Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 124, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 May 1910 — DEER IN LOUISIANA. [ARTICLE]

DEER IN LOUISIANA.

Slaughter by Hide Hunters Along the Cocodrie Bayou. Not long ago the assessor of Concordia parish wrote to the TimesDemocrat calling attention to the wanton slaughter of deer in the Tenth Ward of that parish during the present season, says Forest and Stream. According to the assessor, J. D. Miller, the Cocodrie swamp has for a number of weeks been the scene of operations for a large number ol hunters who have been killing deer for their hides.

This Cbcodrie swamp, iMr. Miller asserts, is the greatest natural deer park in the world, and he believes that more than 500 deer have been killed in that section during the present season. Residents of the ward are finding carcasses stripped of their bides and other carcasses of deer that have been wounded and afterward died all over the swamp. The people of Concordia parish are naturally outraged, at this invasion of hide hunters, who, however, declare that they are protected by the game laws, having paid the State license of sl, Yet the laws of Louisiana prohibit the slaughter of does and fawns and limit the kill of the individual hunter for the day and for the season. If the destruction has been anything like what it Is reported these provisions must have been constantly violated.

Information of this alleged destruction ought to have reached the State Came Commission long (before the close of the season. If it was not learned of, at all events they • have it ,now, and this information will undoubtedly cause the game authorities to be on the alert for similar violations next season. If such destruction is continued it can mean only the extermination of the deer along the Cocodrie Bayou, and if such slaughter takes place in one swamp or parish of Louisiana it may take place in a dozen others , where deer are plenty.

The campaign against rats at the London and India docks, Tilbury, has already resulted, ddek officials estimate, in the destruction of nearly 30,o©n rodents.