SCIE.\XE VERSUS TRADITION IX GAME PROTECTION' 



Bv Ward Siiepard 



Forest Supervisor, U. S. Forest Service 



Game protection in America has always revolved round three tra- 

 ditional principles : bag limits, universal open or closed seasons, and 

 unlimited sales of licenses. Roughly, the increase of hunters, as indi- 

 cated by license sales, has supposedly been offset by reduced bag limits, 

 shorter open seasons, or closed seasons extending over several years. 

 These traditions have had a powerful influence in American game legis- 

 lation, and it is only in recent years that game i)rotectionists have been 

 able to break through them. 



Although it can be admitted that these principles have slowed down 

 the tide of wild life destruction, they no longer meet the needs of 

 twentieth century America, with its ever-lengthening mileage of good 

 roads, its automobiles, its powerful weapons, and its growing enthusi- 

 asm for a Hfe in the open. The last wildernesses will in a few years 

 be the camping and hunting grounds of hosts of pleasure seekers. 



Bag limits and open or closed seasons have almost universally been 

 fixed by State legislatures and for whole States. Long closed seasons 

 have rarely been established when a species was becoming merely de- 

 pleted, but has waited until the species was nearly extinct. Accessible 

 game ranges have been wiped clean of game ; hunters have gone farther 

 and farther afield in search of game, and only when game was making 

 its last stand has the public conscience been roused to drastic and often 

 futile modes of protection. 



In New Mexico, the buffalo and the elk were long ago exterminated. 

 There is one pitiful band left of the great flocks of mountain-sheep 

 seen by Coronado, and even these suffer periodic raids from civilized 

 head-hunters. It is doubtful if any means can save the remnants of 

 great antelope herds from annihilation. Wild turkeys and deer have 

 been wiped out from vast areas of their native ranges ; but thanks to 

 their recuperative powers, they can be saved and increased. 



These tragic facts in the history of wild life can be duplicated in 

 almost any State in the Union. In the ^liddle West, sportsmen bicker 



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