Bureaucratize the Bustard?

Once upon a time (1933), tne U.S. Government sent George Howard Earle III to be its Minister in Austria. He was a sociable man and met everybody. Invited to go hunting on a large Austrian estate, he accepted; he shot bustards there. The great bustard (Otis tarda) is Europe's largest land bird and bears a superficial resemblance to the turkey. It has a phlegmatic temperament and is tardy on the takeoff. Hardly anybody needs a telescopic sight to hit a bustard.

In 1934, when the Democratic Party picked George Earle as its candidate for governor of Pennsylvania, the Republicans opposed Earle on his bustard-shooting record and produced a supporting picture (see cut). Earle's hunting experiences became a major campaign issue. Columns were written on the sporting ethics of shooting so slow a bird as the bustard. One of the columns, in the Philadelphia Inquirer, quoted "Dr. Franz Muzzleloader ... a recognized authority on the bustards" as saying:

"Visiting hunters, Earle among them . . . don fantastic costumes intended to lull the bustard into believing that nothing more harmful than a peasant is in the neighborhood. . . . Now a peasant, when he would like a bite of bustard on a Sunday, goes into a field, grabs one by the tail, wrings its neck and that's all there is to it. They don't go out as if they were on their way to a fancy-dress ball." The Democratic Philadelphia Record answered in an editorial gloweringly entitled: "Speaking of Bustards."

By now bustards (and George Earle) have been practically forgotten in Pennsylvania. Last week, however, the Austrian Government had bustards on its mind. The Socialists had passed a law nationalizing hunting in the province of Carinthia. Large estates were to be subdivided into small parcels for the season, and one huntsman assigned to each by the authorities. Everyone, said the Socialists, deserved a chance in these hard times to shoot himself a bustard or a buck.

Austrian Conservatives were madder than Pennsylvania Republicans. Hunters complained that, under the new measure, there would soon be no wildlife left in Carinthia. That, in turn, would badly affect Austria's future tourist business. The Communists, on the other hand, thought nationalization of hunting was a fine idea.

Last week, an Austrian court declared the law unconstitutional, on grounds that it alienated property rights and ran counter to national interest. Bustards, which make a sound between a croon and a boom when excited, could again breathe easy. But Carinthian Socialists were not discouraged. Next on their list for nationalization: fishing.

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