482 ECOLOGY AND WILD LIFE CONSERVATION 



portant Pittman-Robertson Act was passed which placed a 10 per cent 

 excise tax on guns and ammunition, the money to go to the states to 

 carry on research in restoring and improving game and other wild life. 

 The state has to add 25 per cent to qualify for this fund. In 1950 the 

 Dingell Act provided a similar fund by a tax on fishing equipment for 

 the study and restoration of fish and aquatic habitats. 



Restoring Wild Life 



It became possible to put into practice the principles of ecology to 

 restore wild life only when there were effective laws to protect it from 

 irresponsible hunters. For example, Pennsylvania became the first state 

 to develop a system of state game refuges. At that time beaver had 

 been exterminated in that part of the country. A few were trapped 

 farther north and introduced into some of the refuges. They multiplied 

 under protection and soon became so abundant in these preserves that 

 a limited trapping season was tried in the surrounding country. As only 

 the surplus was taken, the beaver continued to increase and prosper, and 

 now trapping beaver is again a lucrative occupation in the state of Penn- 

 sylvania. This led to the realization that surplus wild life could be 

 harvested like any other crop without reducing it in numbers. As early 

 as 1878 the native deer were all killed off in southern Vermont and were 

 rare even in the northern part of the state. An efficient system of game 

 wardens in recent years has given the survivors much needed protection. 

 The cutover land has been allowed to grow up, and hundreds of unpro- 

 ductive farms have been abandoned and they too have become over- 

 grown with pioneer shrubs and trees, furnishing ideal conditions for deer 

 to browse. Recently the deer herd was conservatively estimated at 60,- 

 000 head ; and, in spite of increasing pressure by an army of hunters each 

 fall, the deer remain so abundant that they sometimes damage orchards 

 and forest lands in the long cold winters. Only the surplus are being 

 harvested. 



One of the most difficult problems has been the attempt to save the 

 ducks, geese, and swans. After World War I, the improvement of roads, 

 the increase in motor cars, and the great increase in trained hunters re- 

 duced the population of many species of waterfowl to a danger point. 

 It was estimated by 1934 that, as compared with 1900, only 10 per cent 

 of the water birds of North America had survived. The situation was 

 further aggravated by a series of dry summers which dried up the water 

 holes ; and, to make work for the army of the unemployed, many marshes 

 useful to waterfowl were drained. The Biological Survey, a federal 

 agency entrusted with the problem, began to put back the water holes in 



