However desirable they are from any
point of view leaseholds are not likely to cover much
of Labrador for some time to come. They should
be encouraged only on condition that every lessee
of every kind sportsman, professional on
land or water, lumberman or other accepts
the obligation to keep and enforce the wild-life protection
laws in co-operation with the public wardens who guard
the sanctuaries, watch the open areas and patrol the
trade outlets.
I have very little to add to what
I said about sanctuaries in the Address.
Most of the information received since it was published
has only emphasized the points it made. And as
no one has opposed and many have supported the establishment
of the Harrington sanctuary I again recommend it strongly.
The 64 miles in a straight line between cape Whittle
and cape Mekattina should be made into an absolute
sanctuary for all birds and mammals. If some
more ground can be taken in on either side, so much
the better. But the 64 miles must be kept in any
case. The Bird rocks and Bonaventure island, one
of the Mingans, the Perroquets, Egg island and
The Pilgrims, are all desirable in every way.
There are plenty of islands to choose from along the
Atlantic Labrador and round Hudson and James bays.
It is most important to keep the migratory birds free
from molestation during the first fortnight after
their arrival; and the same applies to migratory mammals,
though not quite in the same way. Inland sanctuaries
should be made near Hamilton inlet, in the Mingan
and Mistassini districts and up the Eastmain river.
Ultimately an Arctic sanctuary might be made on either
Baffin or Melville islands. A meteorological station
in the Arctic, linked up with Labrador by wireless,
would be of great benefit to the weather forecasts,
as we now have no reports from where so much of our
cold or mild winters are affected by the different
drift of enormous ice-fields; and whenever one is
established, a wild-life protection station should
accompany it.
Sanctuaries should never be too big;
not one tenth of the whole area will ever be required
for them. But they should be placed where they
will best serve the double purpose of being natural
wild “zoos” and over-flowing reservoirs
of wild-life. The exact situations of most, especially
inland, will require a good deal of co-operative study
between zoologists and other experts. But there
is no doubt whatever, that they ought to be established,
no matter how well the laws are enforced over both
leaseholds and open areas. Civilised man is appreciating
them more and more every day; and every day he is
becoming better able to reach them. By giving
absolute security to all desirable species in at least
two different localities we can keep objects of Nature
study in the best possible way both for ourselves
and our posterity.
Only twelve years ago forty mills
were debasing the immemorial and gigantic sequoia
into mere timber in its last refuge in California.
But even the general public sees now that this was
a barbarous and idiotic perversion of relative values.
What is a little perishable timber, for which substitutes
can be found elsewhere, compared with a grove of trees
that will be the wonder and delight of generations?
What is the fleeting but abominable gratification of
destroying the harmless lizard-like Tuatera of New
Zealand compared with the deep interest of preserving
it as the last living vertebrate that takes us back
to Primary times? What is the momentary gratification
of wearing egret feathers compared with the certainty
of soon destroying the herons that produce them altogether;
or what can compensate for the vile cruelty done to
mutilated parent birds and starving young, or the
murder of Bradley, the bird warden when trying to protect
them?