USA > New York > Nassau County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume II > Part 20
USA > New York > Suffolk County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume II > Part 20
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In the development of man's civilization, whole forests have been cut down and sometimes inadvertently burned. The birds that made their homes in these woodlands, such as the thrush, have had to seek suitable habitat elsewhere or confine themselves to the small tracts of woodland remaining in the area. Much of the open plains have been built upon or farmed. When swamps and marsh lands are drained and filled in the bittern, rail, heron and Red-winged Blackbird are driven off.
Railroads and highways have been cut through the length of the island. Its western end has become urban in character with the suburbs stretching ever farther eastward. The practice of chopping off dead limbs and cutting down trees that have died has driven many birds from our towns and parks. Woodpeckers with their strong chisel-shaped bills excavate cavities for their nests. These are used later by other hole-nesting birds. Woodpeckers will rarely attempt to dig a nesting hole in a living tree so that when dead trees are cut down the woodpeckers move on to more natural conditions. With even the natural holes in trees so often filled with cement, the weaker- billed hole-nesting species must move along also.
Summer resorts and beach developments have further added to the bewildering changes to which the birds must adapt themselves through all the length and breadth of Long Island. With the widespread use of automobiles and boats there are few places indeed undisturbed by
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man. Timid birds, whose first acquaintance with man has not been such as to engender confidence, are driven off by fear even when they, their nests and young are not actually molested.
But although there is a great contrast between cement streets and primeval forest, most of Long Island may be considered a half- way compromise which the majority of our birds are accepting. Orni- thologists are of the opinion that, while definite historical evidence is lacking, it is very probable that many species, including those which may be called farm-land birds such as the native sparrows, warblers, wrens and orioles and other common insectivorous birds such as the Robin, are more abundant today than 250 years ago. In the sharp struggle for existence in a suddenly changed environment the failures disappear and the successful ones flourish.
In the last thirty years as a result of wise laws and educational propaganda there has been a gratifying increase in many of our waterfowl, shore birds and game birds. The Piping Plover, once in danger of extirpation, is now one of the common summer birds of the outer beaches. The Upland Plover of the open plains and exten- sive meadows, thoughi still very rare, has returned as a breeding species in several localities. The Purple Sandpiper has shown a marked increase in the last twenty years. Although the Laughing Gull has not been known to nest on Long Island since 1888, it also has increased in the last twenty years and it is now fairly common, spring and fall, on the tidal waters.
Most of our ducks are on the upward trend, although some, such as the European Widgeon and the Redhead, are still uncommon to rare. One of Long Island's rarest winter visitants is the Eastern Harlequin Duck. Beginning with 1922 there was a marked increase of the rarer fresh water ducks on Long Island and each year larger and larger numbers and a greater variety of species are observed.
The Canvas-back, usually rare, is irregular in its numbers and points of concentration. It has occasionally appeared in flocks of 500 or more on eastern Long Island. The Shoveller and the Gadwall, both considered rare on Long Island by Griscom in 1923, occur regularly in the fresh water duck localities of Nassau and Suffolk Counties. Still not abundant, but on the increase, are the Wood Duck and the Hooded Merganser.
The American Merganser is one of the few ducks less common on Long Island than elsewhere, except in extremely severe weather when, with the inland waters frozen over, they are forced to the open waters on the coast. The Red-breasted Mergansers are abundant. Abundant also are the Scoters, the Greater Scaup, the American Golden-eye and the Old-squaw.
The increase of the Ring-necked Duck on Long Island is one of the most outstanding local changes in the last ten years. Before 1932 the European Teal was considered an accidental visitant from Europe. J. G. Bell reported several specimens taken in 1858 and earlier. In December, 1900, two birds were reported shot in Merrick. Then for almost thirty-two years there was no record of this species until it
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was found wintering on Long Island in 1932. Since that date the European Teal is a rare but regular winter visitant.
The Green-winged Teal, which had been almost wiped out, was recorded on Long Island again in small numbers by 1910 and is now on the upward trend. In the fall of 1934, 400 in one flock were seen at the Jones Beach Sanctuary.
Although so many of our Long Island birds are showing an encouraging increase, none of them present the spectacular flocks they did in the years gone by.
