Heretofore, you have permitted hired market gunners from outside your borders to slaughter the wild-fowl of your Sunk Lands literally by millions, and ship them to northern markets, with very little benefit to your people.  It is time for that slaughter to cease.  Don’t maintain a duck and goose shambles in Mississippi County, year after year, as North Carolina does!  Do unto other states as you would have other states do unto you. Do not be afraid to pass nine good laws in one act.  Clear your record in the Family of States, and save your fauna before it is too late.  It is not fair for you to permit the slaughter of the insectivorous birds that are like the blood of life to the farmer and fruit grower.

CALIFORNIA: 

  The sale of all wild game should be forever prohibited.

  The use of automatic and pump shotguns, in hunting, should be
  prohibited.

  The killing of pigeons and doves as “game” and “food” should be
  stopped.

  The sage grouse and every other species of bird threatened with
  extinction should be given ten year close seasons.

  The mule deer (if any remain) and the Columbian black-tailed deer in
  the southern counties should be accorded a ten-year close season.

  A large state game preserve should be created immediately, on or
  near Mount Shasta and abundantly stocked with nucleus herds of
  antelope, black-tailed deer, bison and elk.

  A suitable preserve in the southern part of the state should be set
  aside for the dwarf elk.

As game laws are generally regarded, California has on her books a series that look rather good to the eye, but which are capable of considerable improvement.  All along the line, the birds and quadrupeds of the Golden State are vanishing!  Under that heading, a vigorous chapter could be written; but space forbids its development here.  Just fancy laws that permit gunning and hunting with dogs, from August until January—­one-half the entire year!  Think of the nesting birds that are disturbed or killed by dogs and gunners after other birds!

California’s wild ducks and geese have been slaughtered to an extent almost beyond belief.  The splendid sage grouse and the sharp-tailed grouse are greatly reduced in numbers.  Of her hundreds of thousands of antelope, once the cheapest game in the market, scarcely “a trace” remains.  Her mountain sheep and mule deer are almost extinct.  Her grizzly bears are gone!

The most terrible slaughter ever recorded for automatic guns occurred in Glenn County, Cal., on Feb. 5, 1906, when two men (whose story was published in Outdoor Life, xvii, p. 371, April, 1906), killed 450 geese in one day, and actually bagged 218 of them in one hour!