December, 1958 



Scott: W'ii.di.ifk Rksuarch 



199 



Lake Wildlife Area by the state in 1942, 

 and the area, now the best duck area in 

 the state, was purchased by the Illinois 

 Department of Conservation in 1943. 



In 1955 a Federal Aid research proj- 

 ect was initiated by Southern Illinois 

 University, the Illinois Department of 

 Conservation, and the Illinois Natural 

 History Survey to determine the economic 

 values and benefit to wildlife of wide- 

 row culture of corn in southern Illinois. 

 Potential benefits, to the farmer, of wide- 

 row culture and interplanting with cover 

 crops included conservation of soil, in- 

 crease of fertility, elimination of the low- 

 paying oat crop in rotations, saving of 

 labor, and yields of corn comparable to 

 those from conventional cultural methods 

 (Vohs 1957). 



The extent of use of wide-row corn- 

 fields by wildlife varied with the at- 

 tractiveness of the interseeding. How- 

 ever, comparable observations on the 

 numbers of wildlife in wnde-row fields 

 and standard interval fields revealed ra- 

 tios of 5 to 1 for bobwhite quail, 12 to 1 

 for mourning doves, and 6 to 1 for cot- 

 tontail rabbits. Wide-row corn is con- 

 sidered to have great potential for wild- 

 life management especially, because it 

 provides for an increase in wildlife values 

 in thousands of acres of corn. 



Evaluations of wildlife populations and 

 possibilities for their management were 

 made on marginal lands. Analyses were 

 made of possibilities for management of 

 coal-stripped land for the benefit of up- 

 land game and furbearers (Yeager 1941/*, 

 1942), management of agricultural drain- 

 age systems for production of furbearers 

 (Yeager 1943), and yields of fur from 

 animals produced on different types of 

 land (Yeager 1945). Another project 

 concerned the use of hunting dogs in 

 sport and conservation (Yeatter 1948). 



Levee and drainage districts have re- 

 duced the flood plain along the Illinois 

 River by almost half, about 200,000 

 acres. In view of the resulting loss of 

 recreational opportunities and the in- 

 creased danger from floods, Bellrose 

 (1945) made a survey of the relative 

 values of drained and undrained bottom- 

 lands. Later, Bellrose 6c Rollings (1949) 

 calculated the annual per-acre value, to 

 the public and to owners, of bottomland 



lakes of the Illinois River valley. They 

 concluded that bottomland lakes in the 

 Illinois River valley had an annual per- 

 acre value to the public, 1944-1947, of 

 $26.35, made up as follows: duck hunting 

 $12.18, angling $2.40, commercial fishing 

 $9.65, and fur trapping $2.12; they esti- 

 mated that privately owned lakes were 

 capable of producing an average yearly 

 gross return to owners of $18.57 per acre 

 (Bellrose c^ Rollings 1949:23). 



Following an investigation of the ef- 

 fects of flooding on mammals in and 

 around a bottomland lake in the Illinois 

 River valley, Yeager & Anderson (1944: 

 178) concluded that "The effect of flood- 

 ing on mammals ranged from heavy 

 mortality in the case of woodchucks to 

 apparently little basic change in the be- 

 havior of minks." For various kinds of 

 fur-bearing and game mammals, Yeager 

 (1949) recorded the changes in abun- 

 dance caused by permanent flooding of 

 wooded bottomland over an 8-year pe- 

 riod, 1939-1946. The site was a tract 

 of 600 acres in the junction of the Mis- 

 sissippi and Illinois rivers; the area was 

 flooded in 1938 by closing of the gates 

 of the then new Alton dam. 



THE FUTURE 



Because the wildlife resource and the 

 environment essential to its existence 

 have economic and recreational values 

 beyond general public appreciation and 

 because knowledge on which to base in- 

 telligent management of this resource is 

 in the best interest of the people of Illi- 

 nois, I believe that we must plan for the 

 future of wildlife research in Illinois as 

 a part of our evaluation of the past. 



Forbes (1907<-:892) expressed this 

 view when he wrote 



that we are . . . practically interested in what 

 has come and gone only as it may help us to 

 bring a new thing into being in a way to se- 

 cure its permanent continuance and its normal 

 growth. 



In the past the wildlife research pro- 

 gram of the Illinois Natural History 

 Survey has been heavily weighted toward 

 investigations of migratory game birds. 

 These investigations have been extremely 

 valuable and must be continued in the 



