animals, except for the bear‘38. Both would have 
     
     continued to serve as a food source for the 
     
     island’s Mi’kmaq population, though this receives 
     
     little comment in the records.139 For the European 
     
     population, it was in the early pioneer period that 
     
     the grouse and the hare seem to have been 
     
     especially important, when they would have added 
     
     a critical supplement to the diet of many of the 
     
     settlers, especially during the first winters. 
     
     However, other animals that nowadays most 
     
     people would not consider suitable for eating are 
     
     also mentioned as food for the human population, 
     
     notably the bear and the lynx.‘4O Once settlement 
     
     was established however, it would seem that the 
     
     native fauna became unimportant as a source of 
     
     food, though the grouse and the rabbit continued 
     
     to be mentioned as game animals throughout the 
     
     nineteenth century. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Would the hunting of any of these animals for food 
     
     have had any effect on their numbers? Could it 
     
     even have played a role in the extirpation of some? 
     
     I suspect that the disappearance of the caribou 
     
     from the island — whenever it exactly occurred — 
     
     was connected to their being hunted for food. The 
     
     little evidence that we have indicates that they 
     
     were present in small numbers‘“, and a small 
     
     population would have been vulnerable to even 
     
     low levels of hunting. It is unlikely to be a 
     
     coincidence that the caribou disappeared within a 
     
     few decades of the establishment of the first 
     
    
   
   
    
     permanent settlement on the island. 
     
    
   
   
    
     However, the grouse and the hare have continued 
     
     to thrive on the island up to the present day and 
     
     any hunting of them, even in the unregulated early 
     
     days, seems to have had little effect. For the 
     
     grouse, this may in part be because very early on 
     
     in the British period, a law was passed by the 
     
     island’s House of Assembly giving it protection 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     133 There are twenty-five records for the hare and twenty—five for 
     
     the grouse - see the tally column of Table 2-1. 
     
    
   
   
    
     ‘39 John MacGregor’s (1828) comment that “the wild beasts and 
     
     game having become scarce, the Indians are subjected to a 
     
     precarious subsistence". is one of the few statements 
     
     acknowledging the Mi‘kmaq’s reliance on the island’s native fauna 
     
     as a source of food. 
     
    
   
   
    
     "0 Holland (1765) (March & October) in fact mentioned that the 
     
     Acadians in their refugee years ate more or less everything that 
     
    
   
   
    
     they caught, including not just the lynx and the bear, but also the 
     
     marten. otter and musl..‘at, while Johnstone (1822) (p. 154) (not 
     
    
   
   
    
     extracted) said that “the Indians esteemed the bear excellent 
     
     eating”. 
     
    
   
   
    
     1J1 
     
    
   
   
    
     This is stated by Denys in 1672 and by Holland in 1765, and 
     
     is implied by La Ronde in 1721 (see Sobey 2002. p. 157). 
     
    
   
   
    
     255 
     
    
   
   
    
     during the breeding season.142 As for the 
     
     passenger pigeon, it is unlikely that the hunting 
     
     that took place on Prince Edward Island played any 
     
     part in its extirpation from the island, let alone in 
     
     its wider extinction, since it seems to have been 
     
     events elsewhere, especially the large—scale 
     
     commercial slaughter in the American nesting and 
     
     winter roosting sites, that led to its extinction.143 
     
     For the other animals, that served as food only in 
     
     extreme situations, we can dismiss the possibility, 
     
     since other factors contributed more significantly 
     
     to their extermination, as I shall now discuss. 
     
    
   
   
    
     The trapping of fur-bearing mammals — In their 
     
     comments on the mammalian predators, virtually 
     
     all of the recorders stress the value of their furs. 
     
     This is so for the otter, marten, mink, fox, and 
     
     bear, and to a less extent for the lynx and the 
     
     weasel. We may presume that their fur gave a 
     
     considerable incentive to those individuals who 
     
     were skilled in trapping and shooting, to hunt 
     
     these animals. How important was this fur trade 
     
     in the economy of the island, or at least in the 
     
     household economy of some individual islanders, 
     
     or of segments of the population? Given the 
     
     island’s small land area, and the fact that the fur— 
     
     bearing mammals, being at the top of food-chains, 
     
     would not have been numerous to begin with, 
     
     trapping and hunting for furs was probably always 
     
     a small-scale activity, perhaps carried out by only 
     
     a few individuals.144 The only recorder to accord it 
     
     a more than passing significance is Samuel Hill 
     
     who, writing at Cascumpec in 1839, states that 
     
     “there was once a considerable export of furs from 
     
     the island”.“‘5 He provides more detail in his 
     
     chapter on the “native animals of the forest": 
     
    
   
   
    
     142 
     
    
   
   
    
     House of Assembly 1773-1849 (see 1780). I note that the 
     
     grouse was considered to be easily shot (e.g, Curtis 1775; Walsh 
     
     1803; Stewart 1806; Hill 1839). whereas the hare was far more 
     
     difficult even to snare (eg. Curtis 1775). I note also that Rowan 
     
     (1876) (not extracted) comments on the ineffectiveness of the 
     
     island’s game laws saying that many young birds were shot before 
     
     the season commenced. 
     
    

    
     “3 Encyclopedia Smithsonian (found on the internet at: 
     
     www.si.edu/resource/faq/nmnh/passpig.htm. 
     
    
   
   
    
     1“ One individual involved in the trade was John Rehne (or 
     
     Rennie) of Charlottetown: an inventory of his estate made in June 
     
     1791 after his death listed “six dozen martin skins dressed, and 
     
     some fur work made up”. (Nicholson 2004, p. 223), 
     
    

    
     “5 I have come across one example of this export: on 19 June 
     
     1802, the Betsy, sailing for Halifax, had amongst its cargo: “4 
     
     Trunks of furs containing Rabbit, Fox, Martin & Beaver skins, a few 
     
     seal skins & 30 Dozen loose rabbit skins". [Reference: 00. 231/2, 
     
     RG, 9: Collector of Customs, Shipping outwards all points (1802- 
     
     1827) (1831- July 1845).]