CHAPTER IX 

 PROBLEMS OF GAME LAW ENFORCEMENT 



LAWS, it is said, are made to be broken. Unfortunately, 

 this phase only too truly represents the attitude of the aver- 

 age American citizen toward the law. Earnestly he will 

 support movements designed to place new laws covering a 

 multitude of subjects upon the statute books, but once they 

 have been enacted he will show little interest in their enforce- 

 ment. Game laws are no different from other laws. Con- 

 servation groups generally will labor diligently to place strict 

 game laws on the statute books but thereafter pay slight 

 attention to their enforcement. 



Public Opinion Must Support Enforcement: As a result, 

 the most difficult problem facing conservation enforcement 

 officials at the present time is caused by the lack of public 

 support of strict enforcement of the game laws. The ex- 

 perience of the American people with the National Pro- 

 hibition Law has shown that the enforcement of a law not 

 approved by public opinion is extremely difficult, if not al- 

 together impossible. 



Even today a good-sized section of the American people 

 is prone to regard the game laws as unjust interference with 

 its natural rights. True, market hunting is not approved by 

 public opinion, but the prosecution of the amateur sports- 

 man is as likely to evoke sympathy for the defendant as not. 



In many ways the attitude of the public has not changed 

 much since the days of the famous outlaw-hero Robin 

 Hood, the cause of whose outlawry is told in the following 

 passage. 



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