CONSERVATION OF BIRDS
Few people today viewing the suburban towns and villages of Long Island can possibly imagine the abundant wild life that once populated these shores.
In fact, it is startling to anyone today to realize that in 1670, only 275 years ago, deer, bear, and wolves roamed in large numbers through its forest-covered hills; that wildfowl were present in such great abundance that the island fairly teemed with turkey, Heath Hen, quail, partridge, cranes, geese and all manner of ducks, to say nothing of the great clouds of gulls, terns and shore birds that rose to clamor above the sand of its beaches.
Giraud, writing in 1843, says that not only is Long Island the resort of nearly every species of water bird found within the limits of the United States, but that out of 500 kinds of birds then known to belong to North America, 286 kinds have been known to visit this island.
It must have been a paradise to the Indian who alone knew this fullness of life, this rich resource of field and stream. Strangely enough, it is the Indian who was the first conservationist known to have in some measure protected its teeming wild life. We have as evidence a deed ceding an area for a part of Jamaica to the white settlers in 1658 stating that no person shall cut down a tree wherein an eagle nests.
But the white man held no wild life sacred-he came to these shores uninhibited and within some 200 years had turned the ninety miles of shore line into a vast amphitheater for sport.
Giraud wrote his book, the only complete description of local bird life of a century ago, in the manner of writing to the sportsmen to instruct them as to the species found on Long Island and the way in which best to obtain them. He was of the era of great slaughter that reduced North American wild life to twenty per cent of its former abundance. Up to the year 1860 gunning was done by comparatively few individuals and, as one sporting editor put it in 1901, "they could in no way make any considerable impression on the hordes of wild- fowl". But evidence shows a very different picture. A book published in New York City in 1867 was written by Thomas Farrington Devoe, who had noted the game food in the New York market from 1832 to 1867. It presents plenty of evidence to the contrary.
Devoe stated that the Passenger Pigeon was then being brought to the market in thousands. He listed Labrador Ducks appearing in
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the market in the months of March and October in numbers. He named the Eskimo Curlew as a frequent sight and said it was the best of all curlews for the table. This species became virtually extinct. Devoe included thirty-three kinds of ducks, geese and swans, besides grebes and loons. He listed also thirty native shore birds, five species of coots, four herons, Turtle Dove, eagles and twenty-nine small birds considered game in the market of that day.
The small birds called game were Nighthawks, Flickers, Robins, Meadow-larks, Bobolinks, blackbirds, Purple Finches, Seaside Finches, Cedar Birds, Catbirds, Brown Thrashers, Hermit Thrushes, Baltimore Orioles, Blue Jays, Red-headed Woodpeckers, cuckoos and Kingfishers. He also drew attention to Kingfisher and Flicker squabs in the market.
Bobolinks were trapped up to the year 1865 and sold as songsters as were also Cardinals. It was a common enough practice about Jamaica. Meadow-larks and Robins were taken for market as late as 1885. But it was the waterfowl and shore birds that were exploited to the limit in this decade. Giraud writes of Red-breasted Sandpipers known to gunners on Long Island as Robin Snipe and eagerly sought out. Now they are a rarity. Semipalmated Sandpipers, he notes, are easy game, numerous and considered a great delicacy. Twenty-two birds at a single shot were a common bag because of their habit of bunching together.
Of the Lesser Yellow-legs he quotes one gunner's boast of 106 birds taken at a single shot by means of discharging both barrels into a flock. Wilson's Snipe were numerous and according to Giraud were greatly prized by the hunters who referred to them as English Snipe. Woodcock were every man's game and he speaks of every available piece of ground convenient to the city as crowded with hunters and their dogs when the season opened as of July 4th. He did not mention that this date coincided with the nesting period of this species.
Long-billed Curlews and other curlews he mentions as not numer- ous, but answering readily to the fowler's whistle. In fact, he says it was possible to kill as many as fifteen at one time because the curlews return to the cries of the wounded.
Canada Geese, one of the wariest of all birds, were lured in by live decoys and thus taken. But it was the Brant which was the favorite of gunners. Indeed, Long Island was famous for the Brant shooting in Great South Bay. This was confined to the spring months as the birds do not migrate through Long Island in great numbers in the autumn.
