Supplement to Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador | Page 5

sanctuary might be made on either Baffin or Melville islands. A meteorological station in the Arctic, linked up with Labrador by wireless, would be of great benefit to the weather forecasts, as we now have no reports from where so much of our cold or mild winters are affected by the different drift of enormous ice-fields; and whenever one is established, a wild-life protection station should accompany it.
Sanctuaries should never be too big; not one tenth of the whole area will ever be required for them. But they should be placed where they will best serve the double purpose of being natural wild "zoos" and over-flowing reservoirs of wild-life. The exact situations of most, especially inland, will require a good deal of co-operative study between zoologists and other experts. But there is no doubt whatever, that they ought to be established, no matter how well the laws are enforced over both leaseholds and open areas. Civilised man is appreciating them more and more every day; and every day he is becoming better able to reach them. By giving absolute security to all desirable species in at least two different localities we can keep objects of Nature study in the best possible way both for ourselves and our posterity.
Only twelve years ago forty mills were debasing the immemorial and gigantic sequoia into mere timber in its last refuge in California. But even the general public sees now that this was a barbarous and idiotic perversion of relative values. What is a little perishable timber, for which substitutes can be found elsewhere, compared with a grove of trees that will be the wonder and delight of generations? What is the fleeting but abominable gratification of destroying the harmless lizard-like Tuatera of New Zealand compared with the deep interest of preserving it as the last living vertebrate that takes us back to Primary times? What is the momentary gratification of wearing egret feathers compared with the certainty of soon destroying the herons that produce them altogether; or what can compensate for the vile cruelty done to mutilated parent birds and starving young, or the murder of Bradley, the bird warden when trying to protect them?
LETTERS
The following quotations from a few of the many and wholly unsolicited letters received are arranged in alphabetical order. They are strictly _verbatim_:
_Australia._ The Animals' Protection Society. F. Montagu Rothery, Esq., Secretary, 82 Pitt Street, Sydney, New South Wales.
Here in this State our fauna and flora are both rapidly disappearing, there being so many agencies at work for their destruction. It will soon be too late to save many of our beautiful birds and animals, and I am anxious to bring under notice your words for the preservation of animals by a system of sanctuaries.
Dr. Robert Bell, late Chief Geologist, Geological Survey of Canada, who has made many explorations in Labrador and adjacent lands and waters, and who has always given special attention to the mammals, writes:
I approve very heartily of the plan. It will be a humane thing to try to protect the animals and will be very advantageous in every way. It will no doubt receive the sympathy of all classes. There will, however, be some difficulties to overcome and much work to be done before the plan gets into successful operation.... As to the location and dimensions of the sanctuary, the north side of the lower St. Lawrence is the most suitable or only region left, except where it is too far north to benefit the most of the mammals and birds which we should try to preserve. It will be desirable to reserve and protect as great a length of the shore as possible, but perhaps enough will be found between Bradore bay on the east and Great Mekattina island on the west, or this might be extended to Natashkwan. To carry it up to Mingan, it would become more and more difficult to protect the coast the further up you come. Between Mekattina island and Natashkwan, there are no attractive rivers to tempt trespassers to go inland, those which exist being difficult for canoe navigation....
The animals soon find out where they are safe and come to live in even a small area. The Algonquin park is a case in point. There the bears have increased immensely in a few years and the less noticeable mammals and birds have also increased very much. I know of a more conspicuous case of a small area, on the Nelson river, where, owing to an old-standing superstition of the Indians, the animals have not been molested for a long period and they have become much more numerous than elsewhere.... Everything that can be killed is called Game. Most of it should be called animal murder and should be discouraged.
The Sanctuary should be placed in charge of a committee