LAND FOR WILD LIFE AND RECREATION 215 



the Upper Township of Cape May County was incorporated 

 in New Jersey. This was a private organisation to protect wild 

 life. As the game disappeared, similar sportsmen's organisations 

 spread rapidly and grew strong. They sponsored educational 

 programs to save wild life and put pressure on the states to set 

 up official wild'life agencies. In many cases they assisted the 

 state game departments to restock streams and game ranges. 



The fact that a desire to restrict the hunting of game largely 

 grew out of sportsmen's organisations indicates the change 

 which has come over the American people, who had come to 

 this country with the belief that the wild life should be free to 

 all who wanted to take it. 



Partly as a result of this pressure, the various states have 

 set up fish and game commissions to protect the fish and game 

 within their borders. The primary duty of these commissions 

 is to administer the laws restricting the taking of fish and game, 

 and to attempt to build up the wild-life population. Many states 

 like Pennsylvania and New York have state fish hatcheries 

 where fish to stock fished'out streams are raised. These various 

 state commissions also have educational programs which are de" 

 signed to make people use the wild life in such a way that it will 

 not be exterminated. 



State game laws have many bad loopholes. They rely mainly 

 on such devices as long closed seasons and a limitation on the 

 number of animals, game birds, or game fish that may be taken 

 in a day or season, supplemented by much useful activity in 

 restocking streams and game ranges. The real problem in game 

 management, however, is to restrict the annual "take" of any 

 species to the annual increase, allow for natural losses, and 

 to provide abundant food and cover. Closed seasons and bag 

 limits are a crude tool to achieve this end. 



Many European countries restrict the number of hunters 

 and the amount of the "take" so accurately that, in central 

 Europe, for example, there is a very great amount of game in a 



