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.