Supplement to Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador

Supplement to Animal
Sanctuaries in Labrador

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Title: Supplement to Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador Supplement to an
Address Presented by Lt.-Colonel William Wood, F.R.S.C. Before the
Second Annual Meeting of the Commission of Conservation in January,
1911
Author: William Wood
Release Date: February 21, 2005 [EBook #15134]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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Commission of Conservation Canada
SUPPLEMENT TO
ANIMAL SANCTUARIES IN LABRADOR

SUPPLEMENT TO AN ADDRESS PRESENTED BY
LT.-COLONEL WILLIAM WOOD, F.R.S.C. Before the Second
Annual Meeting of the Commission of Conservation in January, 1911
OTTAWA, JUNE 1912

Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador
SUPPLEMENT TO AN ADDRESS BY LT.-COLONEL WILLIAM
WOOD OTTAWA, CANADA 1912

SUPPLEMENT TO AN ADDRESS ON Animal Sanctuaries in
Labrador
BY
LIEUT.-COLONEL WILLIAM WOOD, F.R.S.C.
The appeal prefixed to the original Address in 1911 announced the
issue of the present supplement in 1912, and asked experts and other
leaders of public opinion to set the subject on firm foundations by
contributing advice and criticism.
The response was most gratifying. The twelve hundred review copies
sent out to the Canadian press, and the hundreds more sent out to
general and specialist periodicals in every part of the English-speaking
world, all met with a sympathetic welcome, and were often given long
and careful notices. Many scientific journals, like the _Bulletin of the
Zoological Society of America_, sporting magazines, like the Canadian
_Rod and Gun_, and zoophil organs, like the English _Animals'
Guardian_, examined the Address thoroughly from their respective
standpoints. The Empire Review has already reprinted it verbatim in
London, and an association of outing men are now preparing to do the
same in New York.
But though the press has been of the greatest service in the matter of
publicity the principal additions to a knowledge of the question have
come from individuals. Naturalists, sportsmen and leaders in public life
have all helped both by advice and encouragement. Quotations from a
number of letters are published at the end of this supplement. The most
remarkable characteristic of all this private correspondence and public
notice, as well as the spoken opinions of many experts, is their perfect
agreement on the cardinal point that we are wantonly living like

spendthrifts on the capital of our wild life, and that the general
argument of the Address is, therefore, incontrovertibly true.
The gist of some of the most valuable advice is, that while the Address
is true so far as it goes, its application ought to be extended to
completion by including the leasehold system, side by side with the
establishment of sanctuaries and the improvement and enforcement of
laws.
Such an extension takes me beyond my original limits. Yet, both for the
sake of completeness and because this system is a most valuable means
toward the end desired by all conservers of wild life, I willingly insert
leaseholds as the connecting link between laws and sanctuaries.
But before trying to give a few working suggestions on laws,
leaseholds and sanctuaries, and, more particularly still, before giving
any quotations from letters, I feel bound to point out again, as I did in
the Address itself, that my own personality is really of no special
consequence, either in giving the suggestions or receiving the letters. I
have freely picked the brains of other men and simply put together the
scattered parts of what ought to be a consistent whole.
LAWS
It is a truism and a counsel of perfection to say so, but, to be effective,
wild-life protection laws, like other laws, must be scientific,
comprehensive, accepted by the public, understood by all concerned,
and impartially enforced.
To be scientifically comprehensive they must define man's whole
attitude towards wild life, whether for business, sport or study. One
general code would suffice. A preamble could explain that the object
was to use the interest, not abuse the capital of wild life. Then the
noxious and beneficial kinds could be enumerated, close seasons
mentioned, regulations laid down, etc. From this one code it would be
easy to pick out for separate publication whatever applied only to one
place or one form of human activity. But even this general code would
not be enough unless the relations between animal and plant life were
carefully adjusted, so that each might benefit the other, whenever
possible, and neither might suffer because the other