First of all, Oregon should bury the pernicious
idea of individual
and local laws.
She should enact a concise, clearly cut,
and thoroughly effective
code of wild life laws, just as New York
did last winter.
Her game seasons should be uniform in
application, all over the
state.
Every species of bird, mammal or fish
that is threatened with
extermination should be given a close
season of from five to ten
years.
It is now time to protect the white goose
and brant. Squirrels,
band-tailed pigeons and doves should be
perpetually protected.
The State Game Commission should have
power to close the shooting
seasons on any species of game in any
locality, whenever a species
is threatened with extinction.
The sale of native wild game, from all
sources, should be
permanently stopped, by a Bayne law.
The use of automatic, “autoloading”
and pump shot guns in hunting
should be perpetually barred.
PENNSYLVANIA:
As a game protecting state, Pennsylvania is a close second to New York and Massachusetts. She protects all native game from sale; she has the courage to prohibit aliens from owning guns; she bars out automatic shot-guns in hunting; she makes refuges for deer, and feeds her quail in winter, and she permits the killing of no female deer, or fawns with horns less than three inches in length. Her splendid State Game Commission is fighting hard for a hunter’s license law, and will win the fight for it at the next session of the legislature (1913).
But there are certain things that Pennsylvania should do:
She should stop all spring shooting.
She must stop killing doves,
blackbirds, wild turkeys, sandpipers,
and all the squirrels save the
red squirrel.
She should give all her shore birds a
rest of at least five years,
for recuperation.
She should enact a comprehensive Dutcher
plumage law, stopping the
sale of aigrettes.
She should provide a resident license
to furnish her Game Commission
with adequate funds to carry on its work
and exterminate
game-killing vermin.
RHODE ISLAND:
Little Rhody needs some good, small bag
limits; for now (1912) she
has none!
She should enact a Bayne law, a Pennsylvania
law against aliens,
and a New Jersey law against the automatic
and pump guns.
She should stop killing the beautiful wood-duck, and gray squirrel.
She should stop all spring shooting of waterfowl.
SOUTH CAROLINA:
She should save her game while she still has some to save.
First of all, stop spring shooting; secondly, enact a Bayne law.
In the name of mystery, who is there in
South Carolina who desires
to kill grackles? And why?