flocks of whistling swans and some are guardians 

 of the Atlantic snow goose, protecting the total world 

 population of this species. 



More and more people are visiting national wild- 

 life refuges to see the flocks of herons and shorebirds 

 and to watch the buffalo roundups on the big- game 

 refuges and the winter feeding of the elk herds that 

 move down from the mountains on to the National 

 Elk Refuge in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Thousands of 

 visitors travel to the Aransas Refuge along the 

 coast of Texas to see the rare whooping cranes on 

 their wintering grounds and to the Red Rock Lakes 

 Refuge, 7,000 feet above sea level in the western 

 mountains, for their first glimpse in many cases of 

 the great trumpeter swan. 



Wildlife Research 



The study of the food habits of birds in relation 

 to farm crops and to the insects that destroy those 

 crops was the first wildlife research undertaken 

 by the Section of Ornithology (a predecessor of the 

 Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife) after its 

 establishment in 1885 in the U. S. Department of 

 Agriculture. 



It soon began biological surveys of the country 

 to map the natural life zones and crop zones, and 

 from this work acquired its name, the Biological 

 Survey. Knowledge of American wildlife was then 

 so meager that it was necessary to collect speci- 

 mens, determine animal ranges, and assemble data 

 on life histories, habits, economic status, and abun- 

 dance of the various wildlife species in order to answer 

 fundamental questions that arose concerning them. 



The wildlife research program today of the Bureau 

 of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife is double-pronged: on 

 the one hand it studies measures to increase American 

 wildlife and on the other to control nuisance and 

 depredating wildlife that can cause great financial 

 losses in agricultural areas and create unsightly 

 and unsanitary conditions in urban areas. For in 

 addition to developing techniques that protect and 

 improve living conditions for valuable wildlife species, 

 the Bureau develops safe methods for controlling 

 pocket gophers, mice, and other animals that are 



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