Supplement to Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador | Page 8

Last year there were a few seen here and there and all at once, during the present season, there are thousands. Hundreds have been shot and they are reported abundant all over. I imagine this must be due to particularly favourable weather conditions and the immense number of foxes trapped last winter. There is also this fall, an extraordinary number of muskrats--they are swarming everywhere, even in totally, unfavourable localities, doing much damage in some places. What is the cause of this? Presumably it must be through some cause decreasing the number of their enemies. This is why I think much care must be taken before any steps are taken to protect certain species. Some still hold their own against all odds.
His Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught, Governor General of Canada, acknowledged the receipt of the Address from Balmoral Castle in September, granted an interview at Ottawa in December, and authorized the use of his name to show his sympathy with the movement.
Dr. W.T. Grenfell has a long and most intimate knowledge of the Atlantic Labrador. He writes:
The matters of animal preservation which interest me most are: The rapid decline in numbers of harp seals which we Northern people can get for our boots and clothing. This food and clothing supply, formerly readily obtainable all along the Labrador, helped greatly to maintain in comfort our scattered population. It is scarcely now worth while putting out seal nets. We attribute this to the destruction of seals at the time of their whelping, by steamers which are ever growing larger and more numerous. No mammal, producing but one offspring can long survive this.
Along the Labrador coast east of the Canadian border, birds are destroyed on sight and nests robbed wherever found. The laws are a dead letter because there is no one to enforce them.
There is great need also for scientific inquiry with regard to the fisheries--the herring and mackerel are apparently gone, the salmon are getting scarcer, and the cod fisheries have been failing perceptibly these past years. Yet there is no practical effort made to discover the reason and obviate it.
On the 9th of September, 1911, Earl Grey made the following entry in the visitors' book at La Roche:
I desire to thank the provincial government of Quebec for having given me the opportunity of visiting, as their guest, the Laurentides National Park, and to acknowledge the great pleasure which I have derived from all I have seen and done.... I would also like to congratulate them on the wisdom of their policy in establishing so large a reserve, as a protection for various breeds of wild animals which would otherwise be in danger of extinction, and as a place of rest, refreshment, and recreation for those who love the quiet of the wilds.
Mr. George Bird Grinnell, one of the greatest authorities in the world on the Indian and wild life of North America, writes:
I have recently read with extraordinary interest your address, presented last January to the Commission of Conservation....
I wish to offer you my personal thanks for the effective way in which you have set forth the desirability of establishing wild-life refuges in Labrador, and I trust that what you have said will start a movement in Canada to carry out this good project. It has long interested me to know that your people and their officials seem much more farseeing than those on this side of the line, and Canada's show of national parks and reservations is far more creditable than that of her neighbour to the south.
Dr. H. Mather Hare, who does on the Canadian Labrador what Dr. Grenfell does on the Newfoundland or Atlantic Labrador, and whose headquarters are at Harrington, where the first coast sanctuary ought to be established at the earliest possible moment, says:
May I make a suggestion? The fishermen coming here from Nova Scotia and Newfoundland do not believe there is really a law against egging and shooting. They say it is a put-up job by the people living on the coast, because they want all the eggs and birds themselves. This being the case, would it not be a good idea to have a notice in several of the Nova Scotia and Newfoundland papers warning the fishermen against breaking the law, and in this way putting the interdiction on a legal footing; so they may understand that it is not a mere bluff on the part of the people living on the coast. So far there has been nothing but talk, and nothing official; no arrest made, etc., so one can hardly blame them for the position they take, especially as they have been doing the same thing for many years.
The notice should be very clear and penalties set forth plainly.
Mr. W.T. Lindsay, M.E., who has travelled thousands of miles through