However desirable they are from any point of view leaseholds are not
likely to cover much of Labrador for some time to come. They should be
encouraged only on condition that every lessee of every
kind--sportsman, professional on land or water, lumberman or
other--accepts the obligation to keep and enforce the wild-life
protection laws in co-operation with the public wardens who guard the
sanctuaries, watch the open areas and patrol the trade outlets.
I have very little to add to what I said about sanctuaries in the
_Address_. Most of the information received since it was published has
only emphasized the points it made. And as no one has opposed and many
have supported the establishment of the Harrington sanctuary I again
recommend it strongly. The 64 miles in a straight line between cape
Whittle and cape Mekattina should be made into an absolute sanctuary
for all birds and mammals. If some more ground can be taken in on
either side, so much the better. But the 64 miles must be kept in any
case. The Bird rocks and Bonaventure island, one of the Mingans, the
Perroquets, Egg island and The Pilgrims, are all desirable in every
way. There are plenty of islands to choose from along the Atlantic
Labrador and round Hudson and James bays. It is most important to keep
the migratory birds free from molestation during the first fortnight
after their arrival; and the same applies to migratory mammals, though
not quite in the same way. Inland sanctuaries should be made near
Hamilton inlet, in the Mingan and Mistassini districts and up the
Eastmain river. Ultimately an Arctic sanctuary might be made on
either Baffin or Melville islands. A meteorological station in the
Arctic, linked up with Labrador by wireless, would be of great benefit
to the weather forecasts, as we now have no reports from where so much
of our cold or mild winters are affected by the different drift of
enormous ice-fields; and whenever one is established, a wild-life
protection station should accompany it.
Sanctuaries should never be too big; not one tenth of the whole area
will ever be required for them. But they should be placed where they
will best serve the double purpose of being natural wild "zoos" and
over-flowing reservoirs of wild-life. The exact situations of most,
especially inland, will require a good deal of co-operative study
between zoologists and other experts. But there is no doubt whatever,
that they ought to be established, no matter how well the laws are
enforced over both leaseholds and open areas. Civilised man is
appreciating them more and more every day; and every day he is
becoming better able to reach them. By giving absolute security to all
desirable species in at least two different localities we can keep
objects of Nature study in the best possible way both for ourselves
and our posterity.
Only twelve years ago forty mills were debasing the immemorial and
gigantic sequoia into mere timber in its last refuge in California.
But even the general public sees now that this was a barbarous and
idiotic perversion of relative values. What is a little perishable
timber, for which substitutes can be found elsewhere, compared with a
grove of trees that will be the wonder and delight of generations?
What is the fleeting but abominable gratification of destroying the
harmless lizard-like Tuatera of New Zealand compared with the deep
interest of preserving it as the last living vertebrate that takes us
back to Primary times? What is the momentary gratification of wearing
egret feathers compared with the certainty of soon destroying the
herons that produce them altogether; or what can compensate for the
vile cruelty done to mutilated parent birds and starving young, or the
murder of Bradley, the bird warden when trying to protect them?