THE EXTINCTION OF THE BISON AND OF WHALES
The almost complete and very sudden disappearance of the bison in
North America thirty years ago does not seem to have been due simply
to the slaughter of tens of thousands of these creatures by men who
made a commerce of so-called "buffalo-rugs." These "hunters" miscalled
the unhappy bison, which is not a buffalo, nor at all like that
creature, just as they gave the name "elk" to the great red deer (the
wapiti), although there was a real elk, the so-called "moose," staring
them in the face. The sudden extinction of the bison resulted partly
from the slaughter and partly from the breaking up of the herds and
the interference with their free migration by the trans-continental
railway. An interesting discovery made only this year, in regard to
the closely allied European bison, suggests that disease may also have
played a part in the destruction of the North American bison. A few
hundred individuals of the European bison are all that remain at this
day. Some are carefully preserved by the Emperor of Russia in a tract
of suitable country in Lithuania and another herd exists in the
Caucasus. Some of the Lithuanian bison have lately been dying in an
unaccountable way, and on investigating a dead individual a Russian
observer has discovered a "trypanosome" parasite in the blood. The
trypanosomes are microscopic corkscrew-like creatures, of which many
kinds have become known within the last ten or fifteen years. They are
"single cells"--that is to say, "protoplasmic" animalcules of the
simplest structure--provided with a vibrating crest and tail by means
of which they swim with incessant screw-like movement through the
blood. They rarely exceed one thousandth of an inch in length
exclusive of the tail. The poisons which they produce by their life in
the blood are the cause of the sleeping-sickness of man (in tropical
Africa), of the horse and cattle disease carried by the tsetze fly,
and of many similar deadly diseases--a separate "species" being
discovered in each disease. A peculiar species is found in the blood
of the common frog, and another in that of the sewer-rat. The last
discovery of a "trypanosome" is that of one in the blood of the
African elephant, announced to the Royal Society by Sir David Bruce.
It is a matter of great interest that a trypanosome has been found in
a death-stricken herd of European bison. It suggests that one of the
causes of the disappearance of the bison, both in Europe and America,
may be the infection of their blood by trypanosomes, and that
possibly, whilst a freely migrating and vigorous herd would not be
extensively infected, a dwindled and confined herd may be more liable
to infection, and that thus the final destruction of an already
decadent animal may be brought about. It would now be a matter of
extreme interest to ascertain whether the few dwindled herds of bison
in North America are infected by trypanosomes, and no doubt we shall
soon receive reports on the subject.
A most interesting branch of this subject of the unthinking
extermination of great animals by man is that of the extermination of
whales. Man is worrying them out of existence. Some are already beyond
saving. It would be interesting to know whether there are trypanosomes
or other blood-parasites in whales. I suppose that no one has an
ill-feeling towards whales. Most of us have never seen a whale, either
alive or in the flesh--only a skeleton. I have seen a live whale or
two off the coast of Norway; and I once, in conjunction with my friend
Moseley, when we were students at Oxford, cut up one, 18 ft. long,
which had been exhibited for three weeks during the summer in a tent
on the shores of the Bristol Channel, where we purchased it. The
skeleton of that whale is now in the museum at Oxford, but happily the
smell of it exists only in my memory. The late Mr. Gould, who produced
such beautifully illustrated books on birds, told me that he once fell
into the heart of a full-sized whale, which he was cutting up. He
narrowly escaped drowning in the blood. The whale was not very fresh,
and Mr. Gould was unapproachable for a week.
An immense number of whales are killed every year for their oil, and
their highly nutritious flesh is wasted. There was an attempt some
years ago to make meat extract from it. Some which was brought to me
reminded me of the whale on the shores of the Bristol Channel. I do
not know if the extract has proved palatable to other people. The
Norwegians are specially expert in killing whales. They have been
allowed to set up "factories" on the west coast of Ireland and in the
Shetlands, where they kill whales with harpoons fired from guns, cut
them up, and boil down the fat.
Whales are warm-blooded creatures which suckle their young, and have
been developed in past geological times from land animals--the
primitive carnivora--which were also the ancestors of dogs, bears,
seals and cats. Whales have lost the hind limbs altogether and
developed the forelegs into fingerless flippers, whilst the tail is
provided with "flukes" like the fins of a fish's tail in shape, but
horizontal instead of vertical. The whole form is fish-like, the skin
smooth and hairless. It is a remarkable conclusion arrived at by the
investigators of the remains of extinct animals that a little
four-legged creature the size of a spaniel, and intermediate in
character between a hedgehog and a dog, was the common ancestor from
which have been derived such widely different creatures as the whale
and the bat, the elephant and the man. We can at the present day trace
with some certainty the gradual modifications of form by which in the
course of many millions of years the change from the primitive,
dog-like hedgehog to each of those four living "types" has proceeded.
