't be shot once led to a droll
and also exciting episode.
During the period when Mr. C.J. Jones ("Buffalo" Jones) was
superintendent of the wild animals of the Park, the indignities
inflicted upon tourist campers by certain grizzly bears quite abraded
his nerves. He obtained from Major Pitcher authority to punish and
reform a certain grizzly, and went about the matter in a thoroughly
Buffalo-Jonesian manner. He procured a strong lariat and a bean-pole
seven feet long and repaired to the camp that was troubled by too much
grizzly.
The particular offender was a full-grown male grizzly who had become a
notorious raider. At the psychological moment Jones lassoed him in short
order, getting a firm hold on the bear's left hind leg. Quickly the end
of the rope was thrown over a limb of the nearest tree, and in a trice
Ephraim found himself swinging head downward between the heavens and the
earth. And then his punishment began.
Buffalo Jones thrashed him soundly with the bean-pole! The outraged bear
swung to and fro, whirled round and round, clawing and snapping at the
empty air, roaring and bawling with rage, scourged in flesh and insulted
in spirit. As he swung, the bean-pole searched out the different parts
of his anatomy with a wonderful degree of neatness and precision.
Between rage and indignation the grizzly nearly exploded. A
moving-picture camera was there, and since that day that truly moving
scene has amazed and thrilled countless thousands of people.
When it was over, Mr. Jones boldly turned the bear loose! Although its
rage was as boundless as the glories of the Yellowstone Park, it paused
not to rend any of those present, but headed for the tall timber, and
with many an indignant "Woof! Woof!" it plunged in and disappeared. It
was two or three years before that locality was again troubled by
impudent grizzly bears.
And what is the mental attitude of _every_ Rocky Mountain black or
grizzly bear _outside_ of the Yellowstone Park? It is colossal suspicion
of man, perpetual fear, and a clean pair of heels the moment man-scent
or man-sight proclaims the proximity of the Arch Enemy of Wild
Creatures. And yet there are one or two men who tell the American public
that wild animals do not think, that they do not reason, and are
governed only by "instinct"!
"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing!"
TAMING WILD BIRDS.--As incontestable proof of the receptive faculties of
birds, I will cite the taming of wild birds in the open, by friendly
advances. There are hundreds, aye, thousands, of men, women, boys and
girls who could give interesting and valuable personal testimony on this
point.
My friend J. Alden Loring (one of the naturalists of the Roosevelt
African Expedition), is an ardent lover of wild birds and mammals. The
taming of wild creatures in the open is one of his pastimes, and his
results serve well to illustrate the marvelous readiness of our wild
neighbors to become close friends with man _when protected_. I will
quote from one of Mr. Loring's letters on this subject:
"Taming wild birds is a new field in nature study, and one never can
tell what success he will have until he has experimented with different
species. Some birds tame much more easily than others. On three or four
occasions I have enticed a chickadee _to my hand_ at the first attempt,
while in other cases it has taken from fifteen minutes to a whole day.
"Chipping sparrows that frequent my doorway I have tamed in two days. A
nuthatch required three hours before it would fly to my hand, although
it took food from my stick the first time it was offered. When you find
a bird on her nest, it is of course much easier to tame that individual
than if you had to follow it about in the open, and wait for it to come
within reach of a stick. By exercising extreme caution, and approaching
inch by inch, I have climbed a tree to the nest of a yellow-throated
vireo, and at the first attempt handed the bird a meal-worm with my
fingers. At one time I had two house wrens, a yellow-throated vireo, a
chipping sparrow and a flock of chickadees that would come to my hand."
[Illustration: SIX WILD CHIPMUNKS DINE WITH MR. LORING]
It would be possible--and also delightful--to fill a volume with
citations of evidence to illustrate the quick acceptance of man's
protection by wild birds and mammals. Let me draw a few illustrations
from my own wild neighbors.