A great many Brant were killed on the sandbars by the use of blinds. Fire Island was a celebrated spot for this sport and several hundred dollars' worth of birds were sent to market annually from this one place. One expert claimed an average of thirty to thirty-five birds a week. The most destructive method of hunting Brant was the use of batteries. In a single battery, 125 decoys were used with a sunken box accommodating the gunner. Double batteries were some- times employed using 150 decoys.
The destruction wrought by this method must have been terrific because, even as early as 1838, a law was passed in New York State
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prohibiting the use of batteries. This law was respected for a short time and then disregarded by professional hunters and finally re- pealed. The use of batteries is not permitted today under the Federal law.
In the year 1909 it was reported to the State Commission of Game and Fisheries that the Long Island Brant Law was hampering the work of game protectors along with the provision permitting the possession of ducks two months after the season. The Brant Law, while bad in itself, was particularly vicious in that it gave the spring duck hunters an excuse for being on the water during the closed sea- son. It was advocated to repeal the Brant Law. By 1911 the Brant Law was amended, the open season for Brant being changed from October 1-April 30 to October 1-January 10. In 1919 the law limited the bag to forty waterfowl when two or more persons occupy the same boat or battery.
But to return to the sportsmen's era-Black Ducks were among the favored and were obtained by a method known as "dusking". This method was described as lying in wait on moonlight nights near the place the ducks were known to frequent and shooting them as they flew in. Two celebrated gunners boasted of killing ninety-nine Black Ducks by this method in one night. The bags of the bygone day were sixty, eighty or even one hundred birds in one day.
Today, in 1948, the bag of waterfowl is limited by Federal law. The Long Island hunter is allowed to take, during the season in any one day, ten ducks, except the American and Red-breasted Mergansers and including more than one Wood Duck. He is allowed twenty-five American and Red-breasted Mergansers singly or in the aggregate. He can take four Blue Geese, plus two of other kinds including Brant, fifteen rails, except Sora and Coot, twenty-five Coot, twenty-five Sora and four Woodcock.
The days and deeds of the early sportsmen were as nothing in comparison with the bloody slaughter beginning about 1895. A French milliner had put an aigrette on a hat for Madame and all Paris looked and loved it and clamored for more and more and more. Before long, millions of dollars changed hands at the yearly bird-feather auctions held in Paris, London and New York. But little did Madame know or care of the pain and death and destruction involved in this newest "cliché-de-mode". Unfortunately, this smart madness did not hold only with aigrettes. The clamor swelled to a roar for every kind of bird feather. Indeed, whole birds were soon perched saucily on almost every woman's hat. The feathers of Humming-birds, tanagers, Laugh- ing Gulls and terns from the New World, Birds of Paradise from the South Seas and Skylarks from the Old World; all were sum and sub- stance in the millinery world at the turn of the century.
Long Island contributed her share in this terrible business as well as in the killing of songbirds for the food markets of Manhattan. There are people living today in 1946 who can remember barrels of Robins, Flickers and other songbirds being shipped to market. The last large flocks of Passenger Pigeons migrating in the autumn were shot down on the south shore by professional hunters and sold in the
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market for six cents apiece. Migrating Tree Swallows were induced to alight on horizontal poles and shot or whacked down by the score.
The Tern colonies on the island suffered the greatest depletion during the craze for bird-feathers for women's hats. They were almost completely wiped out. Two gunners of Freeport claimed to have killed 600 terns in one day. Fifty years ago there were dozens of veteran hunters along the south shore of Long Island who supplied the ever-growing demand for the "saucy little bird on Nellie's hat". But the eyes of the world were finally opened to the horror of this business, thanks to the crusade of the National Audubon Society and other conservationist groups, and it was abolished. In 1913 the pas- sage by Congress of a tariff bill outlawed all ornamental feathers in the United States. Within two years the Dominion of Canada followed suit. In 1941 Governor Lehman signed a bill that controlled wild bird plumage sales and with this act the wild bird plumage trade in New York State became a thing of the past.
