Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 February 1916 — BIRD PROTECTION PRACTICAL [ARTICLE]

BIRD PROTECTION PRACTICAL

Dollar-and-Cents Value to Farmer* Now Recognized. The protection of birds has been put on a practical basis. The dollar-and-cents value of the feathered creatures to the American farmer and the country generally is now the basis of the bird protection movement in America. The man who has made it so is T. Gilbert Pearson, secretary of the Nar tional Association of .Audubon Societies, New York City. For years bird protection was based on sentiment and sympathy. Now the bird protection movement is on a business basis. For instance, the wires recently brought the news that the quail of Minnesota and Kansas ware starving by thousands on account of deep snows. Pearson immediately telegraphed S2OO to each state to buy grain to feed the quail and he secured permission from the Postmaster General for the rural free delivery carriers to distribute it. On discovering that egret plumes were being smuggled in great number from Florida to New York City, he made a special trip to Washington and got the attorney general of the United States after tha plume pirates. Pearson is telling school children how to build bird-houses and bring song birds back to the home. He la going after the negro in the South and foreigners in the North whose shotguns, he says, have decimated the former number of songsters. Hsl, is raising money to pay wardens to protect the birds where they breed and now is starting a movement to make the cemeteries of the country sanctuaries where birds may feel safe from hunters and prowling cats. He is also giving a little attention on the side to Tabby, as h bird destroyer. Pearson, from his office at 1974 Broadway, New York City, is directing the bird protection movement in America. It is estimated he is saving the country many thousands of dollars a year by his practical methods. __