It is a truism and a counsel of perfection to say so, but, to be
effective, wild-life protection laws, like other laws, must be
scientific, comprehensive, accepted by the public, understood by all
concerned, and impartially enforced.
To be scientifically comprehensive they must define man's whole
attitude towards wild life, whether for business, sport or study. One
general code would suffice. A preamble could explain that the object
was to use the interest, not abuse the capital of wild life. Then the
noxious and beneficial kinds could be enumerated, close seasons
mentioned, regulations laid down, etc. From this one code it would be
easy to pick out for separate publication whatever applied only to one
place or one form of human activity. But even this general code would
not be enough unless the relations between animal and plant life were
carefully adjusted, so that each might benefit the other, whenever
possible, and neither might suffer because the other was under a
different department. If, in both the Dominion and Provincial
governments there are unified departments of agriculture to aid and
control man's own domestic harvest, why should there not also be
unified departments to aid and control his harvest of the wilds? A
_Minister of Fauna and Flora_ sounds startling, and perhaps a little
absurd. But fisheries, forests and game have more to do with each
other than any one of them with mines. And, whatever his designation,
such a minister would have no lack of work, especially in Labrador.
But here we come again to the complex human factors of three
Governments and more Departments. Yet, if this bio-geographic area
cannot be brought into one administrative entity, then the next best
thing is concerted action on the part of all the Governments and all
their Departments.
There is no time to lose. Even now, when laws themselves stop short at
the Atlantic, new and adjacent areas are about to be exploited without
the slightest check being put on the exploiters. An expedition is
leaving New York for the Arctic. It is well found in all the
implements of destruction. It will soon be followed by others. And the
musk-ox, polar bears and walrus will shrink into narrower and narrower
limits, when, under protection, far wider ones might easily support
abundance of this big game, together with geese, duck and curlews. It
is wrong to say that such people can safely have their fling for a few
years more. None of the nobler forms of wild life have any chance
against modern facilities of uncontrolled destruction. What happened
to the great auk and the Labrador duck in the Gulf? What happened to
the musk-ox in Greenland? What is happening everywhere to every form
of beneficial and preservable wild life that is not being actively
protected to-day? Then, there is the disappearing whale and persecuted
seal to think of also in those latitudes. The _laissez-faire_ argument
is no better here than elsewhere. For if wild life is worth exploiting
it must be worth conserving.
There is need, and urgent need, for extending protective laws all
along the Atlantic Labrador and over the whole of the Canadian Arctic,
where the barren-ground caribou may soon share the fate of the
barren-ground bear in Ungava, especially if mineral exploitation sets
in. Ungava and the Arctic are Dominion grounds, the Atlantic Labrador
belongs to Newfoundland, Greenland to Denmark, and the open sea to
all comers, among whom are many Americans. Under these circumstances
the new international conference on whaling should deal effectively
with the protection of all the marine carnivora, and be followed by an
inter-dominion-and-provincial conference at which a joint system of
conservation can be agreed upon for all the wild life of Labrador,
including the cognate lands of Arctic Canada to the north and
Newfoundland to the south.
This occasion should be taken to place the whole of the fauna under
law; not only _game_, but noxious and beneficial species of every
kind. And here both local experts and trained zoologists ought to be
consulted. Probably everyone would agree that flies, wolves and
English sparrows are noxious. But the indiscriminate destruction of
all mammals and birds of prey is not a good thing, as a general rule,
any more than any other complete upsetting of the balance of nature. A
great deal could be learnt from the excellent work already done all
over the continent with regard to the farmer's and forester's wild
friends and foes. A migrating flight of curlew, snipe, plover or
sandpipers is worth much more to the farmer alive than dead. But by no
means every farmer knows the value of the difference.
This is only one of the many reasons why a special effort should be
made to bring a knowledge of the laws home to everyone in the areas
affected, including the areas crossed by the lines of migration.
The language should be unmistakeably plain. Every form of wild life
should be included, as wholly, seasonally, locally or otherwise
protected, or as not protected, or as exterminable, with penalties and
rewards mentioned in each case. All animals should be called by their
scientific, English, French, and special local names, to prevent the
possibility of mistake or excuse. Every man, resident or not, who uses
rod, gun, rifle, net or snare, afloat or ashore, should be obliged to
take out a license, even in cases where it might be given gratis; and
his receipt for it should contain his own acknowledgment that he has a
copy of the laws, which he thoroughly understands. Particular clauses
should be devoted to rapacious dealers who get collecting permits as
scientific men, to poison, to shooting from power boats or with swivel
guns, to that most diabolical engine of all murderers--the Maxim
silencer,--to hounding and crusting, to egging and nefarious pluming,
to illegal netting and cod-trapping, and last, but emphatically not
least, to any and every form of wanton cruelty. The next step may be
to provide against the misuse of aeroplanes.
I believe it would be well worth while, from every point of view, to
publish the laws, or at all events a digest of them, in all the
principal papers. Even educated people know little enough; and no one,
even down the coast, at the trading posts, or in Newfoundland, should
have the chance of pleading ignorance. "We don't know no law here"
ought to be an impossible saying two years hence. And we might
remember that the Newfoundlanders who chiefly use it are really no
worse than others, and quite as amenable to good laws impartially
enforced. They have seen the necessity of laws at home, after
depleting their salmon rivers, deer runs and seal floes to the danger
point. And there is no reason to suppose that an excellent population
in so many ways would be any harder to deal with in this one than the
hordes of poachers and sham sportsmen much nearer home.
Of course, everything ultimately turns on the enforcement of the laws.
And I still think that two naturalists and twenty men afloat and the
same number ashore, with double these numbers when Hudson bay and the
Arctic are included, would be enough to patrol Labrador
satisfactorily, if they were in touch with local and leasehold wardens
and with foresters, if the telegraph was used only on their side, if
they and the general inspector were all of the right kind, and if the
whole service was vigorously backed up at headquarters. Two fast motor
cruisers and suitable means of making the land force also as mobile as
possible are _sine qua non_.
The Ungava peninsula, Hudson bay and Arctic together would mean a
million square miles for barely a hundred men. But, with close
co-operation between sea and land, they could guard the sanctuaries as
efficiently as private wardens guard leased limits, watch the outlets
of the trade, and harry law-breakers in the intervening spaces. Of
course, the system will never be complete till the law is enforced
against both buyers and sellers in the market. But it is worth
enforcing, worth it in every way. And the interest of the wild life
growing on a million miles will soon pay the keep of the hundred men
who guard its capital.