But, before this occurred, unnumbered thousands of game birds and song birds were killed. Many species virtually disappeared. Song birds also suffered as Long Island became thickly populated. Civilization brought its telephone and electric light wires. The spread- ing communities absorbed the natural cover. Lighthouses along the coast took a terrific toll of migrating birds. The wild life of short decades ago has dwindled down to alarming proportions. The so-called sportsman and the professional gunner unregulated by law, the de- mands of the millinery trade and the natural spread of towns and villages all were causes of the diminishing bird life of the island.
In looking over the credit side of protection afforded, we find that the earliest game laws were in the form of hunting permits issued in 1629 by the West India Company to residents of the New Netherland.
On April 3, 1849, the Board of Supervisors of the County of Suffolk voted to pass a law which was designed to preserve the small birds of the area. The law was to take effect on January 1, 1853. It provided that no person "shall kill or destroy in any manner the nests or eggs of any Catbird, Lark, Blue Jay, Bluebird, Sparrow, Linnet, Wren, Robin Redbreast, Brown Thrasher, Bobolink, Nighthawk, Whip-poor-will, Woodpecker, High-Hole, Bunting, Martin, Fire Bird or Cedar Bird". The fine was three dollars for each offense. Any person, in his own name or in the name of the Overseers of the Poor of the town where the offense was committed, could prosecute and retain half the penalty, the other half, after expenses of prosecution were deducted, going to the Overseers of the Poor of the town where the songbirds were molested. .
In 1886 New York State led the way in the New World by estab- lishing laws to protect the birds migrating in the spring. But appar- ently this had nothing to do with the Long Island Brant shooting. The first constructive and comprehensive game laws established in New York State came in the year 1896 when a Fish, Game and Forest Commission was finally set up. But in every section of these laws a provision was included that these laws did not apply to Long Island
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and Long Island Sound. It appears to have been always open season on Long Island at this date.
Subsequent years slowly wrought changes for the better, the Federal Migratory Act of 1918 being the greatest of all. However, Long Island always had special game laws that were more lenient than those of the rest of the state. For instance, when there was no open season for Quail for several years in New York State, a bag of forty Quail still could be taken on Long Island between November 1 to December 31. Whether this marked leniency, which still exists today, is due to a hang-over of the former superabundance or to the idea that the migrations from New England pass largely through the island or to the lobbying by the powerful hunting clubs is a matter of conjecture. There are some twenty-odd hunting clubs on the island that have their own game preserves and game farms and that are allowed to kill off eighty per cent of their own release.
So today we have both State and Federal laws regulating the killing of game birds on Long Island and full Federal protection for insectivorous and other non-gante birds. All persons over sixteen years of age hunting migratory waterfowl in addition to the New York State hunting license are required to have a Federal Migratory Bird Hunting Stamp of current issue. By this means a check is in the hands of the Federal Government whereby a mean balance may be maintained between the breeding-ground hatch and the hunter's bag. If the hunter's bag exceeds the breeding-ground hatch the Govern- ment with its Migratory Act can close down on the following season's bag limit.
In addition to having game regulation by law we also have added protection for wild life in the truly splendid park systems that tra- verse this island. It is against the law to shoot, hunt or trap on these parkways, though this may not be thoroughly understood by all and sundry. And though it is manifestly impossible to patrol these hun- dreds of miles all the time, the game wardens and the state police do a very thorough job.
Long Island, furthermore, can be justly proud of one sanctuary for birds founded at the death of Theodore Roosevelt in 1919. It is called the Roosevelt Bird Sanctuary, is situated at Oyster Bay and is owned and operated by the National Audubon Society. It is a fitting memorial to the first president of the United States who while in office was chiefly responsible for the first steps in conservation under- taken by the United States. When Theodore Roosevelt was president he was instrumental in establishing fifty-one Federal bird reserves. He was an ardent nature student and ornithologist even as a boy on Long Island.
The sanctuary consists of some twelve acres of land which have been developed into what has been called the perfect bird sanctuary. It is adjacent to the Roosevelt home, known to the world as Sagamore Hill, and to the final resting place of Theodore Roosevelt. Not only is it a place of safety for the birds where people can see and hear them; but there one can learn the best methods for attracting birds by providing proper cover and food-bearing shrubs. The number of
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species seen in the sanctuary since 1934 totals 146. The number nest- ing there has increased from fourteen the first season to thirty nesting species today.
