William Wood

“ Labrador is a miracle of youth and age combined. It is still growing out of the depths with the irresistible vigour of youth. But its titanic tablelands consist of those azoic rocks which form the very roots of all the other mountains in the world, and which are so old, so immeasurably older than any others now standing on the surface of the globe, that their Laurentians alone have the real right to bear the title of "The Everlasting Hills". ”

“ I have invoked the public conscience against wanton destruction and its inevitable accompaniment of cruelty. I know, further, that man is generally cruel and a bully towards other animals. And, as an extreme evolutionist, I believe all animals are alike in kind, however much they may differ in degree. But I don't think clean sport cruel. It does not add to the sum total of cruelty under present conditions. Wild animals shun pain and death as we do. But under Nature they never die what we call natural deaths. They starve or get killed. ”

“ All the people, from zoologists to tourists, who are drawn to such places by the attraction of seeing animal life in its own surroundings, already form an immense class in every community. And it is a rapidly increasing class. Could we do posterity any greater injury than by destroying the ten Englands of glorious wild life in Labrador, just at the very time when our own and other publics are beginning to appreciate the value of the appeal which such haunts of Nature make to all the highest faculties of civilized man? ”

“ Till quite recently Nature had her own sanctuaries, where man either did not go at all or only as a tool-using animal in comparatively small numbers. But now, in this machinery age, there is no place left where man cannot go with overwhelming forces at his command. He can strangle to death all the nobler wild life in the world to-day. To-morrow he certainly will have done so, unless he exercises due foresight and self-control in the mean time. There is not the slightest doubt that birds and mammals are now being killed off much faster than they can breed. ”

“ My only object is to prove, from verifiable facts, that animal life in Labrador is being recklessly and wantonly squandered, that this is detrimental to everyone except the get-rich-quickly people who are ready to destroy any natural resources forever in order to reap an immediate and selfish advantage, that sanctuaries will better conditions in every way, and that the ultimate benefit to Canada—both in a material and a higher sense—will repay the small present expense required, over and over again. ”

“ If people only knew that Labrador contained a hundred Saguenays, wild zoos, Thousand Islands, fiords, palisades, sea mountains, cañons, great lakes and waterfalls, if they only knew that they could get the enjoyment of it for a song, and make it an heirloom for no more trouble than letting it live, they might do all that is needed to-morrow. ”

“ Civilized man begins by destroying the very forms of wild life he learns to appreciate most when he becomes still more civilized. The obvious remedy is to begin conservation at an earlier stage, when it is easier and better in every way, by enforcing laws for close seasons, game preserves, the selective protection of certain species, and sanctuaries. I have just defined a sanctuary as a place where man is passive and the rest of Nature active. ”

“ Yet electricity in Labrador requires water-power, which requires a steady flow, which requires a head-water forest, which, in its turn, is admirably fit to shelter wild life. Except for those who would selfishly and shortsightedly take all this wealth of wild life out of the world altogether, in one grasping generation, there is nobody who will not be the better for the change. I have talked with interested parties of every different kind, and always found them agree that conservation is the only thing to do—provided, as they invariably add, that it is done "straight" and "the same for all." ”

“ Last summer, when a great employer of labour down the Gulf was telling where birds could be shot to the greatest advantage out of season, and I was objecting that it was not clean sport, he said, "Oh, but Indians can shoot for food at any time—and we're all Indians here!" And what are we to think of a rich man who used caribou simply as targets for his new rifle, and a scientific man who killed 72 in one morning, only to make a record? We need the true ideal of sport and an altogether new ideal of conservation, and we need them very badly and very soon. ”

“ But pain and death are very real, all the same. So death should be inflicted as quickly as possible, even at the risk of losing the rest of one's bag. And, even beyond the reach of any laws, no animal should ever be killed in sport when its own death might entail the lingering death of its young. A sportsman who observes these rules instinctively, and who never kills what he cannot get and use, is not a cruel man. He certainly is a beast of prey. But so is the most delicate invalid woman when drinking a cup of beef tea. Sport has its use in the development of health and skill and courage. ”

“ SPORT.—Sport should have a great future in Labrador. Inland game birds, except ptarmigan, are the only kind of which there is never likely to be a great abundance, owing to the natural scarcity of their food. But, besides the big game on land and game birds on the coast, there are some unusual forms of sport appealing to adventurous natures. Harpooning the little white whale by hand in a North Shore canoe, or shooting the largest and gamest of all the seals—the great "hood"—also out of a canoe, requires enough skill and courage to make success its own reward. ”

“ So when we consider how easily it can be preserved in Labrador, and how beneficial its preservation is to all concerned, we can understand how the wanton destruction going on there is quite as idiotic as it is wrong.
Take "egging" as an example. The Indians, Eskimos and other beasts of prey merely preserved the balance of nature by the toll they used to take. No beast of prey, not even the white man, will destroy his own stock supply of food. But with the nineteenth century came the white-man market "eggers", systematically taking or destroying every egg in every place they visited. ”

“ When we remember how many thousands of men visit the shore, and that the resident population eggs on its own account, at least as high up as the Pilgrims, only 100 miles from Quebec, we need not be prophets to foresee the inevitable end of all bird life when subjected to such a drain. And this is on the St. Lawrence, where there are laws and wardens and fewer fishermen. What about the Atlantic Labrador, where there are no laws, no wardens, many more fishermen, and ruthless competitive egging between the residents and visitors? ”

