What did Leather-Stocking mean by his statement, "This comes of settling a country"?

In context, Leather-Stocking is referring to the waste and disrespect for nature that has accompanied the "settling" of the land. He's almost being sarcastic, and yet, he is completely serious..... shocked, disgusted, and saddened.

"This comes of settling a country!" he said. "Here have I known the pigeon to fly for forty long years, and, till you made your clearings, there was nobody to skeart or to hurt them, I loved to see them come into the woods, for they were company to a body, hurting nothing -being, as it was, as harmless as a garter-snake. But now it gives me sore thoughts when I hear the frighty things whizzing through the air, for I know it’s only a motion to bring out all the brats of the village. Well, the Lord won’t see the waste of his creatures for nothing, and right will be done to the pigeons, as well as others, by and by.