A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 501 



WILD-LIFE MANAGEMENT 



All of the relationships existing between game and other of the 

 various products, uses, and services inherent in forest lands emphasize 

 the extremely fundamental character of the problems confronted in 

 obtaining satisfactory control and balance of the intricate and inter- 

 related natural factors, and in the application of sound plans involving 

 not only game but timber and all other products and uses of forest 

 land. 



DEVELOPMENT OF WILD-LIFE MANAGEMENT 



Wild-life management as a phase of general multiple-use forest-land 

 management, and especially with respect to game birds and animals, 

 contemplates proper stocking of forest areas with game; removal of 

 the surplus of either sex under proper procedure; the furnishing of 

 suitable food and cover requirements for wild life; the regulation of 

 protection from natural enemies and other injurious factors; funda- 

 mental research and fact finding ; public education ; and other measures 

 that may be necessary to the welfare of wild life in a proper coordina- 

 tion with other products, uses, and services of forest lands. It con- 

 templates the removal of the crop of game and fur bearers in accord- 

 ance with the principle of sustained yield, which involves continuous 

 production for human benefit, and yields the greatest economic and 

 social return. Management requires cropping and utilization under 

 plans providing for perpetuation and development of breeding stock. 



The public mind has yet to be attuned to a full conception of the 

 possibilities of wild-life management. Some people overlook the 

 fact that protection alone may defeat its own purpose. Progress is 

 being retarded even at present by those who are honestly loath to 

 accept or cannot see the application of the principles of wild-life 

 management even on areas where it is an obvious necessity. 



This attitude or conception is due to inordinate depletion of wild 

 life through reduced range and cover, lack of proper regulation of 

 kill, and resultant threatened extinction of species and curtailment of 

 suitable hunting. The disappearance of the passenger pigeon and 

 the heath hen, of which there is now one remaining individual; the 

 decimation of prairie chicken and wild duck; the reduction of the 

 buffalo to the status of a park animal ; the suppression of the antelope 

 nearly to the last limits of survival these well-known abuses have 

 left, with lovers of wild life, as an almost indelible impression, the 

 belief that the dominating action to check further depletion must be 

 protection. 



Protection was the underlying idea in the original conception of 

 the game refuge, aside from special cases where the purpose was 

 perpetuation of species or other special reasons. It was believed that 

 if refuges could be established permanently that they would become 

 breeding grounds from which game animals, as increases occurred, 

 would drift to adjacent areas and supply such adjacent areas in 

 number sufficient to provide good hunting. 



The expected result has not occurred with certain important 

 species. On the contrary, it has been demonstrated that deer espe- 

 cially are very local in their range, and that they will concentrate on 

 their home range in the face of starvation rather than travel to areas 

 a few miles distant where food is obtainable. Over a period of years, 

 however, they will gradually extend their range. This characteristic 

 of deer may limit locally the value of the refuge idea, and has resulted 



