" 428 
 
 
This clipping taken from the Gazette, Niagara Falls, New York. 
 
        SLAUGHTER OF GAME BIRDS IN EUROPE IS LAMENTED IN REPORT 
 
      "A statement recently coming from the office of the National 
Association of Audubon Societies says the commercialization of wild 
game birds continues without abatement in Europe, according to the 
American Game Protective association news service. 
      Dr. T. Gilbert Pearson, who has just returned from presiding at 
the fourth conference of the International Committee for Bird Preser- 
vation, which was held in Amsterdam, Holland stated: 
      "I again stressed the importance of stopping the sale of game

birds not actually reared on estates or game farms, as such commercial- 
ization tends to overkilling with a resultant depletion of the total 
supply. 
      "However, my appeal failed to strike a single responsive chord.

Among the official representatives from our national sections in 16 
countries, including many of Europe's leading exponents of wild-life 
protection, I did not succeed in getting one supporting voice.    On 
other occasions in the past, my pleadings have likewise fallen on deaf 
ears. From these and other experiences, it is quite evident that 
Europe is a long way from accepting the idea of the non-commerciali- 
zation of wild game which is one of the first principles of wild-life 
conservation in the United States and Canada." 
       Continuing, Dr. Pearson said: 
       "Golden plovers are netted in great numbers in some of the west-

ern European countries. I was told that 30,000 were taken in a single 
season in one section of Holland. Migratory quail are also netted as 
they cross the Mediterranean, northward in spring and southward in 
autumn.   On May 2, 1930, the ship Umbria, arrived in Genoa, Italy. 
from Egypt, with 30,000 live quail aboard, and I was informed that all 
ships coming from Egypt at this season of the year bring enormous con- 
signments of these live birds which are used for food, and to a consid- 
erable extent are shot from traps. 
      "Ducks are caught in great numbers in the carefully planned 
'decoys'. Between 100 and 200 such decoy ponds appear to be in opera- 
tion in Holland; other in Germany, France and in some other countries. 
      "Many species of song birds still continue to be taken in nets,

the necks wrung and the bodies sold for food. 
      "However," concluded Dr. Pearson, "some progress is
being made. 
Prussia recently had adopted a very forward looking law for wild-life 
protection. Among other things, it prohibits the use of pole-traps 
for catching predatory birds. Belgium has restricted the number of 
species of small birds that can be caught in nets, snares, or shot 
for food; and lastly, the Fascist government of Italy has forbidden 
the blinding of song birds by red-hot needles, to be used as decoys; 
a practice which has been in vogue since the days of ancient Rome."

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                           ESTABLISH9O 1802