Game Administration 



245 



Michigan's system of leased refuges will serve as a sample. H. M. Wight, 

 of the Michigan Conservation School (1928, unpublished), made for the Con- 

 servation Department a careful survey of 194 leased refuges in the southern 

 peninsula of Michigan. He found the average area to be 168 acres. His map 

 of the system (Map 19) indicates no particularly logical pattern in the location 

 of these refuges. The motives of the owner in seeking a refuge are of course 

 mixed, but Wight found protection from hunters to be a more frequent motive 

 (98 per cent) than conservation of game (82 per cent) or improvement of hunt- 

 ing (8 per cent). The proportion of refuges on which positive management 

 measures had been undertaken by the owner was very small, and these measures 

 consisted mostly of ill-advised or excessive predator-control, and seldom of im- 

 provements in food or cover. While Wight reaches a more optimistic conclusion, 

 his analysis shows little accomplished by the system which would not have fol- 

 lowed ordinary private posting of the same areas. 



Missouri and Indiana have used leased refuges as foci for stocking opera- 

 tions. This is a real and legitimate function, justifying State-sanctioned posting, 

 provided the refuges offer suitable habitat for the species to be stocked. 



Ordinarily, however, it appears poor principle for the State to sanction post- 

 ing not followed by management. There is enough such land already, and it 

 will increase without State help. 



Public Lands Available for Management. The State-owned refuges 

 .and public shooting grounds already discussed probably do not aggregate over 

 150,000 acres for the region as a whole. (An exact figure is impossible because 

 of varying definitions of what is a refuge, etc.) 



For the reader to have a clear picture of public management the conditions in 

 the region, and the outlook for public management, it is next necessary to examine 

 what other publicly owned lands are available for game production. Parks will 

 here be excluded. They often perform a valuable function, but they are not 

 production areas. 



The bulk of the additional publicly administered land available consists of 

 State and National Forests. Here again we encounter diverse definitions. The 

 Forestry Almanac for 1929 lists the following: 



Public forests 