There are other sanctuaries on Long Island that are also worthy of note. The four most outstanding are Alley Pond State Park Sanc- tuary, Heckscher State Park Sanctuary, the Jones Beach State Park Sanctuary and the Shinnecock National Wildlife Refuge.
The Jones Beach Sanctuary comprises some 400 acres. At first, it was a state sanctuary. Then it became a Federal refuge for a couple of years and, lastly, was claimed by the township of Oyster Bay. During World War II, the sanctuary was not patrolled regu- larly, though a caretaker was provided who chopped holes in the ice for the surface feeding ducks and Canada Geese. Grain was also supplied. This sanctuary was formerly a hunting estate. It is now visited by the rarer of the fresh water ducks as well as by other migrant waterfowl.
The Shinnecock National Wildlife Refuge consists of some 842 acres. It was established in 1937 as a refuge and resting place for migratory waterfowl in Hampton Bays. It is the hope of the United States Department of the Interior that additional land may be ac- quired and that it can be developed into a well-protected resting area for migratory waterfowl and shore birds. But this has not been possible to date.
There are also several private sanctuaries, such as Nassau Point Sanctuary and Mill Neck Sanctuary, owned and operated by residents of these communities. The work of conservation on Long Island also has been furthered by the interest stimulated by bird clubs of the area. Individual members of these clubs, as well as the clubs them- selves, have, for example, often undertaken the feeding of the birds in winter.
LONG ISLAND BIRD CLUBS
Maintaining feeding stations during winter months has been just one phase of the many-sided activity of the bird clubs. Among these groups, the most active have been the Baldwin Bird Club, the Bird Club of Long Island, the Queens County Bird Club and the Woodmere Academy Bird Club.
The Baldwin Bird Club was organized in 1938, its first meeting being held in June of that year at the Baldwin, L. I., Public Library. It was the outgrowth of field trips taken by a group of young people under the leadership of Mrs. James A. Selby. Edmund Morgan was first president of the club. Succeeding presidents have been Herbert Beatty, Mrs. James A. Selby, Mrs. Harvie D. Manes, Edwin Way Teale, Alice Farrington, Mrs. Edwin Way Teale and Mrs. Howard Meinke. Regular field trips have been a feature of the club's activity and away-from-home trips have included expeditions to Hawk Moun- tain Sanctuary, in Pennsylvania, and elsewhere. The club has taken part in the annual Christmas Census and similar activities. Monthly meetings are held. The programs include moving pictures, talks by such well-known ornithologists as Roger T. Peterson, Allan D. Cruick-
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shank, John T. Nichols and John J. Elliott. By means of bird-skins brought from the American Museum of Natural History, members of the club become familiar with various groups of local birds. A feeding station is maintained at the Baldwin Public Library during winter months and a bulletin board in the library is devoted to items of interest to bird students of the community. Conservation projects of various kinds, such as the posting of woods adjoining Baldwin and cooperating with the local fire departments in preventing the burning over of the meadows at nesting time, have been carried out by the club. Its members, numbering between thirty and forty, come from several surrounding communities as well as from Baldwin.
The Bird Club of Long Island is the oldest and the largest of the groups. It was organized in 1915 with Theodore Roosevelt as its initial president. It holds monthly bird walks and one annual meeting. The membership in 1940 was in excess of 450 and represented more than 70 different communities. In recent years, the organization has been closely associated with the National Audubon Society. Allan D. Cruickshank was employed by the club for a period to aid in stimulat- ing interest in birds by his lectures and to assist in the formation of school bird clubs on Long Island. Under the editorship of John T. Nichols, the Bird Club of Long Island has published several valuable papers in a series on Birds of Long Island.
The Queens County Bird Club was started in Flushing in 1930. Its monthly meetings are held in a Park Department building, The House of the Weeping Birch, in Flushing. Bird movies, lectures by ornithologists, study of bird skins, and similar activities form the programs. Feeding stations and birdhouses have been set up and conservation activity of various kinds is engaged in by the organiza- tion. The membership runs to about thirty. At intervals the organi- zation issues The Bulletin of the Queens County Bird Club.
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