On Lake Agassiz, in the N.Y. Zoological Park, within 500 feet of my
office in the Administration Building, a pair of wild wood-ducks made
their nest last spring, and have just finished rearing nine fine,
healthy young birds. Whenever you see a wood-duck rise and fly in our
Park, you may know that it is a wild bird. During the summer of 1912 a
small flock of wild wood-ducks came every night to our Wild-Fowl Pond,
and spent the night there.
A year ago, a covey of eleven quail appeared in the Park, and have
persistently remained ever since. Last fall and winter they came at
least twenty times to a spot within forty feet of the rear window of my
office, in order to feed upon the wheat screenings that we placed there
for them.
When we first occupied the Zoological Park grounds, in 1899, there was
not one wild rabbit in the whole 264 acres. Presently the species
appeared, and rabbits began to hop about confidently, all over the
place. In 1906, we estimated that there were about eighty individuals.
Then the marauding cats began to come in, and they killed off the
rabbits until not one was to be seen. Thereupon, we addressed ourselves
to those cats, in more serious earnest than ever before. Now the cats
have disappeared; and one day last spring, as I left my office at six
o'clock, everyone else having previously gone, I almost stepped upon two
half-grown bunnies that had been visiting on the front door-mat.
When we were macadamizing the yards around the Elephant House, with a
throng of workmen all about every day, a robin made its nest on the
heavy channel-iron frame of one of the large elephant gates that swung
to and fro nearly every day.
In 1900 we planted a young pine tree in front of our temporary office
building, within six feet of a main walk; and at once a pair of robins
nested in it and reared young there.
[Illustration: WILD CREATURES QUICKLY RESPOND TO FRIENDLY ADVANCES
Chickadee and Chipmunk Tamed by Mr. Loring]
[Illustration: THE COLORADO OBJECT LESSON IN BRINGING BACK THE DUCKS]
Up in Putnam County, where for five years deer have been protected, the
exhibitions that are given each year of the supreme confidence of
protected deer literally astonish the natives. They are almost unafraid
of man and his vehicles, his cattle and his horses, but of course they
are unwilling to be handled. Strangers are astonished; but people who
know something about the mental attitude of wild animals under
protection know that it is the natural and inevitable result of _real
protection_.
At Mr. Frank Seaman's summer home in the Catskills, the phoebe birds
nest on the beams under the roof of the porch. At my summer home in the
Berkshires, no sooner was our garage completed than a phoebe built her
nest on the edge of the lintel over the side door; and another built on
a drain-pipe over the kitchen door.
Near Port Jervis, last year a wild ruffed grouse nested and reared a
large brood in the garden of Mr. W.I. Mitchell, within _two feet_ of the
foundation of the house.
On the Bull River in the wilds of British Columbia two trappers of my
acquaintance, Mack Norboe and Charlie Smith, once formed a friendship
with a wild weasel. In a very few visits, the weasel found that it was
among friends, and the trappers' log cabin became its home. I have a
photograph of it, taken while it posed on the door-sill. The trappers
said that often when returning at nightfall from their trap-lines, the
weasel would meet them a hundred yards away on the trail, and follow
them back to the cabin.
"Old Ben," the big sea-lion who often landed on the wharf at Avalon,
Santa Catalina, to be fed on fish, was personally known to thousands of
people.
AN OBJECT LESSON IN PROTECTION.--A remarkable object lesson in the
recognition of protection by wild ducks came under my notice in the
pages of "Recreation Magazine" in June, 1903, when that publication was
edited by G.O. Shields. The article was entitled,--" A Haven of Refuge,"
and the place described well deserved the name. It is impossible for me
to impress upon the readers of this volume with sufficient force and
clearness the splendid success that is easily attainable in encouraging
the return of the birds. The story of the Mosca "Haven of Refuge" was so
well told by Mr. Charles C. Townsend in the publication referred to
above, that I take pleasure in reproducing it entire.
One mile north of the little village of Mosca, Colorado, in San Luis
valley, lives the family of J.C. Gray. On the Gray ranch there is an
artesian well which empties into a small pond about 100 feet square.
This pond is never entirely frozen over and the water emptying
therein is warm even during the coldest winter.