The whales of to-day are divided into the toothed whales and the
whalebone whales. The great cachalot or sperm whale is captured,
chiefly in the Southern Ocean, and killed in large numbers for the
sake of the "spermaceti," or "sperm oil," which forms the great mass
of its head, but he is so fierce and active that he is not easily
captured, and is not in immediate danger of extinction. The smaller
toothed whales, the killers, dolphins, and porpoises (though one of
them--the bottle-nosed whale--is being killed out), are not as yet
seriously threatened by commercial man. But the whalebone whales are
in a parlous state. The Right whales, as they are called, are the
chief of these. They are huge creatures, 60 ft. in length, with an
enormous head: it is as much as one third of the total length in the
Greenland whale. Besides the Greenland species there are four other
"right whales," which may be considered as four varieties of one
species. The head is not quite so large in them. The Biscay whale is
one of them, and was hunted until it was exterminated in the Bay of
Biscay, when the whalers, extending their operations further and
further north, came upon the Greenland whale, which proved to be even
more valuable than the Biscay species. The huge mouth in these two
whales has hanging from its sides within the lips a series of long
bars or planks of wonderfully strong, elastic, horny substance--the
"baleen" or "whalebone"--each plank being as much as eight or in rare
cases twelve feet long. Following close on one another and having
hairy edges, they act as strainers so as to separate the floating food
of the whale from the water which rushes through its mouth as it
swims. The whalebone is of great value commercially, as is also the
fat or oil. A hundred years ago whalebone fetched only L25 a ton, now
the same quantity fetches more than L1,500. The Rorquals, or
"Finners," have smaller heads and mouths; their whalebone is so short
as to be valueless, but they grow to even greater size than the Right
whales and are found on our own coasts and all over the world. The
Humpback whale is one of these "Finners," distinguished by its
excessively long flippers and huge bulk.
The Biscay whale was the first of these great creatures to be hunted.
The Basques began its capture as early as the ninth century. It was
exterminated by them in the Bay of Biscay, and only saved from
complete extinction elsewhere by the discovery of the more valuable
Arctic or Greenland whale. The capture of the Greenland whale began in
1612; and in 200 years the unceasing pursuit of this species had
driven it to the remote places of the Arctic Ocean. It is now so rare
that it is not worth while to send a ship out for the purpose of
hunting it, and it will probably never recover its numbers. An idea of
its value and former abundance may be formed from the fact that
between 1669 and 1778 it yielded to 1,400 Dutch vessels about 57,000
individuals, of which the baleen and oil produced a money value of
four million pounds sterling. Of late years a single large Greenland
whale would bring L900 for its whalebone and L300 for its oil. These
two great Right whales having been practically exterminated, the
merciless hunt has now been turned on to the wilder and less valuable
Finback whales or Finners. In these days of steam and electric light
the Arctic night is robbed of its terrors, and the whale chase goes on
very fast. The shot harpoon was invented in 1870 by Sven Foyn, a
Norwegian, and is the most deadly and extraordinary weapon ever
devised by man for the pursuit of helpless animals. It is this
invention (a commercial, not a scientific, discovery!) which has, in
conjunction with swift steamships, rendered the destruction of whales
a matter of ease and deadly certainty. It is this which is being used
on the Irish as on the Scandinavian coast, resulting in the pollution
of the air and water by the carcases of the slaughtered beasts from
which the oil has been extracted. This revolting butchery, without
foresight or intelligence, is carried on solely for the satisfaction
of human greed, and apparently will be stopped only by the extinction
of the yet remaining whales. In forty years in the middle of last
century the whale fishery of the United States yielded 300,000 whales
to 20,000 voyages, and a value of sixty-million pounds sterling in
baleen and oil. It is calculated that in the thousand years during
which man has hunted the great whales not less than a million
individuals have been captured. Man's skill and capacity have now
become such that he will soon have cleared the ocean of these
wonderful creatures, since, like the bison, the whales cannot persist
when harried and interfered with beyond a certain limited degree.
It appears that the curious musk ox, which now lives on the fringe of
the Arctic circle, and in the glacial period existed in the Thames
Valley, is doomed. There (as in similar instances in other lands), the
comparatively harmless savage race of men (in this case the Eskimo),
whose weapons did not enable them seriously to threaten the existence
of the animals around them, have now obtained efficient firearms. The
musk ox is consequently now between two lines of fire--that of the
white hunter on the south, and of the Eskimo on the north.
From regions far remote from the Arctic complaints come of an even
more reckless destruction of helpless animals. Perhaps our legislators
may feel some personal concern in this case, since it is neither more
nor less than the approaching extinction of the turtle, the true green
turtle of City fame, to eat which at the invitation of City
dignitaries is one of the few duties of a legislator. Both the green
turtles and the tortoise-shell turtles are being destroyed
indiscriminately on the coast of Florida and in many West Indian
Islands by brutal, careless, "white" beach-combers and idlers. By
proper care of the eggs and young the turtles could easily be
increased enormously in number, and a regulated capture of them be
made to yield a legitimate profit. But neither the United States
Government nor our own take any steps to restrain promiscuous
slaughter of the turtles which come to the shore in order to lay their
eggs. Soon the City Fathers will have to do without the "green fat"
and their wives without tortoise-shell combs. It will serve them
right. Such destitution in these--and, be it noted, in many other
matters--will deservedly fall upon those who ignorantly, wilfully, and
contentedly neglect to take steps to understand and to control the
withering blight created by modern man wherever he sets his foot.