Chapter 361 of 409
[Page 363]
Our Vanishing Wild Life: Its Extermination and Preservation · William T. (William Temple) Hornaday
slaughter-ground for wild game, either birds or mammals, may become detrimental to the interests of the people at large.
It is not necessarily the duty of any state to provide for the maintenance of private death-traps for the wholesale slaughter of migratory game.
An oppressive monopoly in the slaughter of migratory game is detrimental to the interests of the public at large, the same as any other monopoly.
Every de facto game preserve, maintained for the preservation of wild life rather than for its slaughter, is an institution beneficial to the public at large, and therefore entitled to legal rights and privileges above and beyond all which may rightly be accorded to the so-called "preserves" that are maintained as killing-grounds.
The law may justly discriminate between the actual game preserve and the mere killing-ground.
Whenever a killing-ground becomes a public burden, it may be abated, the same as any other public infliction.
In private game preserves the time has arrived when lawmakers and judges must begin to apply the blood-test, and separate the true from the false. And at every step, the welfare of the wild life involved must be given full consideration. No men, nor body of men, should be permitted to practice methods that spell extermination.
EGRETS AND HERONS IN SANCTUARY ON MARSH ISLAND