Some five years ago, Mr. Gray secured a few wild-duck eggs, and
hatched them under a hen. The little ducks were reared and fed on
the little pond. The following spring they left the place, to return
in the fall, bringing with them broods of young; also bringing other
ducks to the home where protection was afforded them, and plenty of
good feed was provided. Each year since, the ducks have scattered in
the spring to mate and rear their families, returning again with
greatly increased numbers in the fall, and again bringing strangers
to the haven of refuge.
I drove out to the ranch November 24, 1902, and found the little
pond almost black with the birds, and was fortunate enough to secure
a picture of a part of the pond while the ducks were thickly
gathered thereon. Ice had formed around the edges, and this ice was
covered with ducks. The water was also alive with others, which paid
not the least attention to the party of strangers on the shore.
From Mr. Gray I learned that there were some 600 ducks of various
kinds on the pond at that time, though it was then early for them to
seek winter quarters. Later in the year, he assured me, there would
be between 2,000 and 3,000 teal, mallards, canvas-backs, redheads
and other varieties, all perfectly at home and fearless of danger.
The family have habitually approached the pond from the house, which
stands on the south side, and should any person appear on the north
side of the pond the ducks immediately take fright and flight. Wheat
was strewn on the ground and in the water, and the ducks waddled
around us within a few inches of our feet to feed, paying not the
least attention to us, or to the old house-dog which walked near.
Six miles east of the ranch is San Luis lake, to which these ducks
travel almost daily while the lake is open. When they are at the
lake it is impossible to approach within gunshot of the then timid
birds. Some unsympathetic boys and men have learned the habit of the
birds, and place themselves in hiding along the course of flight to
and from the lake. Many ducks are shot in this way, but woe to the
person caught firing a gun on or near the home-pond. When away from
home, the birds are as other wild-ducks and fail to recognize any
members of the Gray family. While at home they follow the boys
around the barn-yard, squawking for feed like so many tame ducks.
This is the greatest sight I have ever witnessed, and one that I
could not believe existed until I had seen it. Certainly it is worth
travelling many miles to see, and no one, after seeing it, would
care to shoot birds that, when kindly treated, make such charming
pets.
Since the above was published, the protected flocks of tame wild ducks
have become one of the most interesting sights of Florida. At Palm Beach
the tameness of the wild ducks when within their protected area, and
their wildness outside of it, has been witnessed by thousands of
visitors.
THE SAVING OF THE SNOWY EGRET IN THE UNITED STATES.--The time was when
very many persons believed that the devastations of the plume-hunters
of Florida and the Gulf Coast would be so long continued and so
persistently followed up to the logical conclusion that both species of
plume-furnishing egrets would disappear from the avifauna of the United
States. This expectation gave rise to feelings of resentment,
indignation and despair.
It happened, however, that almost at the last moment a solitary
individual set on foot an enterprise calculated to preserve the snowy
egret (which is the smaller of the two species involved), from final
extermination. The splendid success that has attended the efforts of Mr.
Edward A. McIlhenny, of Avery Island, Louisiana, is entitled not only to
admiration and praise, but also to the higher tribute of practical
imitation. Mr. McIlhenny is, first of all, a lover of birds, and a
humanitarian. He has traveled widely throughout the continent of North
America and elsewhere, and has seen much of wild life and man's
influence upon it. To-day his highest ambition is to create for the
benefit of the Present, and as a heritage to Posterity, a
mid-continental chain of great bird refuges, in which migrating wild
fowl and birds of all other species may find resting-places and refuges
during their migrations, and protected feeding-grounds in winter. In
this grand enterprise, the consummation of which is now in progress, Mr.
McIlhenny is associated with Mr. Charles Willis Ward, joint donor of the
splendid Ward-McIlhenny Bird Preserve of 13,000 acres, which recently
was presented to the State of Louisiana by its former owners.