“ The trouble is that the public generally has no sense of responsibility in the matter of enforcement. It still has a hazy idea that Nature has an overflowing sanctuary of her own, somewhere or other, which will fill up the gaps automatically. The result is that poaching is commonly regarded as a venial offence, poachers taken red-handed are rarely punished, and willing ears are always lent to the cry that rich sportsmen are trying to take the bread out of the poor settler's mouth. ”

“ The poor settler does not reflect that he himself, and all other classes alike, really have a common interest in the conservation of any wild life that does not conflict with legitimate human development. There is some just cause of complaint that the big-game reserves are hampering the peasants in parts of India and the settlers and natives in parts of Uganda. But no such complaint can be raised against the Laurentide National Park, so wisely established by the Quebec Government. The worst of it is that many of the richer people set the example in law-breaking. ”

“ When some civilized English-speaking bird-catchers get a bird they do not want, they will deliberately wrench its bill apart, so that it must die of lingering starvation. Sometimes the cruelty is done to man himself. Not so many years ago some whalers secured a lot of walrus hides and tusks by having a whole herd of walrus wiped out, in spite of the fact that these animals were, at that very time, known to be the only food available for a neighbouring tribe of Eskimos. The Eskimos were starved to death, every soul among them, as the Government explorers found out. ”

“ First, it cannot be denied that the constant breaking of the present law makes for bad citizenship, and that the observance of law will make for good. Next, though it is often said that what Canada needs most is development and not conservation, I think no one will deny that conservation is the best and most certainly productive form of development in the case before us. Then, I think we have here a really unique opportunity of effecting a reform that will unite and not divide all the legitimate interests concerned. What could appear to have less in common than electricity and sanctuaries? ”

“ Harbour seals are wantonly shot in deep fresh water where they cannot be recovered, much as seagulls are shot by blackguards from an ocean liner.
And the worst of it is that all this wanton destruction is not by any means confined to the ignorant or those who have been brought up to it. The men from the American yacht must have known better. So do those educated men from our own cities, who shoot out of season down the St. Lawrence and plead, quite falsely, that there is no game law below the Brandy Pots. It is, of course, well understood that a man can always shoot for necessary food. ”

“ I believe that the enforcement of laws and the establishment of sanctuaries will raise our sport to a higher plane, reduce the suffering now inflicted when killing for business, and help in every way towards the conversion of the human into the humane. Besides, paradoxical as it may seem to some good people, the true sportsman has always proved to be one of the very best conservers of all wild life worth keeping. ”

“ But, except in cases where experiment has proved his intervention to be beneficial, the less he upsets the balance of Nature the better, even when he tries to be an earthly Providence.
In itself a sanctuary is a kind of wild "zoo," on a gigantic scale and under ideal conditions. As such, it appeals to everyone interested in animals, from the greatest zoologist to the mere holiday tourist. Before concluding I shall give facts to show how well worth while it would be to establish sanctuaries, even if there were no other people to enjoy the benefits. ”

“ I can show that once the public grasps the issues at stake it will supply enough petitioners to move any government based on popular support, and that the scheme itself will supply enough money to make the sanctuaries a national asset of the most paying kind, and enough higher human interest to make them priceless as a possession for ourselves and a heritage for all who come after. ”

“ Now, we have seen verifiable facts enough to prove that Labrador, out of its total area of eleven Englands, is not likely to be advantageously exploitable over much more than the area of one England for other purposes than the growth and harvesting of wild life by land and water. How are these ten Englands to be brought under conservation, before it is too late, in the best interests of the five chief classes of people who are concerned already or will be soon? ”

“ But the fish and fisheries have problems of their own too great for incidental treatment; and I shall pass on to the birds and mammals.
Yet I must not forget the "flies"—who that has felt them once can ever forget them? Labrador is not a very happy hunting-ground for the entomologist. But all it lacks in variety of kinds it more than makes up in number of individuals, especially in the detestable trio of bot-flies, blackflies and mosquitoes. The bot-fly infests the caribou and will probably infest the reindeer. The blackfly and mosquito attack both man and beast in maddening millions. ”

“ Moreover, town-bred humanitarians feel pain and death more than the simpler races of men, who, in their turn, feel it more than lower animals. A wild animal that has just escaped death will resume its occupation as if nothing had happened. The sportsman's clean kill is only an incident in the day's work, not anxiously apprehended like an operation or a battle. ”

“ This will make the settlers independent of wild life for necessary food; and wild life, in any case, would be too precarious if exploited in the usual way. The traders in wild-animal products, as well as the naturalists, sportsmen and tourists, are interested in keeping the rest of the country well stocked. So that, one way and another, the human and wild-animal life will not conflict, as they do where farming creates a widespread rural population, or wanton destruction of forests ruins land and water, and human and animal life have to suffer for it afterwards. ”

“ The treatment of the adults is almost worse in many typical cases. An Indian will skin a hare alive and gloat over his quivering death-agonies. The excuse is, "white man have fun, Indian have fun, too." And it is a valid excuse, from one point of view. When "there's nothing in caribou" except the value of the tongue, the tongue has been cut out of the living deer, whose only other value is considered to be the amusement afforded by his horrible fate. And, fiendish cruelty like this is not confined to the outer wilds. ”