Conserving Senators

In the past 15 years. Congress has done three important things for U. S. wild life. In 1918 the treaty with Canada establishing regulations for migratory birds was made the law of the land. In 1922 the U. S. Biological Survey was appointed enforcer of this treaty. In 1929 came the Norbeck-Andresen Bill appropriating $8,000,000 for the establishment of migratory bird sanctuaries now under survey.

Last week five Senator: who are interested in U. S. animals, members of the special Senate Committee on Conservation of Wild Life Resources, made their first report to fellow-Senators. They announced that the U. S. must do more if its animals are to be kept from extinction. The Senators were Frederic Collin Walcott of Connecticut (chairman), Harry Bartow Hawes of Missouri, Key Pittman of Nevada, Charles Linza McNary of Oregon, Peter Norbeck of South Dakota. After finishing a trip into Midwest and Western States and along the Canadian border, they announced that two more years would be necessary before they could become completely wise about conservation.

The conserving Senators are especially impressed with the economic importance of wild life. The Southern Newspaper Publishers' Association for purposes of their own compiled statistics showing that in 14 Southern and Southwestern States there are 4,500,000 hunters and fishermen. Total number of people interested in other sports (baseball, football, golf, tennis) was only 5,000,000. Thirteen million U. S. hunters and fishermen in 1929 (estimated total) spent $21,000,000 for firearms, $43,000,000 for ammunition, $25,000,000 for fishing tackle.

Sportsmen spend a total of $650,000,000 annually for equipment (clothing, tents, canoes, firearms, etc.). Other estimates show that the U. S. Government has invested $54,000,000 in national parks, $3,500,000 in fish hatcheries.

From what the five Senators have learned so far, they had the following suggestions to insure future fish & game:

1) Issue more Federal game pamphlets.

2) Get the States to help enforce the Canadian treaty.

3) Coordinate the work of the five Federal agencies* having to do with wildlife.

4) Let every State have at least one game sanctuary./-

5) More money, more men for Federal game law enforcement. The Biological Survey now has only 25 game wardens, needs at least 75 Let the Biological Survey and Bureau of Fisheries help States wishing to establish game as a farm crop, make surveys.**

6) Let Congress set aside more wilderness areas, furnish one game warden for each national forest. Senator Walcott of Connecticut, the Committee's chairman, is himself a keen gunner and fisherman. With his two sons and four setters he shoots the fat quail of Virginia and South Carolina when he can get away from Washington. With Lord William Percy of England and Dr. Frank Michler Chapman of the American Museum of Natural History, he has studied birds in South America. As president of the Connecticut State Board of Fisheries & Game and of a joint commission on Forests & Wild Life, he helped develop his own State's efficient conservation policy. In a report to a conservation group he once wrote: "Soft living is conducive to soft bodies and dull minds. . . . There is one effective cure for this tendency to Idleness--back to the country, breathe fresh air, drink pure water. ..."

*Biologicnl Survey, Forest Service, Bureau of Fisheries, Bureau of Lighthouses, National Park Service.

/-Last week conservationists were preparing to submit a plan to the War Department for making military reservations into game sanctuaries. Camp Knox, Ky., is already one.

**The Advisory Conservation Council of New York State last week started a State conservation survey, approved the addition of one and one-half million more acres to Adirondack and Catskill State Parks.

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