The egret and heron preserve, however, is Mr. McIlhenny's individual
enterprise, and really furnished the motif of the larger movement. Of
its inception and development, he has kindly furnished me the following
account, accompanied by many beautiful photographs of egrets breeding in
sanctuary, one of which appears on page 27.
In some recent publications I have seen statements to the effect
that you believed the egrets were nearing extinction, owing to the
persecution of plume hunters, so I know that you will be interested
in the enclosed photographs, which were taken in my heron rookery,
situated within 100 yards of my factory, where I am now sitting
dictating this letter.
This rookery was started by me in 1896, because I saw at that time
that the herons of Louisiana were being rapidly exterminated by
plume hunters. My thought was that the way to preserve them would be
to start an artificial rookery of them where they could be
thoroughly protected. With this end in view I built a small pond,
taking in a wet space that contained a few willows and other shrubs
which grow in wet places.
In a large cage in this pond, I raised some snowy herons. After
keeping the birds in confinement for something over six months I
turned them loose, hoping that they would come back the next season,
as they were perfectly tame and were used to seeing people. I was
rewarded the next season by four of the birds returning, and nesting
in the willows in the pond. This was the start of a rookery that now
covers 35 acres, and contains more than twenty thousand pairs of
nesting birds, embracing not only the egrets but all the species of
herons found in Louisiana, besides many other water birds.
With a view to carrying on the preservation of our birds on a larger
scale, Mr. Chas. W. Ward and I have recently donated to the State of
Louisiana 13,000 acres of what I consider to be the finest wild fowl
feeding ground on the Louisiana coast, as it contains the only
gravel beach for 50 miles, and all of the geese within that space
come daily to this beach for gravel. This territory also produces a
great amount of natural food for geese and ducks.
SAVING THE GULLS AND TERNS.--But for the vigorous and long-continued
efforts of the Audubon Societies, I think our coasts would by this time
have been swept clean of the gulls and terns that now adorn it. Twenty
years ago the milliners were determined to have them all. The fight for
them was long, and hotly contested, but the Audubon Societies won. It
was a great victory, and has yielded results of great value to the
country at large. And yet, it was only a small number of persons who
furnished the money and made the fight which inured to the benefit of
the millions of American people. Hereafter, whenever you see an American
gull or tern, remind yourself that it was saved to the nation by "the
Audubon people."
In times of grave emergency, such as fire, war and scarcity of food, the
wild creatures forget their fear of man, and many times actually
surrender themselves to his mercy and protection. At such times, hard is
the heart and low is the code of manly honor that does not respond in a
manner becoming a superior species.
The most pathetic wild-animal situation ever seen in the United States
on a large scale is that which for six winters in succession forced
several thousand starving elk into the settlement of Jackson Hole,
Wyoming, in quest of food at the hands of their natural enemies. The elk
lost all fear, partly because they were not attacked, and they
surrounded the log-enclosed haystacks, barns and houses, mutely begging
for food. Previous to the winter of 1911, thousands of weak calves and
cows perished around the haystacks. Mr. S.N. Leek's wonderful pictures
tell a thrilling but very sad story.
To the everlasting honor of the people of Jackson Hole, be it recorded
that they rose like Men to the occasion that confronted them. In 1909
they gave to the elk herds all the hay that their domestic stock could
spare, not pausing to ascertain whether they ever would be reimbursed
for it. They just handed it out! The famishing animals literally mobbed
the hay-wagons. To-day the national government has the situation in
hand.
In times of peace and plenty, the people of Jackson Hole take their toll
of the elk herds, but their example during starvation periods is to be
commended to all men.
A SLAUGHTER OF RESTORED GAME.--The case of the chamois in Switzerland
teaches the world a valuable lesson in how _not_ to slaughter game that
has come back to its haunts through protected breeding.
A few years ago, one of the provinces of Switzerland took note of the
fact that its once-abundant stock of chamois was almost extinct, and
enacted a law by which the remnant was absolutely protected for a long
period. During those years of protection, the animals bred and
multiplied, until finally the original number was almost restored.
