A FOREST WILD-LIFE PROGRAM l 



By PAUL H. ROBERTS, Administrative Officer Branch of Research, in cooperation 

 with the United States Biological Survey 



CONTENTS 



Page 



Objectives 1547 



Requirements to meet the objectives 1548 



Wild-life management 1548 



Unification of wild-life and forest-land management 1548 



Provision for public hunting grounds 1550 



Provision of adequate areas for wild life 1551 



Establishment of State game commissions 1553 



Wilf-life research 1553 



Education 1554 



The social and economic values inherent in wild life on forest land 

 directly affect the national welfare and that of local communities as 

 previously discussed in the section Wild Life a Forest Resource. 

 Such values fully justify a program that will ensure the fullest develop- 

 ment and proper use of the wild life resources consistent with the 

 development and proper use of other resources and uses of forest 

 lands. The first step in the formulation of such a program should 

 be the determination of the primary objectives. 



OBJECTIVES 



(1) The principal objective of a wild-life program on forest lands is 

 to obtain the best development and use of wild life as a product and 

 a service of the land. This includes the development of the full 

 economic potentialities of wild life in proper coordination with other 

 resources and products of forest land. The movement to accomplish 

 this is now only in its initial stages. Results so far obtained strongly 

 indicate that wild life, principally game and fur bearers, will under 

 proper management yield a fair return ; that it will ease the financial 

 burden incident to the private ownership of forest lands and particu- 

 larly of those having low productive values ; and that it will materially 

 increase the services from publicly owned lands. Involved in this 

 principal objective are a second and a third. 



(2) The predominant use of the wild-life resource is for aesthetic, 

 scientific, and other social purposes, hunting excepted. This objec- 

 tive contemplates the adequate protection of American animals and 

 birds, the maintenance of a proper and in so far as possible a natural 

 balance between the forest vegetation and the forest wild life. Many 

 who use the forest for recreational or scientific purposes do not care 

 to hunt, but the forest for such purposes is incomplete without its 

 wild-life complement. 



(3) The traditional and possibly the most generally accepted objec- 

 tive of wild-life management is the preservation to the American 



i The program affecting birds and mammals is discussed here. The program and requirements affecting 

 fish life are covered in a preceding section, entitled "Wild Life a Forest Resource". 



1547 



