A NATIONAL PLAN FOE AMERICAN FORESTRY 499 



in deer resulted in great damage to the more valuable forage plants 

 and timber reproduction. By 1929 expert biologists estimated that 

 it would take a minimum of 50 years under practically complete pro- 

 tection to restore the area to its original condition and that the pro- 

 ductive capacity had been reduced to a degree which would sustain 

 not more than 5 to 10 percent of the game which it was capable of 

 supporting under proper conditions of normal use. Action has been 

 under way for several years to remedy the situation and the excessive 

 deer population has been reduced. Restoration of properly balanced 

 wild life and vegetative conditions presents intricate problems of 

 biological relationships and management. 



There are many other places where action taken primarily for the 

 purpose of game protection has brought results comparable with con- 

 ditions on the Kaibab, and where the problem, from being one of 

 game protection, has changed rapidly to many problems or a single 

 interrelated problem involving game, livestock, recreation, timber, 

 and other intricate phases of forest-land management. 



The Jackson Hole elk herd in Wyoming is an example, known 

 Nation-wide by foresters, biologists, sportsmen, and others interested 

 in wild life, of the need for intensive research and the best obtainable 

 knowledge and skill in solving problems of the relation of game to 

 grazing land use. 



Similar problems of concentration of game and its interrelation 

 with domestic livestock grazing arise where grazing game animals are 

 introduced into localities favorable to them. Elk plantings furnish 

 examples of this nature. In 1913 a shipment of elk was made from 

 the Jackson Hole herd to the Sitgreaves National Forest in Arizona. 

 Seventy head of this shipment survived and were liberated in the lo- 

 cality south of Winslow, which had especially favorable environmental 

 conditions. It was estimated in 1919 that there were 350 to 500 head 

 of the animals. At the present time the estimate is over 5,000 head. 

 During recent years damage has occurred to brush and tree growth 

 along the streams. Unlike deer these animals are apparently con- 

 stantly spreading to new range. The area is used by domestic sheep 

 and cattle. The problem is one of working out the proper relation- 

 ship, that each may be given its proper weight and place in the scheme 

 of forest-land management applied on the area. 



The relation between game animals and domestic livestock is not 

 altogether concerned with particular conditions of concentration or 

 competition between the two. Increasing knowledge of forage re- 

 quirements for game, the plant species which they select and upon 

 which they will thrive, as differentiated from the plant requirements 

 of domestic livestock, offer excellent opportunities for determining a 

 well-balanced relation between numbers of game and livestock, and 

 of both to timber production under a system of correlated use of forest 

 lands. Correction of current instances of improper balance is a mat- 

 ter of temporary concern. Satisfactory determination of permanent 

 ratios, however, requires additional research and fact finding for a 

 multitude of varying conditions and, in the final analysis, should 

 afford the means of obtaining the best development and use of the 

 game resource in its proper relation to timber and other lines of pro- 

 duction. For example, the Forest Service, from information now 

 available, believes that the present deer population on the national 

 forests in Colorado, estimated at about 41,000 head, could, from the 



