Forest and Stream, April 18, 1914

AN OPPOSITE VIEW FROM VIRGINIA.

Natural resources -- Conservation - GameTourists and sportsmen -- Field sports - Trespass

Amelia C. H., Virginia.

Editor Forest and Stream:

Please find enclosed a check for one-year's subscription to Forest and Stream. It is my duty, however, to inform you that I am not a member of the Virginia Game and Game Fish Protective Association and that I do not agree with their views regarding game legislation; that I did my level best in common with most of the Virginia countrymen of the south side of Virginia to defeat it, and that we will make every effort to defeat any such bill whenever it comes up. Our reasons are the following: that the shooting rights will be brought up by wealthy non-residents, and the only amusement open to countrymen of ordinary means abolished.

That it will be practically impossible, because of the irregular shapes and ill-marked boundaries, to be sure at times whose land we are on. Thousands of acres belong to colored people (from two to two hundred acres in extent). One would have to take an astronomical observation every few minutes to tell him where he was and that would be worthless without the finest kind of a map defining every man's land. These maps do not exist. If a man hunted at all it would mean that he would necessarily violate the law.

I verily believe that this law if enforced would breed a feeling among the country people that would imperil the sanctity of other laws far more important. Ninety-five per cent. of our rural population cherish hunting as their one sport and privilege. The restrictions imposed in the Hart bill make real hunting impossible. Our people are not given to obeying a law because it is a law. They are very apt to first pass judgment on whether or not they consider it a good and just law. If they consider it so they are among the most law-abiding and enforcing people in the world. If they do not, that law is a dead letter. They have never taken the game laws seriously. If the Hart bill passes next session it will either be not enforced at all or it will arouse a storm that will make our politicians glad to repeal it just as quick as they can. Our country people believe that these laws are put forward by the rich city men for selfish purposes. It may be that the northern Virginian differs from us south of the James.

Our Farmers' Union, fourteen thousand strong, was solidly against destroying the last sport which kept our boys on the farm. The present law is disregarded; the game has not diminished but increased. My brother and myself, both of us hunters for thirty years, made the biggest bag last year we have ever made in two days' hunt, and, both being past forty years of age, must be far less efficient at this hardest of all sports, than when we were in the twenties and thirties.

Game has increased because of the destruction of the mink for his pelt. A fifty-cent bounty on hawks would stop these pests from harrying our quail in the snow, preventing the birds from eating and thus causing them to freeze. This is far more destructive to quail than town people realize. A quail's color -- its protection in ordinary times -- renders it plainly visible on the snow at four hundred yards. It is impossible for them to feed with safety and they know it. A chicken farmer, neighbor of mine, lost five hundred chickens in one year, mostly from hawks, he thinks. He does not hunt and is impartial.

Another neighbor never allows a shot fired in three hundred acres of open land around the house. He assures me that by the first of December the hawks have driven every quail out of it except one covey in his yard, which diminished from seventeen to eight without a shot being fired. He does not hunt or care anything about it. He says from five to ten hawks can be seen every day hunting his fields. The $2,500 salary of the proposed game commissioner would remove five thousand hawks.

The situation is just this: It is the country against the city.

We feel if these gentlemen were so anxious to preserve game they would put a bounty on hawks. As long as they do not we suspect an ulterior motive.

CRAIG EGGLESTON.

BRAVE WORK IN VIRGINIA.

Natural resources -- Conservation - Game

Editor Forest and Stream:

Two years ago the Audubon Society of Virginia had a measure known as the Moncure-Rutherford game bill, presented to the Virginia legislature for passage. This bill passed the upper house, but never came to a vote in the lower house. In 1914 we came back with the same bill known as the Hart-White game bill, which again passed the upper house and lacked two votes in the lower house. Beyond a question, the progress we have thus far made is owing to the foundation laid and the fight maintained by the Audubon Society of Virginia. In 1912 we had no state association helping us; in 1914 under the efficient leadership of Mr. W. P. Patterson, by whose efforts the Game Protection Association of Virginia was resuscitated, this association did great work. In 1912 the Audubon Society of Virginia was instrumental in having the county boards of supervisors shorten the quail season. This brought an avalanche of antagonism, and our efforts and activities for comprehensive game laws and game protection in this state have made us many enemies among a certain class of sportsmen.

We have been greatly encouraged financially and otherwise by the National Association of Audubon Societies, by the American Game Protective and Propagation Association and by the New York Zoological Society. But for this help from outside this state we would not have made as good a showing as we have. In 1916 we shall again present our bill, which is fashioned after that of Alabama; and we believe we have now aroused such an interest that the bill will pass easily. It took Colonel Wallace ten years to pass the Alabama game laws, but we propose to do the work here in four years.

Every knock is a boost and the time is coming in Virginia when our enemies will be among our best friends.

M. D. HART,

President Audubon Society of Virginia,

Richmond, Va.