236 Game Survey of the North Central States 



This is merely another way of saying that the average cir 1 '* 1 "^! hums if there is 

 something to hunt for, but when there is not, he unfortunately ceases to hunt, 

 rather than create for himself a suitable game supply. The whole hope of game 

 management rests on the assumption that this has been so because the average 

 citizen has not heretofore realized that the creation of a game supply is possible. 



In money, the average citizen of Missouri spends per year for game and fish 

 production through public channels not to exceed one tenth the cost of a box of 

 shells, and often less than it takes to run his automobile one mile. He spends 

 less per year for game than he spends per hour for a baseball game or movie 

 show. 



The average citizen, as well as the hunter, has a stake in wild life. It is 

 his property, and the social value of hunting and other recreations depending on 

 wild life affects his individual welfare. He supports parks, schools, museums, 

 etc., not because he uses them personally, but because of their value to society. 

 Why should he not help support wild life conservation? 



The Function of State Game Administration. The State's expendi- 

 ture per acre convincingly proves that no State can afford to be its own game 

 manager on all of its game lands. 



The low expenditures per capita indicate that the average citizen could 

 afford to help carry the cost of conservation as a public welfare activity. The low 

 expenditure per hunter indicates that he could compensate the landowner for 

 producing game without making hunting more expensive than his other recrea- 

 tions. 



If these conclusions are correct, it seems sound to conceive of the State as 

 the leader rather than the doer in game matters; as a teacher of methods rather 

 than as a manager of lands or resources; as the agency responsible for striking 

 the shackles of inactivity from both sportsman and farmer, rather than as the 

 paternal benefactor which raises game for the hunter. The State must indeed 

 undertake to demonstrate what management is, and how it can be practiced; it 

 can advantageously own and administer key lands like refuges and game farms, 

 and cheap lands usable for forestry as well as game production; it must inter- 

 cede and provide for inter-State and inter-county game species for which no one 

 landowner can be held responsible; lastly, it must unearth facts about game which 

 the individual private citizen cannot afford to unearth for himself, just as it now 

 unearths facts about agriculture which the individual farmer cannot afford to un- 

 earth for himself. Nevertheless the guiding idea behind all State game activities 

 should be the realization that its financial resources are so limited, when com- 

 pared ^with the vast extent of the game problem, that its proper function is to do 

 only what its citizens cannot or will not do. 



In short, State game administration (on all but the cheapest land) is the 

 art of fostering and regulating the practice of game management by its citizens. 

 This is the direct opposite of the now prevailing conception that State game ad- 

 ministration is the art of practicing game management for its citizens. 



