LEOPOLD: THE CONSERVATION OF WILDLIFE 799 



and Wildlife Service. Today there are 282 Federal wildlife refuges encompass- 

 ing 18,500,000 acres (Day, 1949). One hundred and ninetj'-six of these areas 

 are primarily maintained for migratory waterfowl; the balance, including some 

 of the largest of the Federal refuges, serve to protect various species of upland 

 game and colonial nesting birds. 



Supplementing the governmental refuges are many sanctuaries and pre- 

 serves operated by municipalities, by conservation organizations such as the Na- 

 tional Audubon Society, and by individual landowners. 



The refuge movement gained momentum during the early years of the pro- 

 tective phase of game management and it reached a peak in the 1920's and 

 1930's. But as time went on it became clear that refuges per se were not the 

 answer to the shortage of huntable game. For migratory waterfowl and for 

 certain rare species of local occurrence the refuge is still and always will be a 

 primary tool of management, but for upland game generally, closing some areas 

 to hunting does not increase the level of game abundance in surrounding ter- 

 rain. Most nonmigratory species are much too sedentary to "overflow" from 

 a refuge and repopulate the rest of the countryside as had been postulated. 

 Rather, the result of excluding hunters from parts of the game refuge serves 

 merely to concentrate them in nonrefuge lands, thereby decreasing the avail- 

 ability of game to the individual shooter. So the popularity of the refuge waned, 

 and today most states are liquidating their refuge systems for upland game, 

 though retaining those for waterfowl. 



Predator Control 



The third phase of the game protection program involved removal of preda- 

 tory animals that were looked upon as "wicked citizens" of the wild community, 

 destroying the breeding stocks that conservationists were striving to restore. 

 Also, these same predators often preyed upon domestic livestock, rendering 

 them doubly wicked in the public eye. And so the wolf and mountain lion, the 

 coyote and bobcat, and many smaller offenders as well, came in for severe 

 treatment. 



In addition to normal persecution by farmers, stockmen, and sportsmen, 

 the predators were controlled systematically by special hunters, employed by 

 the states and by the Federal government. Their demise was hastened in many 

 localities by the payment of bounties or subsidies for scalps. 



Predator control proved generally to be the least satisfactory protective 

 measure taken in behalf of game. 



Some of the large ungulates like deer and elk responded well enough to all 

 this attention, but within fifty years they became so numerous in countless areas 

 as to endanger their own forage supplies. Rigid hunting laws precluded effective 

 control of populations by sportsmen, and removal of large predators such as 

 wolves and lions had taken away the natural controls. In short, overenthusiasm 

 for protecting game when it was scarce led ultimately to even more difficult 

 problems that arose from an excess of game. The first great loss of deer by star- 

 vation came on the Kaibab National Forest in Arizona, where a herd of a few 

 thousand was built up to 100,000 in 1924 by rigid protection from hunting and 

 predators. A plea by the Forest Service for reduction of the herd, to save the 



