STATE CONSERVATION DEPARTMENTS 



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separate administrative unit devoted especially to wild-life 

 conservation, operating on a state-wide scale, is a vital neces- 

 sity if a real conservation program is to be undertaken. 



Combination of Game and Fish Activities: To the lay- 

 man a single administrative unit combining both game and 

 fish activities would, at first glance, seem most natural, for 

 they are branches of the same major undertaking, wild-life 

 conservation. In the inland states such a combination is the 

 rule and a single administrative agency devoted to both 

 game and fish activities has developed. But in a number 

 of seacoast states the commercial fisheries have been kept 

 separate from game and inland fisheries in an administrative 

 organization all their own. If these separate administra- 

 tive units are later coordinated as integrate parts of a larger 

 department of conservation, combining all the conservation 

 activities of the state, the original separation is not harmful, 

 indeed is most logical. However, little can be said in favor 

 of two entirely separate administrative agencies. 



Maine is a good example of a state which has maintained 

 two separate conservation bodies, one of which has juris- 

 diction over sea fisheries and the other over inland fisheries 

 and game. So distinct were the interests of the supporters 

 of the two units and so powerful the pressure they brought 

 to bear, that even when the state administration was re- 

 organized in 1929 the two bodies were left separate. 



The Sea and Shore Fisheries Commission of Maine is a 

 bi-partisan body, consisting of three members appointed by 

 the governor with the advice and consent of the Council for 

 a term of three years unless earlier removed by the governor 

 for cause. 3 Jurisdiction over inland fisheries and game is 

 vested in a single commissioner appointed by the governor 

 with the advice and consent of the Council but no provision 



8 Revised Statutes of Maine (1930), chap. 50, sec. 2. 



