frugalfurguy Posted January 12, 2008 Share Posted January 12, 2008 Unfortunately I haven't found this article for download, but maybe your local library has a collection of Audubon back to then. There's some intriguing artwork with this fairly lengthy article. As a conservation organization, the Audubon Society attracts a variety of member types including, I'm sure, a share of animal rights advocates as well as birders and hunters. This article's neither a blazing anti-fur polemic nor an industry puff piece. It was a long time since I read it. Just decided to see if I could find a citation of it online recently. Be interesting to see how accurately I remember my favorite line. Wearing fur "surely beats warming up to polyester" is how my memory has it. -------------------------------------- Soft skins and sprung steel: the trapping question. Mitchell, John G. "Soft skins and sprung steel: the trapping question. " Audubon. 84 (July 1982): 64(26). -------------------------------------- frugalfurguy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Worker 11811 Posted January 12, 2008 Share Posted January 12, 2008 Something to think about: Do you have any idea how Audubon drew such accurate and lifelike pictures of birds? How could he have drawn such wonderful illustrations? Birds don't stand still for very long. He went out and SHOT the birds! Then he propped the carcasses up on stands using wires to hold them in the poses he wanted. Then he sat there and drew from the "models". Don't forget that he drew a picture of one of each kind of bird in America. So, it is reasonable to assume that Audubon SHOT at least one of every species of bird in America! From there, it is easy to infer his position on fur. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 12, 2008 Share Posted January 12, 2008 I don't think he was a noted vegetarian either. OFF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frugalfurguy Posted January 19, 2008 Author Share Posted January 19, 2008 At the same time, J. J. Audubon wasn't the founder of the society named in his honor. Its genesis was in organizing to protect birds, particular wading birds that have very showy breeding plumage, from market hunters around the turn of the 19th to 20th centuries. The hunting was driven by the fashion of wearing those feathers on hats. I'm glad those early wildlife advocates succeeded at their goal. I love watching herons and egrets take off. At the same time it does raise questions for me. How different is the fur trade? I'd say at the current time, any reputable furrier's not going to deal in skins of endangered animals. That's probably at least as much self-interest as concern for the common good. Run a species into extinction and there'll be no more coats of that one. At the same time, fur lovers like myself have something in common with those back then who wanted a hat with egret feathers: we desire clothing taken from dead animals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
White Fox Posted January 19, 2008 Share Posted January 19, 2008 Frugal you are correct. For instance, many birds always all nested in the same trees. So hunters would wait til they nested and had young. Just sit under the tree knowing that "come hell or high water" that those birds would return to their nest and their young. And of course every bird nesting in that tree would be killed. Areas where the skies would be almost filled with birds were cleaned out totally in just a very few years. It is good that today we understand conservation. The beaver is returning for instance everywhere in huge numbers. Not because of no trapping. But because we understand how to do that while still allowing their species to exist in harmony with ours. W Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 19, 2008 Share Posted January 19, 2008 In the late 1800's hunters had "Gun Boats" that looked like a warship. Banks of shotguns with their triggers tied to a single chord so when the flock of water foul were startled and took from the water they could take out the whole flock with a single blast. The lead shot from those water bodies today are still poisoning and killing thhe birds that come back. OFF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Worker 11811 Posted January 19, 2008 Share Posted January 19, 2008 Aah!! The venerable "Punt Gun!" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punt_gun See one in action on YouTube! (Note the recoil when that bad boy goes off!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 19, 2008 Share Posted January 19, 2008 Some of the antique pictures I've seen of these were perhaps a bank of 8 or 10 eight ga. guns splayed across the gunwal of a skiff. It/they would take out birds over ten times the area of the Video. OFF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Worker 11811 Posted January 19, 2008 Share Posted January 19, 2008 An 8 guage gun has a barrel approximately 3/4 of an inch in diameter and fires a up to 2 ounces of shot. A punt gun can be as large as 2 inches in diameter. They can be up to 8 feet long and can shoot charges as large as 28 ounces. That's about a half KILOGRAM! Yes, the demo in the video was with only one gun. But, if just ONE made that much recoil, can you IMAGINE what would happen if you set TEN of those babies in a battery and fired them off at the same time?! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 19, 2008 Share Posted January 19, 2008 They were built into a rack without stocks and anchored to the skiff. The skiff moves sideways when the guns were fired broadside. OFF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Worker 11811 Posted January 19, 2008 Share Posted January 19, 2008 The boat must have one hell of a keel to keep it from capsizing! Either that or it must be a very wide, flat-bottomed boat to provide stability. If you look at gunships of the early 1800's vintage, vessels such as the brig were wide, flat ships. They weren't as maneuverable as some other ships but, since they were basically just a floating gun platform, they could hold more firepower. Even the, all the guns on one side of the ship couldn't be fired at the same time without risk of capsizing. The fired them off in salvos. Only 1/3 of the cannons on one side would be fired at the same time. The officer in charge of gunnery had the job of coordinating when to fire which gun. Not only did he have to keep the ship from tipping over he had to stagger shots to prevent pauses in the action. In a full-out battle where guns were being fired on both sides of the boat, the gunnery office must have felt like a cat trying to cover crap on a marble floor! Scale that down to a punt gunner with multiple guns in one boat. Firing off six or eight of those 1-pound punt guns at one time must have felt like getting hit with a freight train! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 19, 2008 Share Posted January 19, 2008 Most Chesapeake and Albermarel Sound skiffs are wide flat bottoms for the marshes. They were the pictures I saw in my local Library as a kid. OFF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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