Then,--as always in such cases,--there arose a strong demand for an open
season; and eventually the government yielded to the pressure of the
hunters, and fixed a date whereon an open season should begin.
[Illustration: GULLS AND TERNS OF OUR COASTS, SAVED FROM DESTRUCTION
These Birds have been Saved and Brought back to us by the Splendid Efforts
of the Audubon Societies, and other Bird-Lovers. But for the Anti-Plumage
Laws, not one Gull or Tern would now Remain on our Atlantic Coast
From the "American Natural History"]
During the period preceding that fatal date, the living chamois, grown
half tame by years of immunity from the guns, were all carefully located
and marked down by those who intended to hunt them. At daybreak on the
fatal day, the onset began. Guns and hunters were everywhere, and the
mountains resounded with the fusillade. Hundreds of chamois were slain,
by hundreds of hunters; and by the close of that fatal "open season" the
species was more nearly exterminated throughout that region than ever
before. Once more those mountains were nice and barren of game.
Let that bloody and disgraceful episode serve as a warning to Americans
who are tempted to demand an open season on game that has bred back from
the verge of extinction. Particularly do we commend it to the notice of
the people of Colorado who _even now_ are demanding an open season on
the preserved mountain sheep of that state. The granting of such an open
season would be a brutal outrage. Those sheep are now so tame and
unsuspicious that the killing of them would be _cold-blooded murder!_
THE LOGICAL CONCLUSION.--Within reasonable limits, any partly-destroyed
wild species can be increased and brought back by giving absolute
protection from harassment and slaughter. When a species is struggling
to recuperate, it deserves to be left _entirely unmolested_ until it is
once more on safe ground.
Every breeding wild animal craves seclusion and entire immunity from
excitement and all forms of molestation. Nature simply demands this as
her unassailable right. It is my firm belief that any wild species will
breed in captivity whenever its members are given a degree of seclusion
that they deem satisfactory.
With species that have not been shot down to a point entirely too low,
adequate protection generously long in duration will bring back their
numbers. If the people of the United States so willed it, we could have
wild white-tailed deer in every state and in every county (save city
counties) between the Atlantic and the Rocky Mountains. We could easily
have one thousand bob white quail for every one now living. We could
have squirrels in every grove, and songbirds by the million,--merely by
protecting them from slaughter and molestation. From Ohio to the great
plains, the pinnated grouse could be made far more common than crows and
blackbirds.
Inasmuch as all this is true,--and no one with information will dispute
it for a moment,--is it not folly to seek to supplant our own splendid
native species of game birds (_that we never yet have decently
protected!_) with foreign species? Let the American people answer this
question with "Yes" or "No."
The methods by which our non-game birds can be encouraged and brought
back are very simple: Protect them, put up shelters for them, give them
nest-boxes in abundance, protect them from cats, dogs, and all other
forms of destruction, and feed those that need to be fed. I should think
that every boy living in the country would find keen pleasure in making
and erecting nest-boxes for martins, wrens, and squirrels; in putting up
straw teepees in winter for the quail, in feeding the quail, and in
nailing to the trees chunks of suet and fat pork every winter for the
woodpeckers, nuthatches, and other winter residents.
Will any person now on this earth live long enough to see the present
all-pervading and devilish spirit of slaughter so replaced by the love
of wild creatures and the true spirit of conservation that it will be as
rare as it now is common?
But let no one think for a moment that any vanishing species can at any
time be brought back; for that would be a grave error. The point is
always reached, by every such species, that the survivors are too few to
cope with circumstances, and recovery is impossible. The heath hen could
not be brought back, neither could the passenger pigeon. The whooping
crane, the sage grouse, the trumpeter swan, the wild turkey, and the
upland plover never will come back to us, and nothing that we can do
ever will bring them back. Circumstances are against those species,--and
I fear against many others also. Thanks to the fact that the American
bison breeds well in captivity, we have saved that species from complete
extinction, but our antelope seems to be doomed.
It is because of the alarming condition of our best wild life that quick
action and strong action is vitally necessary. We are sleeping on our
possibilities.
* * * * *