LAND FOR WILD LIFE AND RECREATION 223 



the average person they are just salt marshes. But even the 

 average person would notice that the vegetation is unusually 

 heavy. There is a reason for this. This region is a huge muskrat 

 farm. The flats are frequently burned over to produce better 

 cover for the muskrats. Then in the trapping season, the trap' 

 pers of the big companies which own these marshes catch the 

 muskrats and take their pelts. These farms are one reason why 

 Louisiana is the largest fur'producing state in the Union. 



The regulation of these farms is primarily a problem of the 

 states. State laws are passed to protect the species farmed. At 

 the same time, the Biological Survey assists these fur farmers 

 just as the Bureau of Animal Husbandry helps the stock raisers. 

 They experiment, investigate, and attempt to discover better 

 and more profitable methods of fur farming, and then pass this 

 information on to the fur farmers. 



In most cases, the management of commercial wild life is 

 now on a sound basis. Men who sell furs and fish have a big 

 stake in the resource that supplies them. They are usually 

 willing to attempt and aid some sort of control. 



This is not the case for wild life that does not supply a com' 

 mercial market. The problem of control is confused by the 

 demand for hunting rights, the competition between livestock, 

 farmers, and wild life for food, and the fact that it is difficult 

 to set up satisfactory laws in fortyeight states to manage a 

 resource that does not know the meaning of state boundaries. 



Most people believe that the solution lies partly in the better 

 policing of wild life by the states, and this means that the 

 states must be willing to enact and enforce more stringent or 

 better balanced regulations restricting the shooting of game. At 

 the same time, they will also have to be willing to spend much 

 more money than in the past to restock areas that have been 

 shot out, and to provide food and shelter in regions where the 

 natural food and cover has been destroyed. Above all, both 

 the states and the federal government will have to work out 



