Supplement to Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador | Page 2

also be unified departments to aid and control his harvest of the wilds? A Minister of Fauna and Flora sounds startling, and perhaps a little absurd. But fisheries, forests and game have more to do with each other than any one of them with mines. And, whatever his designation, such a minister would have no lack of work, especially in Labrador. But here we come again to the complex human factors of three Governments and more Departments. Yet, if this bio-geographic area cannot be brought into one administrative entity, then the next best thing is concerted action on the part of all the Governments and all their Departments.
There is no time to lose. Even now, when laws themselves stop short at the Atlantic, new and adjacent areas are about to be exploited without the slightest check being put on the exploiters. An expedition is leaving New York for the Arctic. It is well found in all the implements of destruction. It will soon be followed by others. And the musk-ox, polar bears and walrus will shrink into narrower and narrower limits, when, under protection, far wider ones might easily support abundance of this big game, together with geese, duck and curlews. It is wrong to say that such people can safely have their fling for a few years more. None of the nobler forms of wild life have any chance against modern facilities of uncontrolled destruction. What happened to the great auk and the Labrador duck in the Gulf? What happened to the musk-ox in Greenland? What is happening everywhere to every form of beneficial and preservable wild life that is not being actively protected to-day? Then, there is the disappearing whale and persecuted seal to think of also in those latitudes. The _laissez-faire_ argument is no better here than elsewhere. For if wild life is worth exploiting it must be worth conserving.
There is need, and urgent need, for extending protective laws all along the Atlantic Labrador and over the whole of the Canadian Arctic, where the barren-ground caribou may soon share the fate of the barren-ground bear in Ungava, especially if mineral exploitation sets in. Ungava and the Arctic are Dominion grounds, the Atlantic Labrador belongs to Newfoundland, Greenland to Denmark, and the open sea to all comers, among whom are many Americans. Under these circumstances the new international conference on whaling should deal effectively with the protection of all the marine carnivora, and be followed by an inter-dominion-and-provincial conference at which a joint system of conservation can be agreed upon for all the wild life of Labrador, including the cognate lands of Arctic Canada to the north and Newfoundland to the south.
This occasion should be taken to place the whole of the fauna under law; not only _game_, but noxious and beneficial species of every kind. And here both local experts and trained zoologists ought to be consulted. Probably everyone would agree that flies, wolves and English sparrows are noxious. But the indiscriminate destruction of all mammals and birds of prey is not a good thing, as a general rule, any more than any other complete upsetting of the balance of nature. A great deal could be learnt from the excellent work already done all over the continent with regard to the farmer's and forester's wild friends and foes. A migrating flight of curlew, snipe, plover or sandpipers is worth much more to the farmer alive than dead. But by no means every farmer knows the value of the difference.
This is only one of the many reasons why a special effort should be made to bring a knowledge of the laws home to everyone in the areas affected, including the areas crossed by the lines of migration.
The language should be unmistakeably plain. Every form of wild life should be included, as wholly, seasonally, locally or otherwise protected, or as not protected, or as exterminable, with penalties and rewards mentioned in each case. All animals should be called by their scientific, English, French, and special local names, to prevent the possibility of mistake or excuse. Every man, resident or not, who uses rod, gun, rifle, net or snare, afloat or ashore, should be obliged to take out a license, even in cases where it might be given gratis; and his receipt for it should contain his own acknowledgment that he has a copy of the laws, which he thoroughly understands. Particular clauses should be devoted to rapacious dealers who get collecting permits as scientific men, to poison, to shooting from power boats or with swivel guns, to that most diabolical engine of all murderers--the Maxim silencer,--to hounding and crusting, to egging and nefarious pluming, to illegal netting and cod-trapping, and last, but emphatically not least, to any and every form of wanton cruelty. The next step may be to