In the case of the birds the conditions are bad; the destruction on the Labrador is horrible to contemplate. The outer islands were scoured by crews from foreign vessels, and whole loads of eggs carried off. There has not been much of this done in recent years. There can he no doubt that, if certain of the larger and less inhabited islands were set apart, and carefully protected, the birds would return to them. I believe that owing to the constant way in which the birds--eider ducks, certain of the divers, gulls, &c., were disturbed, on their natural and original nesting places, they have changed their habits; and, instead of nesting on the islands and by the sea, they have moved to the shores of the interior lakes. You see flocks of young birds in the fall; they have come from the interior, as they were not hatched out on the islands as they used to be.
The destruction of geese and curlew does not take place on the Labrador. These birds are not disturbed on their nesting grounds; but, to the south and west when they are passing to their winter haunts. Geese are found feeding on the hill-sides, on the most distant and northern islands--as far north as any of our explorers have gone. The first birds Sverdrup met as he was coming south, in the early spring, were wild geese. These birds are not disturbed on their breeding grounds. The Eskimo do not meddle with them. In the same way caribou are found feeding about the shores of Hudson bay and strait. Like the geese, they feed on berries about the hill sides. I have shot them at the mouth of Churchill river, and near cape Digges in August, when they were very fat--so fat that it is said that, on falling on hard ground, they would burst open; though this did not actually happen in my case. I certainly think that it would be a grand thing to have certain groups of islands--or even certain sections of coast--set apart as bird sanctuaries.
Your paper deals entirely with conditions in Labrador. There is, however, another part of the Gulf coast, where the need of protection is much greater than on the Labrador. That is the interior of the Gaspe peninsula. A certain region in the interior has been set aside as a park, but it is quite unprotected. Here, we have moose, woodland caribou and the red deer, besides nearly all the fur-bearing animals that we find on the Labrador. There is no game protection whatever. Moose and caribou are killed mostly out of season--when they are yarded, or when it is easy to run them down. In many cases the meat is left in the woods, the hide only being wanted. Lumbermen are penetrating up the rivers, further into the interior--every lumber camp is a centre from which the game laws are persistently violated.... the game, both fur and feather, (particularly the ruffled grouse) is rapidly disappearing before their pitiless onslaughts. Lumber camps are opened much earlier in the season than they used to be; so that the interior lakes and head waters of the rivers are being cleaned out of fish taken while in the act of spawning. All this may seem very strong language; but it is really not exaggerated. It may help to show the need of more and better conservation....