and murres', auks' and puffins' eggs
up to the 15th of June. Allow them to take young birds only in case of
sickness: (gull broth is the local equivalent of chicken broth). Allow
them to shoot after the 1st of September without a license. The
conditions of the coast require these exceptions, which will not
endanger the bird life there.
9. Establish one bird sanctuary on the inshore islands between Fond au
Fecteau and Whale Head East, and another on the inshore islands round
Yankee Harbour (Wapitagun).
10. These islands are favourite haunts of the American eider
("sea-duck", "metik", _Somateria dresseri_.)
Perhaps the Northern or Greenland eider (_Somateria mollissima
borealis_) might also be induced to concentrate there. There seems to be
no reason why an eider-down industry should not be built up by the end
of the five years. The eider ought to be specially protected all the way
up to the Pilgrims, which are only 100 miles below Quebec. The Province
might do this from Natashquan west.
11. Begin by protecting all birds except the Great Blackback Gull
("Saddleback", _Larus marinus_) which is very destructive to other bird
life. Let its eggs and young be taken at all times; but prevent adult
birds from being shot before the 1st of September, so as not to starve
the helpless young to death. When other species become really noxious it
will be time enough to treat them in the same way. As a rule, the harm
done by birds popularly but falsely supposed to live on food fishes, and
by birds of prey, is grossly exaggerated. Birds and beasts of prey often
do good service in keeping up a breed by killing off the weaklings.
12. It would be well worth while to keep the Inspector on for the eight
months between the 1st of September, 1913, and the 1st of May, 1914, so
that he and the Provincial warden might make a thorough investigation of
conditions all the year round, inland as well as on the coast, and of
the mammals as well as of the birds. One man from each of the five
local boats and two men from the Inspector's boat would make seven
assistants already trained in conservation. They would have to be paid
enough to counterbalance their strong desire for the rare but sometimes
relatively enormous profits of "furring". Perhaps $50 a man a month
would do, the men to find themselves in everything, as during the
summer. This, for seven men for eight months, would be $2,800. The
incidental expenses and Inspector's salary would b
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