Only a few States have maintained inventories on 

 their marine sport-fishery resources. It is evident 

 that a coordinated effort, assisted by a Federal agency, 

 is necessary to obtain the required information on 

 a national basis. In inland waters, an inventory should 

 include the larger publicly owned waters such as 

 reservoirs, lakes, and whenever possible, natural 

 streams that are accessible to the public. Some 

 States already have inventories covering parts of 

 this fishery resource. The Federal Government would 

 assist the States where the information is lacking to 

 establish programs for collecting data on their sport 

 fisheries. 



National Wildlife Refuge System 



The dual objective in establishing and maintaining 

 national wildlife refuges is to protect migratory birds 

 and indigenous and endangered wildlife and to safe- 

 guard adequate segments of habitat needed to per- 

 petuate them. While a great variety of wildlife is 

 found on our national refuges, most of the refuges 

 were established for a particular species or group, 

 as ducks and geese, bison, key deer, trumpeter swan, 

 and whooping crane. 



The national wildlife refuge system began more 

 than 50 years ago with the establishment of the 

 Pelican Island Bird Refuge in 1903. This small 3-acre 

 island in the Indian River on Florida's east coast 

 was reserved by Executive order of President 

 Theodore Roosevelt to protect a colony of brown 

 pelicans. 



By Executive order, other refuges also were 

 set aside for the protection of colonial nesting 

 birds and for migratory birds that used reclamation 

 reservoirs or drainage sumps. By 1908, 36 areas 

 were reserved. The Federal Government also had 

 acquired several big-game refuges during this period, 

 either through donation of land by conservation or- 

 ganizations or by special acts of Congress. By 1929, 

 there were 87 Federal refuges of all types, including 

 61 bird reservations. 



In 1929, the Migratory Bird Conservation Act 

 was passed. This legislation outlined a definite 

 refuge program and was an added incentive to the 



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