We Are Getting Better —In Certain Ways.

Forest and Bird, Issue 48, 1 May 1938, Page 16

We Are Getting Better —ln Certain Ways.

(By Stephen Haweis.)

If there is one thing in which the change for the better is most .obvious it is in the relations between man and the animals. It was in the beginning of the world that the hunter was paramount one degree removed from the beast—but he killed, like a respectable beast, for necessity, and because his intelligence had not yet developed to the point where agriculture provided him with food. Thereafter he fought for his right to eat what he had planted against animals that had not come to understand the sanctity of private property. The domestication of animals was another step, and if he treated them cruelly it was because his own struggle for life was cruelly hard and he saw his beasts of burden only as means to an end. Two thousand years ago the animal was for use alone. Two hundred years ago nobody doubted that the screams and antics of tortured animals were a legitimate source of amusement. We have made progress; certain forms of cruelty are no longer regarded as legitimate at all. Let anyone attempt to beat a dog, or roast a living cat in public, and the progress will at once become noticeable to the meanest intelligence.

No doubt great numbers of people still derive pleasure from modern sport that they can obtain in no other way —that they know of. The low-grade man cannot be appealed to through his intelligence. For him, “Thou shalt not kill!” was written. Those of finer intelligence can be reached by reason. They already limit their bag to a real minimum and create their own difficulties to increase their interest; they may even be weaned to the use of the camera gun, but the greatest hope lies in their learning something about the lives of the creatures they go forth to slay. The man who knows his wildlife soon begins to take more interest in the life than in the death of his game. When this leaven comes, it is safe in his hands.

Excerpt from “Nature Magazine.”